Family in Kraków

Monday we woke up to an ugly, cold, rainy day in Kraków. This was incredibly disappointing, because most of the things I wanted to show everyone involved lots of outdoor time. Monday morning, Mom, Dad, Lucy and Olivia headed over to Wawel for a tour of the castle. I had to run some errands, so I took Calvin with me and we had lunch together at one of the best Kebab places in Kraków. We all re-convened again in the late afternoon and had ice cream on the square before heading back to the apartment for an afternoon nap. In the early evening Aunt Valerie, Uncle Bob, Uncle Ted, Pete and Manda had arrived so we all got together in our apartment for cocktails before heading out to dinner. We were very late arriving at the restaurant. They let us eat, but we definitely closed the place. It was the beginning of a very long night.

On the way home, Lucy, my friend Doro and I stopped at the vodka bar and decided to have a drink. The bar is itty bitty, but it has over 100 flavors of vodka to choose from and the serve it to you in little shot glasses to sip. The bar is right across the street from where we were staying so we were joined intermittently by the rest of the clan. Olivia, Uncle Ted, Calvin and Pete were in the bar next door, but they would pop-in every so often to see if we were ready to hit the clubs. Around 2am, we closed the vodka bar and decided to re-locate. Aunt Valerie and Lucy headed home and Doro and I met up with the rest of the clan in the city center. It took us a good hour to track down everyone. We never did find Pete, but he was in the apartment the next morning, so we didn't have to send out a search party. It was too late to get into any of the usual clubs so we went to the closest late-night club and were there until around 5am. 

The next morning was VERY slow. Mom had to wake me up at 12pm. I completely missed class and breakfast. I had all kinds of texts from strange numbers, thanks to Manda who met some Italian guys at the bar and decided to give them my number instead of hers - it's been over a week and they still text me even though I have never responded once. Manda lost both her shoes, and I somehow managed to acquire an additional jacket and a very nice pagmina. 

I love this pic

After lots of coffee, we went on a free walking tour throughout the Jewish Quarter of the city. About halfway through I had to leave to go talk to a real estate agency about getting an apartment. I asked Aunt Valerie to go with me to help with the Polish end of things and she graciously agreed. It was a successful meeting and I decided to sign the lease the next day and move by the end of the week. It was such a relief.

In the evening we all had dinner at a famous Polish restaurant, 'U Babci Maliny' and then went for ice cream afterwards. Again, we closed the place and then headed back to the apartment to pack up, as everyone was going to Prague the next day. In the morning, I said good-bye to everyone and headed to class for the first time all week.