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Sunday, Mar 22, 2009
I waited a while, and then my second tour guide came. It was Jude again. The tour bus had a new driver. Outside, the weather was quite cold now. (The entire trip was varying levels of cold between "Argh. My ears are killing me!" to "Um. Could someone please shoot me now?") We drove for about an hour and reached the salt mine. From the outside, it just looked like another part of town. Inside we got our tickets and the Salt Mine guide took over. For these tours, the buses and agency just bring you to the locations and take care of the tickets. Then you have the site guides handle the tours. I suppose it might be cheaper to find your own way there, but there’s something to be said for not having to handle the transportation or anything else. Sometimes, it’s the best way to go. They do everything but hold your hand—and even then, I never actually asked.
Soon, we were descending flights of stairs—many flights of stairs. We had a funny tour guide and she enjoyed asking questions of the group. Being a teacher who likes questions answered, I tried to answer or guess at some of them, and frequently got the answers right.
The mines were amazing with huge sculptures carved out of salt. Truth is, I had no idea salt was even mined. How about that? All these years, and something like this was completely new to me. But apparently, it was a very lucrative industry and had been for hundreds of years.
There were many great things to see, but the light was also very dark. Not many photos turned out well. All I’ll mainly have are my memories—misty, salt-water colored memories. (AH HA! HA! HA! I try never to laugh at my own jokes--especially the puns--but come on! That one is priceless! Admit it!!!)
Another odd bonus was WIFI. Hundreds of feet underground, I decided to try my iPhone just to see. I figured if they did route the internet down there, they may not have it secured (I mean who would be tapping into it that far underground?) And voila! I had access. I downloaded my mail and smiled a bit, somewhat shocked and very pleased.
In time, the tour finished, after passing, not one, but two stores to buy stuff. I bought nothing but some Mentos (Europe has all sorts of neat flavors of Mentos). We took a lift back up to save some serious time. Before leaving, I told the guide her tour was sort of the anti-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory tour (You know, because everything was salty instead of being sweet). She laughed as if she got the allusion, but I’ll never know for sure.
Outside, the rain came down and we boarded the bus back home. It was a filled day.
The driver took us to our spots and dropped us off. He took the same tiny little streets that the first driver took and once again, missed hitting things by inches. I’m always amazed at how many things we don’t hit when riding in buses over there. European bus drivers are awesome. (At driving buses at least. Perhaps they still suck at chess. I don’t know.)
I had a little time before the next train, so I sought out to enjoy one nice dinner for a good price. The restaurant recommended by my hostel clerk could not be found, so I popped into a nice place I saw. Well, I went into the doorway to examine the menu and a pretty waitress saw me and invited me in. I asked if it was “Polish” food, but she responded by saying it was more of Arabic food. Wanting only Polish, I moved onward. Not finding any other nice places, I eventually just headed back. She was nice, and nice goes a long way. I would try her place, Polish or not.
Inside, I hung up my coat and gloves. They had a nice warm fire going, but an older couple was at the seat adjacent to it. I warmed myself at the fire, but then found my own place. The menu had many wonderful things to choose from at great prices. I selected some chicken and stuff, or stuffed chicken—I simply can’t remember the names, but the food was great. It was a relaxing dinner. I did a little writing and enjoyed a tall beer. Afterwards, she suggested dessert. I wasn’t too hungry, but the raspberry tiramisu looked great, so I indulged. It was great. I had had my first large enjoyable meal in a long time and felt like it gave me some newfound strength to travel on, which was pleasant.
Note: another reason to head "east" is the prices. The dollar goes far in Poland the the like. Perhaps it's out of some people's comfort zones to head to those former U.S.S.R. countries, but sometimes those places are the best memories. My money went far and the people were very nice.
I then went back to the hostel, grabbed my bags and headed to the train station. Soon I was on a night train heading for Prague. I kept humming that old 80's song, Back on the Train.
(Days later, I started questioning if my lyrics were correct. Maybe it was “back on the chain gang” or something like that. But you know the song? It starts out: “I saw a picture of you…ohhhooohhhooh…those were the happiest days of my life.” Point is, you think a lot about stuff like that when you’re spending many hours on a train and your iPhone has no cellular access, but only functions as an expensive iPod, but you knew that when you bought it. However, you had no idea the GPS wouldn’t work, but then, after a lot of thought, you realized it made sense since a connection would be needed to download the maps from the network, so yeah....Back on the train-gang. Ohhhhooooohhhhoooh).