poland was really cold.

that's not all i have to say about it, actually. we got to warsaw early in the afternoon on friday and our hostel is right in the center of the city. it was a cute lil place called oki doki and i actually really enjoyed it. it was quite new and clean and had an excellent location...close to the old city and the central station, which were the only 2 points of interest for us. so when we got off the bus, we stopped in all the stores to look for boots and clothes since we passed an H&M, zara, and a bunch of other things right away. of course, we didn't buy anything but it was definitely excellent to have an H&M again. so we checked into our hostel and immediately went for a walk towards the old city. now, warsaw is quite pretty but it's not very old because, during world war II, like 80% of the city was razed. of course, it was all rebuilt in an attempt to revamp the city and is actually super super pretty. here's one of the first churches we encountered.


and there's me with the presidential palace.


that's the beginning of the old city and royal castle square. the red building to the right is the royal castle. what i found really weird about warsaw was that they had pretty lil terraces and lookouts but all of them looked out on like a highway. a really busy one. anyhow, there was one of them to the left but i didnt feel the need to take a picture of it.


that's the royal castle. as we were walking through the square, there were people decorating the tree and stringing lights. it was so cute.


and this is the main square of the old town, called Rynek Starego Miasta.


so the legend is that a fisherman caught a mermaid (syrenka) and the mermaid told the fisherman that if he started a city she would protect it. of course, the city was almost completely demolished during world war II, but you know whatevs. there's a picture of me with the mermaid statue.


and this is the barbakan. i think it's supposed to symbolize fortified walls around the old city. (i'm not really sure but i think that's right.)


and this is the new city. it doesnt look much different from the old city, but the streets are much wider.


and here's a small church we passed along the way. it was really cute and i dunno what it's significance was.


and this is a war memorial in the new city. it was kinda cool to see it lit up at night.


so we walked back into the old city to get back to our hostel and passed the royal castle. it's so pretty when it's lit up at night with a lighted christmas tree for decoration.


and that's warsaw university. there's ridiculous construction going on all on the streets in front of it.


and so we went to a pierogie place for dinner called pierogarnia. it was a cute little hole in the wall place that just served all different kinds of pierorgies. and since everything in poland is so cheap, we got potato soup, a salad, and a dish of pierogies for like 4 dollars. it was kind of amazing.


and this is the palace of culture and nature. it's a stalinist building that completely dominates over the city.


so after dinner and walking around, we headed to bed because we had to get up really early to catch a train to krakow. krakow is a 3 hour train ride from warsaw and we most definitely wanted to hit that up before leaving polska. the next day, we got to krakow around 11 and walked around. the city is really small but is so so cute and ridiculously touristy. it was also december 2, so all the christmas markets had just started. here's cloth hall which is in the middle of their main square, Rynek Glowny.


inside, there are lots of stalls that just sell krakow merchandise, jewelry, handmade fuzzy slippers, and all kinds of silly lil trinkets.


here are more pictures of the main square. the square is actually cut in half by cloth hall.


and this is st. mary's church. inside, the church is absolutely beautiful and a completely different style from most other churches. i couldn't take pictures, though.


on the other side of cloth hall, there was a huge clock tower and the christmas markets. here's me with the clock tower.


within the christmas markets there were so many foodstands to feed all the hungry shoppers. here's one of them grilling meat. lots and lots of meat.


and that's the christmas market which was so cute and sold pretty much everything christmas you could possibly want.


and there's me with my kielbasa. i was so proud of myself that i knew how to order cause i remember like 1 word of russian and its so similar to polish. i ordered "raz kielbasa biela." woot for knowing how to say one white sausage.


so we walked south and found wawel castle. its an enormous castle that sits on the river that was started in the 1000s. it was really pretty but we didn't feel like climbing up there so we walked along the river and looked at it.


there's also a legend that at the southwest edge of the wawel castle there used to live a dragon. one day, a shepherd left the dragon a poisoned sheep. when the dragon ate it, it drank so much water from the river that it drank itself to death. this is the entrance to the cave...it's me with the statue, but the den itself was not open to the public.


so we walked back to rynek glowny and saw these two fujifilm pandas and were unreasonably amused. it was so odd cause we asked them to take a picture and they spoken english. now, we expected it to be a picture of the 4 of us but mine totally snubbed collin and it looks lik we are two couples. woot.


and so we decided to head back to the train station after that and hit st. francis' gate along the way.


that night, we went back to warsaw and had a nice polish dinner as our last meal and then headed back to the hostel to chill and talk for a while. we didn't have to be out very early today because our flight was at 230, so we stayed up late to talk and then slept in today and took our time to get ready. it was altogether an amazing weekend and i really really loved poland.

oh and one more thing i forgot...PJP2 is from krawkow and so they had some paraphernalia. this is the shirt i got.