christmas out of a backpack...

well.... chris and me have made it back home. its a little strange that our little apartment here in inowroclaw feels like home, but it feels pretty good to be back. but here are some pictures from our trip... hope you like em, and you can click on them to make them bigger..
our trip started with a 4 hour train ride to the city of wroclaw. our bus left from there and it was fun cause we had a few hours to explore before we had to sit on the bus all night. the bus trip on the other hand was a little scary, well, sort of. i ended up feeling pretty sick (something to do with eating bigos from army dudes off of the street(a polish goulash of cabbage, spices, some kielbasa (atleast we think its kielbasa)), and nightmares of having to hurl on a packed bus was not the most pleasant thought.














Ok, its Chris now. Happy New Year to everyone! We had a great trip...and we can't tell you everything about it because this blog would be a novel nor show you all the pictures, so this is only a sample. But, I would suggest that everyone should go someday. The first picture is of one of the oldest resturants in Europe, it also shows some of the beautiful buildings that dorn the streets. The next picture of the colouful building is the Hundertwasser muesum. He is an artist from Vienna, started out as a painter and then designed buildings for the city and surrounding areas. His buildings have lots of colour, designs and plant life...they are very interesting to see and tour. Vienna does Christmas well, the streets have beautiful light displays, buskers on the street corners playing Christmas music, lots of hot punch sold in the streets and very quaint Christmas markets.
While we were in Vienna we got to see lots, but KC and I would agree that the best part was visiting with 'Auntie' Marne and Gisela and meeting other Canadians. We were throughly spoiled with presents and full stomachs. Gisela is an amazing cook and great artist so we got to sample some traditonal Viennese cooking as well as view her portfoilio of art work. They also took us to where Beethoven spent his summers composing music. Lots of history. We felt very blessed to spend Christmas with family.

ok, my turn again... so after another all night bus trip, of trying to sneak a few hours of sleep in, and trying to peer out the window at all of the scenery, we made it back to poland, to the city of krakow. we were greated with tonnes of snow! which made it feel more like christmas. this pic is of the big castle that used to house the royal family for centuries before the wars and the moving of the capital to warsaw.






here's a picture from our walk from our hostel to downtown. our hostel was pretty nice, and kind enough to let us in at 5 in the morninng when our bus got in an hour early.

while in krakow one hte the highlights was going to this massive underground salt mine. it was amazing, complete with statues, an underground cathedral, and of course, everything is made of salt. we were also pretty excited to find some chinese and mexican restaurants, something that we dont have here in inowroclaw.

so we kept seeing these big mound things on postcards so despite the snow we decided to make the long trek out to try to find one for ourselves. they were really strange, i guess built as a monument to some guy, and peoople from all over poland would bring dirt from where they lived in order to build it. suposedly the view is amazing, but as you can see, ours wasnt. oh well, i guess we have an excuse to go back. anyways, we hope all is well.

chris and kc