Poland. For the second time! :D :D :D

Dear everyone,

I am sorry I have taken so long to blog again. The last few days have been fantastic, but I have been so busy I have not had the chance to blog! Last time I told you about the files of the girls. The weekend after that was pretty busy for me with schoolwork, but I also got to talk to a couple of friends and to my parents on webcam, which was awesome :D

Monday was a quiet day at the internat. Tuesday, however, was quite exciting, as Bogdan, the man who is in charge of the little auditorium at the internat, organized a party for the girls. I bought balloons for the girls the day before, and Bogdan organized a balloon tossing game. He also organized a few other singing and skipping games, and he brought a whole box of wafer cookies for the girls. After that, he build up a fire and we just played around the playground for a while. The next day was our third excursion, but Jen was not feeling that great so Jessica and I took the girls on our own. It was a pretty relaxed excursion, very similar to the first one we had, with ice cream, swings, animal zoo and park. That evening I did some more studying and chatting on msn for a while, and then, at 4:00 am, I headed for the train station to meet Jen and Jessica for our trip to Poland! That's right! Poland again!

This time, however, it was the three of us, and it was an awesome experience. We had hoped to leave on Thursday evening to spend more time in Ternopil with the girls, but unfortunately there were no other trains except for the one leaving on Thursday at 4:00am. The train ride was 12 hours, and it was overall very smooth. We arrived at Krakow at around 4:00 pm on Thursday, July 9. The only down side was that I accidentally left my blue sweater that my brother Antonio gave me for Christmas in the train :( I was really upset about it for a while, at least until I was able to talk to him on msn and apologize :(

We actually got off the train a bit early, but it turned out great because we met this guy, whose name was Michael Wallace, who was very kind and took the trouble to help up buy tran tickets and take us all the way to our hostel! It was so very nice of him!! :D Our hostel's name was "Hocus Pocus" lol... It was located at the top floor of a building smack in the middle of Krakow's Old Town centre. So as you can imagine, the location was fantastic and we could walk everywhere from here. The doorm turned out to be a co-ed dorm, which weirded me out a bit at first. However, everybody is very respectful, and in the end it was just like camping with a bunch of guy and girl friends, except we all had comfy beds! Lol. We chose this hostel because of its location but also because it offered free breakfast AND it had wireless internet, which I was supremely pleased about :P Even though we spent most of our time out and about, I was also able to get some schoolwork done and talk to a friend on msn for a bit, so that was fantastic.

The first day was pretty chill. We just walked around the center, watched a few street performers, and became familiar with the area. It is quite beautiful here; very pituresque. The local basilica, St. Mary's Church, is quite beautiful and it sits right on the center. There are sooooooo many turists here, many of them from England, so besically everyone here speaks English, which is great. We have managed to buy things, get to places, etc. without any trouble due to the language. In fact, I have even made some friends here at the hostel, and I have added them on facebook to keep in touch with them. I met a girl who also goes to the University of Waterloo! She recognized me from my job at the St. Jerome's University Library, hahahaha. So it has been quite a social experience for me, as you can imagine.

On Friday, we took off to explore the city. First we went to buy our bus tickets back to Ukraine, and after that we stumbled upon a mall, so we walked through it for a while. After that we came back to the hostel and hung out for a bit, then went out again and took another walk around the city. In the evening, Jen and Jessica went on a tran party (like a pub crawl) with a bunch of people from different hostels. Since I don't drink and the pub scene isn't really for me, I decided to stay, get some work done, and chat with friends online :D Despite my quiet night, I actually had a great night :D I also got to meet some of the people at the hostel and to hear where they were all traveling and such. I met quite a few people from Britain, but also some from Spain, Jersey, South Africa, etc.

Saturday was intense. That is when Jessica, Jen and I went to Auschwitz and the Wieliczka Salt Mines... We hired a van to take us there, and our driver was very nice. His name was Lukas, and he was about our age. Hmmm... I think this is a good place for a break in this blog entry. I think that Auschwitz deserves its own entry... And so does the mine!

Because of time's sake, I will not post any pictures here (at least not now), but feel free to visit my facebook albums. I haven't posted them yet as they are still incomplete because Jen, Jessica and I are doing some picture exchanges (due to battery issues lol), but there will be a lot of pictures to see. I have over 200 picture of just of Poland so far, and 60 others of the internat, so that should keep you busy and entertained for a while, hahaha. I will have those up sometime today o tomorrow after I get home. So now on to Auschwitz.... Miss you all, love you all. God bless.