Kraców or Krakow or Cracow

Our first stop was Poland and boy was it interesting. Well I guess the first thing worth mentioning is how scared of the Russians they still are. While there I heard the word Russia(n) closely followed by some sort of curse word almost every hour on the hour. It was shocking how big a role Russia

still plays in Polish politics. One speaker even told us this exact quote “A dead Russian is a good Russian”…. So needless to say that was an interesting aspect!

1. There is an old wives tale about a dragon of Krakow and how the town came to be… (click here to read story)
2. Baltic Amber is extremely important in Poland… Back in the early 1900s there were large portions of Amber found along the shores of the Baltic Sea. About 90% of the world's extractable amber is still located in the Baltic Sea. Pieces of amber are torn from the seafloor are cast up by the waves, and collected at ebb-tide.
3. Pierogi: boiled dumplings of unleavened dough stuffed with varying ingredients. Pierogi were traditionally peasant food, but eventually spread in popularity throughout all social classes, including nobles. At the 2007 Pierogi Festival in Kraków, 30,000 pierogi were consumed daily. Polish pierogi are often filled with fresh white cheese, potatoes, and fried onions.
4. One very interesting aspect of our trip was our first speaker who spoke to us about Poland’s wishes from the US and the fact that they supported McCain as did the rest of Eastern Europe. The first mention was that Poland’s main diplomatic concern is the removal of visas from the United States. They said every Polish citizen needs a visa to go to the states, and furthermore it’s a long and drawn out process that takes much time. Poland expressed its wishes to remove this since they considered the US one of their greatest allies.

All in all Kraców was my favorite city we visited!