You discover. You understand. You solve.

One of the things that i witnessed was i actually saw the learning process taking place. And it eyeopening to see. I’m a tutor and i see a lot of people and i teach a lot of people IT and it’s really good to see the learning process but i deal with adult and it isn’t so obvious when you’re in adulthood. I sat on a plane whilst i was coming back from poland and there was a baby that was sat next to us and as you know when you’re sitting on a plane, there’s a little table that folds up against the seat in front of you and there’s a little catch that you’ve got to turn in order to keep it up. In this situation, the table was down and the baby was trying to put the table but couldn’t do it because the catch was down. As the baby was trying to get the table, the baby started to realise that she couldn’t and knew there was a problem, the table flopped back down again and she tried to turn the catch and it was very interesting to see the learning steps the baby took to understand this concept and it literally went from discovery, understanding to solving and isn’t that the entire steps of life. We discover, we understand and we solve and that mentally never leaves us.

Remember. You discover. You understand. You solve.

Poland Holiday Log - Day 5 - Final Day

Day 5

today has been a very easy day, we’ve slept in and we slept in until half 10 and we took it easy and just slowly woke up. today was literally the day that we’ve been saying over and again, we’d use the money we had left to buy ourselves some clothes and treat ourselves and that’s what we did. we headed straight for the mall and went into a few shops, such as H&M, a HMV type store, i don’t know it had media related items, DVDs, Games, Board games etc. walking through the mall, we saw the shop that we walked into the other day called the new yorker, it’s got really nice clothes, we went in and bought some clothes for ourselves. we continued walking round the mall and we then went upstairs to the third floor because there was more shops and that’s when we got to the food court. we either wanted KFC or Pizza hut and we couldn’t really understand the KFC Menu so we went into pizza hut, we had a medium sized pizza with two drinks and it came to 48 Zlotyz and i really can’t believe it but it was only 9 pounds. Nine pounds for a medium sized pizza from pizza hut. at home we’d be paying 30 pounds. it’s ridiculous. we walked around some more and we got to the market square again and the clothes hall was open so we walked through and it was very interesting, it was like walking through one of the christmas markets that they hold in manchester. all items were polish obviously and everything from fur to wood to russian dolls to necklaces, pipes. it was so easy and convientent, all in one place. we came back to the hotel and now we are resting.

After sa few hours resting again and the for the final time, we went back out and walked through different areas that we might nto have been before. We’ve explored everything through krakow square and every street. As we went for that walk, we saw a little cupcake shop that we’ve had our eye on since we got here and we’ve got for cupcakes, oreo, red velvet, peanut butter and muffin of the month. We walked back up and went into a little restaurant that bryoni had her eye, i wasn’t really that hungry but she was hungry so we went in. I wanted pizzza but the oven wasn’t working so i switched my order to soup and bread which was okay, wasn’t fantastic but the design of it was nice. The bowl was literally made out of bread, with a little cap, i’ve seen it done before but i’ve never had it myself. Bryoni had ribs with honey and mustard and they were really good, you could taste the honey straight away and then the mustard hit you with a wonderful taste that left you wanting more. We came back to the hotel and i’m currently downloading season1 of better call saul ready for our flight tomorrow and we are expected to land back in england at 25 to 1 tomorrow after so we are up really early.

It’s beena great holiday and very informative and auschwitz was amazing and i’d love to go there on my own and see what else is there that the tour guide didn’t cover. Now we know where to go, it would be very interesting to go into every building and if we wanted to spend more time there, we could and we didn’t get stopped or pulled along when we got to a certain area. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it and the food was to die for. The food was amazing and it was really cheap too. I’d highly recommend coming here if you love food, walking and history.

Poland Holiday Log - Day 4 - Salt Mine

Day 4

Last night, me and bryoni watched the boy in the striped pajamas, i’m really surprised that i haven’t watched it before. i remember being at my home and walking downstairs to see my mum and i looked at her and asked why was she crying and she just turned to me and said “sad film” so that’s when i said “okay” and i went back upstairs. i find out later it was the boy in the striped pajamas and it’s been on my list to watch it but never got round to it.

we woke up this morning and i made our breakfasts, it wasn’t gourmet or anything like that, it was literally just cereal. That’s my skills in cookery pushed to the limits. we headed downstairs and outside the entrance of our hotel waiting to be picked up for the salt mine. it was only a 30 minute drive from krakow to the mine. we didn’t have to wait at all, we walked through the door and down we went. There was loads of steps and when i say loads, i mean there’s 368 steps and i didn’t count them. i’m not that sad. the tour guide actually told us. each set of stairs went down in sets of 6 and there was 63 sets. as you’re looking down the middle, it just literally looks like it will go on until you reach the other side of the world. the salt mine was very interesting and very creative of what people can create when they put their minds to it. it went on for miles underground. My question is that, i wonder if the mines were used to give the jews work, considering that they didn’t want to be discovered and if they wanted someone to mine in and if there were any deaths, the nazi’s didn’t really care because in their eyes, they were only jews. obviously if there was something like this going on, would there be any documentation?. Throughout the tour, you could see small particles of dust/salt whizzing through teh air and this only became more apparent when you enabled flash on our cameras and it was fresh, you never felt like you needed air, it was a nice feeling and nice atmosphere. I have a tendency of biting my nails and i could taste salt on my fingers and i’m guessing that’s from the salt in the air and my fingers were actually quite tasty. if you’re in poland/Krakow, i’d highly recommend doing these tours.

Discover Krakow have really got the tour business sorted. they’ve simply crashed course the tourist industry and the amount of people we saw that were just on our tour and many more languages that they are able to give you a great tour and gaining lost of money at the same time. obviously when you buy the tour, you’re getting free admission and free travel and all the information is always relevant and always welcome. don’t get me wrong, it’s a great tour but it seems like it is so mass produced that you’re just another ant in the salt mine ant farm.

as we got the mini bus back, it started snowing when we were crossing the podgorze bridge. it was beautiful but it didn’t last long, the snow came and it went within minutes. we got back to our hotel at half 1 and now we are going to rest for a few hours and then go back out for something to eat.

after a few hours rest, mainly bryoni sleeping and me trying to decide what to watch, we went back out again. looking for some food, you looked at several restaurant menus that were outside the restaurant, none really took our fancy and then we saw this place called the grande grill and served some of the best mouthwatering items we had seen. Before we went into there we quickly went into the nespresso shop and we looked around and mainly we went in to buy some nespresso for my mother, she’s a sucker for nespresso. we bought those and came back out again and went straight into the grande grill and sat ourselves down, it was a lovely atmosphere and friendly waiters and tell you what the food, my god. i’ve referenced this a time before on this holiday. on one of the episodes of how i met your mother, the episode is called the best burger in new york and it’s the main cast trying to find marshall’s so called best burger in new york and cutting a long story short, he eventually finds the place that sells the burger and it’s his face, like he’s having a food orgasm and i had one of those today. it was a steak club sandwich, with layers of lettuce, tomato, carmelised onions and layers and layers of steak diced into strings. my god it was good. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, if i was still hungry, i’d have that again. so the bill came to 118 zlotyz which works out at about 24-28 pounds.

we came out and had a little walk and we saw a souviner shop and we’ve been wanting to get gifts anyway but this is high street robbery and i mean robbery. it was 24.90 zlotyz for a small dragon teddy, and it was 25.50 for a magnet, we bought 3 dragons for different people then a pack of playing cards. all togehter in came to 124.40. so for 2 lovely meals and drinks to go with it at a restuarent that was quite fancy inside cost less than a few gifts. it is literally high street robbery. even clothes that we see close buy, are 40 zloytz and it’s just exteroiate. we’ve got back to the hotel and now bryoni is watching dexter and i don’t know what i’m going to watch but it’s been another great day in poland and it’s really hard to believe that we’re going home on friday.

Poland Holiday Log - Day 3 - Auschwitz visit

Day 3

Today was a great day, last night me and bryoni set our alarms for half 8 and then we slowly got up out of bed. We got ourselves ready and went downstairs and today was actually our auschwitz day and as i said yesterday, we booked auchwitz. We waited outside for a few minutes and our ride came, it was a mini bus that was completely full and took us to our destination and it was fantastic, we got a tour guide which she was talking through a radio that we had headphones connected to it. walking round and looking at the living conditions of the jews and not just the jews, there were soviet union guys, gypsy’s and many more prisoners. i could tell you my two cents but i wouldn’t be telling you anything that you don’t already know. it was really interesting and we took loads of pictures and it was really nice just to take yourself our of teh group and just visualise and stand in the rooms and outside to just get a feeling of what the conditions were like. i couldn’t really tell you how they were feeling as i’ve never been in that situation and i’d never wish that condition on my worst enemys. now we’re back at the hotel after a long and very ensightful walk through auschwitz 1 and 2.

we’ve had our rest now, bryoni fell asleep again for about an hour and a half. i watched better call saul and a few episodes of the simpsons whilst waiting for the boy in the striped pajamas to finish downloading. so every night, we’ve gone for a walk and yesterday we went left and found ourselves a mall but today we turned right from our hotel, just having a walk round behind the castle, we kept walking round to find ourselves within the jewish district just by chance. as we were both walking down i started to recognise the area. you literally can’t get lost in Krakow. just get towards the high point and you’ll end up in the market square. we continued on our journey and we ended up finding little shop, they sold some lovely stuff, glasses shot glasses, magnets and bongs...Yes Bongs. we left the shop without buying anything and bryoni was getting a headache and she was getting tired from the walking so we went into a kebab shop where they sell mouthwatering kebabs with the suace can only be descibed as big mac sauce, we ate that and continued on to the hotel ready to watch the boy in the striped pajamas. i’ve never seen it before but i’m hoping that the film will make me feel what the prisoners were going through during the second world war.

Poland Holiday Log - Day 2

i’m really surprised that we were able to sleep until 9. considering i’m not the one for naps as i usually try and keep myself awake during the day so at night i’m able to easily fall asleep. once we woke up, we got ourselves ready and went out. as we got downstairs, we went into the reception and booked auchwitz and the salt mine which bryoni got a discount because she was a student. the total price for auchwitz and the salt mine was 490 zlotyz which equals to less than 100 pound. we decided to skip breakfast and head down to kerswisski. we were walking through the ourskirts and out by the river. we walked along the river and behind the wawel castle, we crossed the bridge to find a house that seemed to be just plonked there. it was like the community started building itself around this house. There’s a house on the way to bradford from where i live, Wigan, where a farmer refused to leave his house by the council because they wanted to build a motorway on where his house sat. and since he refused numerous times, they decided to build around him and that’s what this house was like.

We kept walking and eventually got walked over the polgorze bridge to find outselves in the destination we were walking towards kerswisski which is a jewish community, which saw jews being brutally murdered not even that long ago. we checked out a few building and kept walking up to find ourselves in an area where we had been before. at this time, it was half 12 and we were getting a little bit hungry. we went into mcdonalds to find that there was a massive cue so we decided to skip it and eventually we got to a BBQ house that were selling all kinds of american style meat. I got a texas burger which was bacon, lettuce, tomato, cheese and gerkins topped on of a burger with a sesame seed bun. It was so delicious that infact in that situation if i wasn’t full, i’d have it again. bryoni had a mexican burger which was guacmole, cheese, salsa, with lettuce on a burger bun. we eventually left after having our bellys full up. we went to a spar looking for some biscuits/nibbles and they didn’t sell any so we went next to the shop next to our hotel that sold all kinds of stuff. we got back to the apartment for a rest and then we’ll be going back out when we’ve had the rest.

We’ve had a few hours rest and then we went back out for a little walk, we’ve walked up and down and now it’s time to walk left to right. we started walking on the clockwise through our area and we just kept walking until we reached a castle or somesort and then as we was crossing the road, i looked back and noticed there was a statue with a church in the background that was lit and coloured white. we crossed back over the road to see what this thing was, we took a couple of picturtes in front of it and as we continued walking, bryoni saw a brightly lit area and loads of people so we went down to apprach it. it turns out that it was a mall with literally loads of shops and a massive food court, which mcdonalds, KFC, burger king, pizza’s, pasta. we had a good look in all the shops and we saw something that we’d like so when it’s our last day with the money that we have left, we’ll buy something. we kept on walking and both of us went into spar to find stuff to take to auchwitz, such as drinks and sandwiches. we came out and we walked through the castle to find ourselves edging ever so closely to the market square. we eventually sat back down and in the market square having a rest and then we came back to the hotel and now we are going to watch the big bang theory and schindlers list. it is our day 2 in poland over. It’s been great so far and i’m really looking forward to tomorrow.

Poland Holiday Log - Day 1

Our first day was brilliant, apart from waking up at 4 in the morning. Bryoni’s mum and dad took us to the airport. we did the usual stuff, we checked in, gone through security and then it was just in the waiting lounge. The flight was pretty decent and it actually only took 2 hours. Once we got through passport control, we had to wait for our luggage and we were waiting there for at least 30 minutes. we walked out of the airport and literally got a taxi straight away to our hotel. 

The drive to the hotel was really interesting, you’d get beautiful houses with very interesting designs, one house used natural light all the way throughout the house and then next to that house would be a run down house that looked like stereotypical polish house. we got to our hotel and they told us that we’d have to wait until 2 for our room which at this time it was half 11. we got a map and had a walk around. we just kept walking down the street, just looking around and walking through areas. we turned left and walked through a park and then we walked back up. the area in which our hotel is opposite is a wide open area with all brick tiles. we went to a restaurent that offered Pizza and pasta and we both a sucker for a pizza. Me and bryoni got a appetite pizza which was ham, onion, salami and cheese pizza and split it between us. the bill came to 60 zlotz, which is just on the border of 11 quid. considering we had 4 cokes and a large pizza. it’s really cheap. 

We then ended up going back to the hotel and seeing if our room was available and it was so we got the key and went straight upstairs. The room is fantasic, it’s really niche and it’s got a little kitchen with a good amount of space. we ended up having a sleep from the minute we put our heads down on the pillow. 7 hours later we woke up and well rested. 

we left the hotel and walked through the town and ended up getting to market square. it’s got a large resemblence to st peters square in venice. continued walking through looking at different restaurents and nothing took our fancy. we decided to go into spar and buy some drinks and sweets and pasta. as we were walking back, we saw a little kebab place and got ourselves a kebab and we cooked the pasta back at our hotel and we had kebab and pasta. 

Now as i’m writing this, we’re watching rush hour 2. Day 1 has been a successful day and i honestly think we’ll leave poland very happy and with loads more money than expected.