The T3sk3y Defenestrator

Arggghhh. I just spent 45 minutes writing my June 16th tale about our visit to Auschwitz. As I was on the last paragraph, I accidentally hit “CTRL-W” – which closes the tab on FireFox instantly. This means that *poof* – entire post gone.

So – sorry – it’s too late to start again tonight. I’ll give it another go tomorrow.

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Sorry for anybody that thought they were going to see naked pictures – of humans.

These are some *really* beautiful pinball pictures taken at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. Wow.

Pinball Photos

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Our day started early – very early – with a border crossing into Poland at about 2 AM. A sharp rap on our train car door rouses us to grab our passports and greet the nice Polish commando at the door. He gives one glance to the eagle on the cover, flips it open to make sure it’s me – then moves on to the next compartment.

We caught a couple of more hours before rising at 5 AM to prepare for our 5:45 arrival in Kraków. We exited the train and went to the ticket window to buy train tickets to Auschwitz. We bought our tickets and carefully checked the departure times before going to the international counter to buy our tickets for Budapest. After a small mishap with the wrong date, we got the correct tickets and started walking in to the town center.

The town square in Kraków

Our first stop was at our hotel – the B&B LaFontaine. Though we couldn’t get our room yet – we could drop off our luggage and get checked in. There was a scary moment while they couldn’t find our reservation, but this was quickly resolved. Our hotel was ideally located – only a few feet from the town square. It was a quick walk to the square to grab a bite to eat at one of the sidewalk cafe’s that line the square. We had lots of time to absorb the environment – it took about two hours to get our breakfast and the check.

After breakfast, we embarked on our walking tour of the old town. One of the trip rituals was to use the always good walking tours included in Rick Steve’s book. This one started at the old city wall, proceeded through the town square, walked through the Basilica of St. Francis, and made our way up to Wawel hill. One of Heather’s favorite spots was the Basilica – since this was the “home church” of Pope John Paul II. A small silver plaque indicated the pew where he preferred to pray. Across the street in the park, there was an amazing photo exhibit of the life of the Pope.

As we were touring, we saw an enormous parade that seemingly contained everyone in town. We had unknowingly arrived on a national holiday – the Feast of Corpus Christi. For an hour, an endless parade of priests, nuns, locals in costume, and groups of children paraded down the royal way to town square. They even had wireless speakers broadcasting the songs being sung so the parade could sing along. The parade was long enough that I got a pretty severe sunburn on my feet where there were vents in my shoes. This led Beth to nickname me “Zebrafoot”.

Wawel Hill was next – it’s the castle hill and location of the main cathedral in Kraków. The cathedral is the craziest hodgepodge of architecture that includes every imaginable style – and a large set of bones. The legend says that they are bones from a giant – modern science says a dinosaur or mammoth.


The National Cathedral on Wawel Hill

After we completed a tour of castle hill, we went back to our hotel to check in and get cleaned up. Beth and Heather got cleaned up first and went down to the town square to relax and do some shopping while I got ready. We also took advantage of laundry service at the hotel to clean up some clothes that were getting very stinky due to the nonstop heat.

I quickly found the ladies in the square and joined them for a Zawiec (a polish pilsner) before heading off on foot for Kazimierz – Krakow’s Jewish quarter. It was about a two mile walk away from the town center but pretty easy to find. We toured a couple of the exhibits, including one with some good video footage of the Krakow ghetto.

One of the interesting parts of visiting Kazimierz was that Schindler’s List was filmed there. Since the ghetto (located across the river) was torn down at the end of the war, they had to film the movie in Kazimierz. Historically, the Jews were moved by force from Kazimierz across the river to the ghetto – where they were crammed in and forced to work in slave labor camps (such as Plaszow) before being deported to Auschwitz. In one place, you can still see the wall of the ghetto as it passes behind some apartments.


Oskar Schindler’s Factory in Kraków

Another key landmark that still exists across the river near the ghetto is Oskar Schindler’s factory. It’s not clearly marked – but with the right clues, we were able to find it with the help of some landmarks and the guidebook. While looking around the outside, a guard came out and waved us inside to give us a tour. Though there isn’t too much to see, we were able to go up to his office and see some areas prominently featured in the movie.

Dinner that night was one of the high points of the trip – it was easily one of the three best meals that we enjoyed. We ate at a restaurant called Restauracja Pod Aniolami – which translates into “Under Angels”. The atmosphere was great, the service was top notch, and the food was to die for. We started with delicious mushroom soup, then had pierogies that resembled potstickers. Our main course was an applewood-smoked pork skewer (like a shish kebab) that melted in your mouth. Our dessert of ice cream was the perfect finish. The meal was easily 10/10.


Heather and Beth dining at Restauracja Pod Aniolami

After dinner, we went pretty much straight to bed – we had an early train to catch to Auschwitz – 9:35 AM, as we saw on the schedule when we arrived in town that morning. If only it were that easy…

Check out the rest of the pictures at:
Behind the Iron Curtain 2006

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Ah – what’s a Friday without a game that centers around making a nudist do tricks on a trampoline?

Despite the subject, it is work safe.. so enjoy!

Nudist Trampolining

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This is day or two old news.. but I’ve uploaded another day of pictures to SmugMug. These were from Friday, June 16th when we visited Auschwitz in Poland. The pictures make the place look not nearly as grim as it was in person – but they are still powerful to see.

Check out all the photos at: Behind the Iron Curtain 2006

The end of the road for millions

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June 14th started a lot later due to our late night walk home from the Jazz Club. I had planned to get up at dawn (which seemed to be 5 AM) to take pictures of the Charles Bridge – but getting home at 2:30 cured me of that silly idea. 9:30 AM turned out to be a much better wake-up time.

After another tasty hotel breakfast at the Anna, we took the Metro down to the Old Town Square so that we could tour the Jewish Quarter. The Jewish Quarter is one of the best preserved and displayed exhibits on Jewish live in Eastern Europe. A quick hike down Pariszka Street (Prague’s version of Rodeo Drive) got us to Josefov – the Jewish Quarter.

The Maisel Synagogue in Prague’s Jewish Quarter

Before we could tour, we needed to restock our supply of Czecheroonies (as Beth called the Czech Koruna – the local currency). As we looked for a cash machine near the Maisel Synagogue, Beth was accosted on the street by an Italian shopkeeper that was obviously infatuated with her. I’m not sure he scored points when he said “Marry me! I like older women!”. I told him that he was too young for Beth – and he replied with “I have a brother! He likes older women too!!” He then pointed at Heather and said “She is no good – she already has baby!”

Once we got money, we started our tour of the Josefov. Our tour started (as our Rick Steves guidebook suggested) at the Maisel Synagogue, brought us throught the Spanish Synagogue, went through the Pinkas Synagogue, as well as the Old Cemetary and the Old Synagogue. The Pinkas Synagogue was probably the most touching – it was decorated with the handwritten names of everyone that went missing in the Holocaust and the dates they were last seen alive. The old cemetary was pretty crazy to see as well. Since the Jewish beliefs don’t allow for moving a body, everyone got piled up for hundreds of years until the cemetary became a hill. There isn’t a square inch that isn’t covered by a topsy-turvy headstone. I also got my first crack at a yarmulke (the little round Jewish beanie) during the tour – since they were required for entry to some of the synagogues. They would provide you with a blue disposable one at the door. Funny – the Christian cathedrals required you to remove hats and the Jewish Synagogues made you put one one. Eh, isn’t it the same God?

After we completed our tour of the Jewish Quarter, we were ready for lunch. By now, we were done with Czech food. We ended up eating a tasty Greek meal at a Greek Taverna near the Powder Tower. After lunch, we explored some of the remaining sights in Prague. We walked past the Estates Theater, the National Theater, and ended up at the Dancing House. On the way there, we stopped in a gourmet grocery store – where Heather was thrilled to find Grape Nuts. She was even more amazed that the tiny box was over $10!

We decided to spend our remaining hours in Prague at a black light theatre. This is a particular type of illlusion theater that is part mime, part puppetry, part Cirque du Soliel, part magic, and many other things. While we waited for the show, we stopped at U Medvídk? – the flagship beerhall of the Czech Budweiser. The drink of choice was, of course, Budvar!


The flagship Budweiser taproom in Prague

The black light theater, at the Image Theater, was interesting to see – since the illusions done with black light were pretty good and visually stunning. We saw a show called “Black Box” where a mad inventor created a box that transported people to a strange black light world. The problem was that it was dark and the music was kind of soothing. After a hard day of trekking – all of us got a little sleepy and fought to stay awake. Still, it was interesting to see and very unique.

By the time the show was done, it was time to make our way to the train station to leave for Kraków. Before we could do this, we had a number of errands to accomplish. We had to get our bags from the hotel, we had to spend the rest of our Czecheroonies on sandwiches for the trip, and – we had to get our daily ice cream! Our stop today was a local favorite place called “House of Fruit” that was conveniently on our way to the metro station.

We made it to Hlavni Nadrazi (the train station) on time – and found our sleeper car quickly. We boarded the train and found our three-person room in the middle of the car. It was probably 175 degrees in the car – and things really didn’t cool off until we got underway. When we entered the room, it was set up for sleeping but we weren’t quite ready for bed. After I fumbled with the beds for a few minutes, Heather stepped in and saved the day by figuring out how to make benches out of them. We ate our purchased sandwiches as we rolled through the Czech countryside north of Prague and washed them down with tepid water. I got very excited when I found out that the porter served beer – only to find out that was tepid as well.

Our sleeper car on the train from Prague to Kraków

After watching the countryside go by, we rebuilt the beds and turned in for a long nights journey. Beth did have one final tangle with the bathroom as she got ready – she managed to spray herself with water pretty badly and drank some while brushing her teeth before seeing the sign that indicated in several languages that the water wasn’t drinkable. Fortunately, she suffered no ill effects from it. We soon all quickly conked out for the night to the “rhythm of the rails”.

Check out the rest of the pictures at:
Behind the Iron Curtain 2006

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This post is a thanks and an encouragement to the silent masses that quietly view my ramblings either regularly or sporadically. By the weblogs for the t3sk3y site, I can tell that there are lots of visitors – and lots of repeat visitors.

The problem is that I never hear from you. If you look at the bottom of this post – there’s a link that says “Add comment”. This is YOUR chance to comment on my textual defenestrations. By all means, do it!

As Bartels and Jaymes said in the eighties.. Thank You for Your Support.

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I just uploaded another batch of pictures to SmugMug – this time from June 15th in Kraków.

Check out all the photos at: Behind the Iron Curtain 2006

The Cloth Market in the Main Square in Kraków

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