From Poland, we had to make our way to Frankfurt, Germany for our flight out the next week. So to get around Europe, we decided to just do backpacks and get a Eurorail pass. The first leg of our journey was an overnight sleeper train to Prague in the Czech Republic. Prague it’s a beautiful place and one of the cities in Europe that were relatively untouched by the bombing in World War Two. So it’s mostly original and not newly rebuilt like many other cities.
Our starting point was Krakow, Poland. We planned a day here to see the sights and adjust to the time zone, and I’m so glad that we did. This was a great city with a beautiful historic old town area awesome food. We did a Segway tour to get the layout of things and then wandered around the old town square and side streets.
Krakow was also an interesting start to some World War Two history that we were interested in seeing. It was occupied by the Nazis and was the location of Oskar Schindler’s factory (“Schindlers List”). We visited the factory which is now a very well done museum telling the story of Nazi occupation and the lives of the Jews who worked for Schindler and were eventually saved by him. We also walked through the Jewish ghetto (if you ever saw Schindlers List, this was the neighborhood where the Jews were taken from their homes and sent to concentration camps). And many were killed here in these streets before they ever made it to a camp.
Yesterday was training day at the fire tower in Brooks. I think we all had a great time playing with fire. P.S. Kids, don’t play with fire…unless you have a couple of fire engines handy and at the ready.
Kenzie’s first meet for fun and she did great!
Freestyle 25 – 20 (2nd)
Backstroke 25 – 31 (3rd)
Butterfly 25 – 38.21 (4th)
For the last day in Cuba, Kenzie wanted to stay on the ship in the kids club, so Jodi and I headed out on our own for a walk around Havana. We were looking for some gifts to bring back (including some cigars) and ended up chatting with some people along the sea wall walk. They suggested a little place off the beaten path where we could get a great deal. This was definitely not the “government store”, but we were feeling adventurous. 🙂
We were told to go was down this neighborhood street, make a right at the yellow building (all the buildings were yellow), then look for the alley on the right. What could go wrong? So off we went, and before we knew it we found these 3 nice (and very large) gentleman monitoring the entrance to an alleyway and they escorted us down through a corridor, and eventually into some lady’s living room.
As promised, there was a wide selection of fine cigars. What a country! I was not about to take any pictures, but I did happen to leave my GoPro running on my shoulder so I managed to pull a few shots of the experience from it. Definitely, an experience to remember!
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