Day 7 - St. Mary's Basilica and Jagiellonian

The wonderful chocolate ice cream I had at the hotel
Schnitzel and mashed potatoes...yum
This cute Polish couple was nearby the market square playing some traditional music.
This is what the Polish call a Kebab. It has chicken, a bunch of different vegetables, and ranch in pita bread. It's delicious!
This is a view of St. Mary's Basilica from the market along St. Florian
Krystal, Angela, and I next to St. Mary's
It's me!

Hey everyone!

Sorry about the delayed post. We got back pretty late last night after Teddy's lecture at Jagiellonian University and we had to be up to go to Auschwitz-Birkenau at 8 AM.

To start, the group ended up going to St. Mary's Basilica (a Catholic church) in the market square to see the opening of the altar. The inside of the church was amazing...I've never seen so much decor in my life! The immense gold plating, elaborate paintings, and size of the church was incomprehensible. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to take pictures inside the church, but I did get some photos of the outside...which is quite beautiful in itself.

Following the visit to the church, me and a couple members of the group walked over to the market square. I like the outdoor shopping much more than the indoor stuff we have in the States. The stands are full of different things: amber jewelry, boxes, dolls, clothes, and almost everything under the sun. It was fun to walk around and get a breath of fresh air. We've had quite a bit of rain in Krakow and it was nice to see the sun!

We concluded the day at Jagiellonian University since they requested that Teddy give a lecture. She talked about Henryk Grynberg and the value of documentary prose. It was similar to the Wyatt lecture I heard before, so nothing was really new. However, it was cool to meet some of the students from the Center for European Studies. There was someone from England and others from Chicago and Kentucky. Helped to alleviate the feeling of being foreign!

At the very end, we went back to the hotel and had dinner there. We had some schnitzel and mashed potatoes...which were DELICIOUS. Following that, we had a really good dessert of chocolate ice cream. I came back to the room, washed up, and went to sleep!

Check out the next post for Auschwitz-Birkenau.