Visibility was extremely poor. I suspect what i thought was fog was actually clouds. At the summit, the mountain top was clear for 5 min after i arrived and then swifted with thick grey clouds. So long koznice.

Belated story for a few days. Two days were spent in a mountain resort. The mountains over polish-slovakian territory. Weather was not very kind, and the town was extremely touristic (mostly polish tourists). Would have liked to hike in the tatra mountains if the weather permitted.

Take a picture with a (dead) polar bear or a (live) bored sheep dog- actually not so sure about the dog.. The main commercial street of zakopane was packed with street performers and stalls that you would find anywhere else. Only a hint of locality is shown in the food items sold in the street.

Selling molded cheese. I was curious all along what they were selling cuz it does not look like cheese at all.

Dressed totally like a civilian (teenager boy), a sudden surprise to all passengers. Not speaking polish, i first thought he was trying to sell something to me. Two persons got caught in the same car i was in. The next morning, there were three conspicuous looking guys checking people’s ticket on the way to train station again. Those with big backpacks should be careful with these guys- cuz an additional ticket is required for a big bag, it becomes an easy target for them.

Quite often: Old ladies with a bunch of flowers and dogs.

Dined at a restaurant in nowa huta. As soon as i sat down, two (semi drunken) guys approached me and tried hard to communicate. According to their short german, nowa huta is shit and tourists should be careful at night. Also they offered a ride back to krakow city center. I could escape them after showing my travel plan printout &offering them pen & paper so that one of them leaves a phone number. Anyway, back to the lesson: never eat at unpopular restaurants unless you have a taste for the microwaved food or food cooked several times.

Last day in krakow. Very much beaten touristic routes. Palace > salt mine > nowa huta. Exhibitions in the palace were very disappointing- just arrays of objects, no historical reflections.
The most interesting place today was this ‘new town’- engineered socialist suburban town. It’s shaped like a fan, with several tram and bus lines going through it in all directions. Many squares and non-car public space provides rich environment for socializing with neighbors.

Suprisingly, there are many kinds of pickled fish (herring, i assume) in poland. Strangely they are rarely on the restaurant menu. I only found them in groceries of small towns, or in the back streets of suburbia. Some very different from their scandinavian counterparts. I enjoyed this very much (tho had to eat on street)

Toilet in the camp. We’ve seen many movies and images of the nazi concentration camps (the most horrifying in my memory being the huge jewish museum in washington d.c.)- so visiting barracks and seeing the grounds of the ‘actual’ happenings inspired the imagination much further. Due to its recency and unprecedented scale, this very well forms the living evidence of the human cruelty. However after this visit, it got me thinking that causing tormenting slow death mixed with irreparable damage to the human dignity in the camp was much worse than the mass murder in the gas chambers (while neither was justifiable): Perhaps more tribute should be also paid to 3 million non-jew Poles who died in the war (along with the other 3 million jew poles + all other jews).