Saturday morning we joined a caravan to Iza’s house. We followed windy roads for an hour and a half. We kept thinking we were almost there for the last hour. Everyone stopped for a minute to decorate the car. They even shined the tires. At Iza’s house, Iza’s nephew was barring the door while Marcin and his friends bartered about the dowry. Marcin’s main selling point seemed to be the quality of the vodka he was offering. We didn’t understand much else, but it seemed at one point that Marcin was offered Iza’s niece for the dowry and he said no.
Then we were invited inside Iza’s house for the blessing by the parents. Marcin and Iza knelt down on a white sheet and both sets of parents one after another put their hands on the kids’ heads and said a blessing to them. Marcin’s dad mainly just mussed his hair. Elisa and I were lucky to be there for this intimate tradition.
At the Polish-Catholic ceremony we again thought it was almost over and then waited a long time. The church echoed really cool. And it was interesting to see all the ritual involved. When Marcin and Iza exited the church, their friends threw handfuls of pennies on them. And then they had to pick them up. One of the traditions apparently is to bring flowers and then to give them to the bride and groom. Oops.
Marcin and Iza threw a reception at a hotel. At the beginning, everyone was handed champagne. Marcin and Iza had glasses tied together. After they drank them, they threw them behind them and the glasses crashed all over the floor. Their friends organized a program of games and dancing. We have never been entertained at a wedding for so long. We got there around 3 pm and partied until we were too tired at around midnight. There was course after course of food getting brought out every time we sat down. We learned some really fun dances and they had a special appearance of Polish performers. There were crazy dances. Most of them involved us running around in a ring. We did dancing lines and a chicken dance even. We played games where people got dressed up in silly stage props. I can’t describe all the stuff that went on. There was a bowling alley right in the hotel and some of us played a game.
A few of the family and friends did some songs for the party. They grabbed Elisa and asked her to sing “Love me Tender” on short notice. By the way, I don’t really know that song. We don’t know how they knew that Elisa sings either.
Friday morning our plans were to travel to Bolesławiec to buy some Polish pottery. Our trip was long:
- A 90-min train ride from Krakow to Katowice
- An hour wait for a bus
- An hour-long bus ride from Katowice to the airport
- A car rental
- A drive back to Katowice
- A 3-hour drive to Bolesławiec
- A mad dash around town to find information about the right pottery warehouse before they closed
We got to the pottery store at 4:20 pm. They closed at 5 pm. A German tour bus showed up right at closing time, so they stayed open for an extra half hour. Elisa and I used all the time to pick out a freaking cool tea set. We got some other fun stuff too.
For dinner we strolled around the center square and tried really hard to locate the source of a good crepe smell. We gave up and settled on really good pizza. The town square was really colorful. We hardly met anyone who spoke English or even German.
Our little compact car took 100 zł of gas (about $40) to fill up after the 3-hour drive. That was a surprise!
Day 2 in Krakow. Not so bad. We had a very lazy morning because we weren’t really looking forward to our sight-seeing options. We decided to hop on a bus and go to the Wieliczka Salt Mines. Besides trying to figure out where the bus stops were, which direction they were going and where you were supposed to get off–it was okay. I found myself saying a little prayer that people spoke at least German. No one did. I am much more capable and confident in speaking German than I realized.
The mines were so great! They were started in the 1200s and go hundreds of meters deep. We went as low as the third level of nine and were 300 meters underground. (800 steps 🙂 ) Miners had made sculptures of gnomes and other miners and world leaders and even Christ figures. A whole cathedral all carved out of salt! It was amazing! We had a great guide and had a lot of fun.
We spent the evening walking around the Old Town and eating hearty Polish cuisine–lots of cabbage. I got to try Borsch (a beet soup) and I liked it. We especially got a kick out of the ramekins of goose lard they would bring to the table with bread. Not too bad. We found some amber jewelry and laughed about how dumb it was that you had to pay to visit their church in the old square–it was very typical of our experience. We visited the former Jewish district. A small part of it was really nice but the majority of it looked plain scary.
