Day 7 - July 4, 2018; Who Knew Salt Was Good for You? (Everybody)

Whew, what a day! Today we went to the Krakow Salt Mines. By we, I mean Grandma, Isabella and I. First, we ate breakfast at our hotel (Thanks Mom!), after which we called an uber to take us to the mines. The uber could not get into the space where we had parked, some sort of laws where preventing it. That meant had to walk to the closest area where the uber could park. Nothing like a morning stroll through a park with smokers everywhere. 

When we finally got to the mines, we decided to get our tickets. Initially, we had gotten them online, but we needed some sort of handheld ticket to get in. Grandpa walked us over to the “Online Registration” ticket booth, but the lady inside said something about not being able to do it, other booth, wrong company, blah blah blah. We went to find the correct booth, which was, as the lady said, near the train station. Here’s the thing, WE DIDN’T KNOW WHERE THE STATION WAS!!! The person in the booth just said, near the train station.

We had to stop for directions three times. During that fifteen minute period, Grandpa probably smoked I don’t know, like four cigarettes. He was soooooooooo stressed. When we finally went to the booth, it was closed. Finally, after a five minute wait, we went in and got some sticker to stick to our clothing so our guide knew who we were. Then we waited, and waited and waited. Eventually, our guide came and led us into the mine. We walked down stairs for what felt like eternity, but finally we reached the bottom. Our guide began telling us that we had to buy a sticker to allow us to take photographs. Ha! Who in their right mind would by a meaningless stamp for 10 zlotys? No really, please tell me. I took photos without the sticker and didn’t get in trouble. 

Every statue in the cave was made of salt. And no, it wasn’t the pretty white sparkling stuff e use in cooking snd baking, no. The whole salt mine was green-gray, but it was edible. The guide let us try some. It was salty. So yeah. We walked around for two hours, listening to the guide explain all the myths and stories of the mine. When we left the mine, we were so tired, and hungry. I gobbled down my tomato soup Grandpa got me in a manner of second. It would have been less, but the soup was very hot.

Then, we walked over to the train station, but the train was delayed by a few hours, so Grandpa had to call an uber again. We got back to the city, changed into better, more suitable for the hot summer, weather clothes, and went exploring. First, we stopped by Dad, who was working at a nearby Starbucks. Then, we went to a galleria, where we got Grandma a very fat horse for her collection. Afterwards, we ate at a very crummy Polish restaurant with Dad and drove back to Warsaw. And that’s how this day went down in history, July 4, 2018.