August 8th.
Arrive at Newark Airport. Our family friend Ollie drove us. The flight was delayed twice. While waiting at the gate, I finished up "Peanut Butter Falcon", which I saw the first half hour of at my friends house before we stopped watching because we were laughing so hard, we were waking up his 11 year old cousin who was staying over. Very good movie. We started boarding around maybe midnight? They offered 1500 United bucks to one person who volunteered to get off of the overbooked flight. I swore that for 2000, I would have done the same. Sat in-between a couple. One liked the aisle and another liked the window. Real nice guy. Quiet gal. They were part of a family group of 11 going to tour Ireland. The baby one row up was crying, but eventually stopped. I fell asleep within a half hour. Missed the in-flight dinner. Woke up to go the bathroom, and again about 45 minutes before landing.
August 9th.
Arrive at Shannon Airport. I used my freshly-minted Irish passport to enter Ireland, which ironically caused an issue about two weeks later. We had to wait a bit to pick up our rental car. They swapped it from a VW T-Rock to a Citroen something-or-other. It was bigger, but not enough to not have luggage spill over in the center seat. We drove straight to my aunt's home in Limerick. While there, my mom and I took a walk around the town.
We retired to squat at our Grandmother's house.
August 10th.
Drive to Lough Derg, specifically, 2 Mile Gate.
Enjoy a few hours of sitting near the water, and walking through the wooded area nearby. Some wonderful shots of life around this place.
August 11th.
Drive to Cashel.
When leaving, stop by this nice small castle.
We eat dinner riverside, and watch the Olympics 4x400 relay on my phone at the restaurant table.
August 12th.
Big driving day. Stopped by Aunt's again. Now Thats What I Call Music 21 is on a cassete tape. I recognize only one song. The price of the cassettes is listed in pounds instead of Euros. If the fact that it was on a cassette tape wasn't informative enough, the currency that it was priced with makes it absolutely certain how old the tape was. We drive to Lahinch, then Doolin. Absolutely stunning.
August 13th.
Late night flight from Shannon to Poland. RyanAir, of course. I have learned that the passport you enter the country is the one you leave it in. Not the other way around. The flight lands right around midnight in Poland. We take a taxi to the accomodation we rented. It's a small apartment in a modern building. The "up" button on the elevator doesn't work. However, the "down" button still calls the elevator. I fall asleep quickly.
August 14th.
Wroclaw! Public transportation is extremely abundant. Working ticket machines are not. The one at the airport was broken, and so was the one closest to our apartment. We eventually get our hands on 48 hour tickets.
My sister gets her hair done. While this is going on, my dad and I visit a nearby church and explore the interior of a hotel that his friend helped design some part of. We all get some amazing stuffed pancakes. Mine had bananas and nutella, and was covered in coconut flakes. After this, we get a "massage". It's really more of a "find something that hurts and press on it" session. I explore the train station in Wroclaw. I came at a great hour, and the sun lit up the inside wonderfully. There's an upstairs that's a lot more peaceful to wait around in.
As for the rest of the city, historical buildings are everywhere, and so is the graffiti. Sometimes it's cute, but it can give the city an unkept vibe. The colors of buildings are wonderful.
August 15th.
Wroclaw, again. Again, the city is stunning. Golden light touches buildings painted with such beautiful colors.
Visiting the panoramic painting was really interesting. The voiceover which described each scene in the artwark was translated very well. Some of the photos were shot through my sunglasses, which have a heavy sepia filter. It's not a perfect representation of the way it tints the light to my eyes, but the camera gets close.
We walk through a small park, and past this wonderful building covered in ivy.
In the evening, We visit my dad's friend and they give us some amazing dessert. He studies electromagnetic radiation and had some interesting tidbits on the subject.
August 16th.
Leaving Wroclaw. I'm driving, so I don't get to take any photos. Absolutely criminal. The car is a Skoda Superb in a wagon form. It's a diesel, and pretty nice. I never thought I'd like a speed limiter in a car, but in a country that doesn't have as relaxed a policy on speed limits as New Jersey, it's very convenient to just set it to 50 or 90kph and leave my foot on the accelerator. However, the pedal's tuning is abysmal. It's a slow, smooth ride if you press down less than ~50%, but the instant you go above, it decides that all torque must go to the ground. Unfortunately, the tires and traction control "work together" to squeal the tires, jerk the car, and accelerate only a smidge quicker. It's an embarrasing event every time. This is all made up for with space for 7 pieces of luggage comfortably below the trunk cover. America needs to "discover" the station wagon again. On the way to Krakow, we stop by my dad's friend's house. This guy is a psychologist by trade but does interior design work. It's clear that the latter is his real passion. He has a beautiful property with goats and dogs and cats.
We arrive in Krakow in a very nice apartment. This one, however, requires us to walk up a flight of stairs. Downright torturous. I find that the previous occupants left their Amazon Prime account logged in to the smart tv. Amateurs. I watch the first half-hour of "The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare" with my family.
August 17th.
Parousing Krakow. The old town is real nice. Unfortunately, the big tower is under some renovations. It's about as disappointing as going to New York and finding out that the flatiron building has been under a tarp for months, and you won't get a good photo of it.
On our walk to Wawel castle, we peruse the city square. The word for city square in Polish is called Rynek, of which I am constantly reminded of by my dad. They have these boujee little booths that sell a variety of food and other products, and I have this really good, but really greasy thing they like to call "grilled cheese", which is grilled cheese, but does not resemble the American type. It's almost like a grilled pouch of dough with cheese inside of it, instead of cheese being grilled between two slices of bread.
We make our way over to Wawel Castle. It turns out that you can only get a student discount for a tour of the church inside the castle walls if you have an international student ID of some sort. The online student portal wasn't going to cut it, and I left my physical school ID card in the US. Oh well.
As you can see, I'm a sucker for arches. Walking back to the town square, I get a good shot of towers that aren't currently under renovation, recreate a 17 year old photo (not shown) of my sister and I, and try to get the birds to land on our arms by bribing them with bread.
These birds were spoiled brats.
August 18th.
Krakow, continued. We start the day off by visiting a flea market. On the walk to there, I take these photos.
Why a flea market in Poland? I'm a sucker for watches. Unfortunately, our time was limited, and I didn't get a chance to really visit half the tables. The only watches of value were some old Tissots, and unfortunately, the sellers knew what they had. My sister and mom had better luck, scoring nice earrings. We take a train to visit a salt mine. Before we walked up to the mine, we stopped for some much-needed snacks at this restaurant.
We eventually got to the mine, which was really impressive inside - grand halls, sculptures, and even a chapel.
We take the same train back to Krakow. First, we take this gorgeous walk through Krakow to a hotel that we meet my Dad's architect friend. He's working on their interior courtyard's furniture.
He explains to me that the large concrete planter is actually a bit of a facade - the concrete is just a centimeter-thick shell around a steel frame. Since there's a parking garage under the hotel, there's a consideration of the weight of everything that goes on top of it. Additionally, all the wood used in the benches is this tropical wood that is very resistant to water. It's probably very expensive. Regardless, his explanation of the design process was very interesting, and I never really considered the weight and durability of materials when looking at all these buildings and structures.
For dinner, we walk 20 minutes from the hotel to a busy part of town. We eat with the same friend of my dad's, as he joined us a little later. I had some real good soup. On the walk home, I get some ice cream. Salted caramel is always a delight, but the post-caramel clarity really makes you feel fat.
August 19th.
Leaving Krakow. On the way to our next destination, we stop by this castle in Dobczyce. It's a bit of a climb, but the view over this lake is stunning.
The lack of ADA compliant steps for touristy spots was the joke of the vacation. We arrive to Szczawnica, but not to our accomodation. Apparently, it's down this pedestrian walkway that follows the river, and up this winding road that I don't really trust a family station wagon to get up without slipping. It had been raining the whole drive there. My dad confirms that yes, we're expected to drive up this crazy driveway, and so I give the car a bit of speed and make it up the whole roadway. I'm glad I didn't run into someone trying to leave at the same time, because backing down that thing would have been quite a tall order. We get our bags to the Inn, and again, we need to walk up two sets of stairs to our room. It feels like a hostel, with 4 beds in a large room, and a bathroom to the side. There's no fans, and the room is too hot. Opening the windows just lets the bugs in. Deciding that the bugs were better than sweat, we slept with the balcony door and the windows open wide. This was the view from the balcony of our room.
August 20th.
Lazy river ride. Big hike. This breakfast is quite possibly the best eggs I have ever had in my life. However, I have many decades of life left to find even better eggs. I'm hopeful, but I'm not holding my breath.
My dad told us we would be "white water rafting" on our trip. This was not white water rafting. This was a lazy river ride.
The ride was wonderful. Mostly calm, but there were plenty of spots in the river where the current started to really move us quick. We met lots of other boats on the river trip, and at some point, there was quite literally a traffic jam. Overall, it was great. Beautiful views.
After the lazy river ride, we go for a hike. The trail was marked, but we still somehow chose the hard path. The trail actually ended right outside our accomodation!
August 21th.
Drive to Ozary. We arrive at about 4pm. These are some of the photos from our walk from the house to a nearby store for some groceries. It was so serene in this neighborhood. It felt more like intruding in a small town than being a tourist.
We went to an expensive place to dinner, which had a really good burger.
August 22th.
Last day in Ozary.
We visit a coal mine. The minecart still works! No photos. It was very dark and moist in the cave.
On the way back to Ozary, we drive through a national park to do a short hike. To my delight, this was a thrilling drive. Narrow roads with plenty of curves were awesome to snake through. I would have to say that my GTA 5 and Dirt Rally experience wasn't really inspiring confidence in my parents sitting next to me, but it's not often that one gets to drive on such roads. The center line on a Polish country road is a luxury that doesn't come often, and when traffic came from the opposite direction, I was always judging if I would need to pull off to the side to let them pass. Once we made it through the snake of a roadway, we disembarked to go walk up a mountain.
It was a pretty short hike, we were up and down in less than an hour and a half, and the walk back to the car revealed some wonderful landscapes.
We get back to Ozary for our last night there. Smores for dessert. There was a great little fire pit to which we put to good use.
August 23th.
Drive to Wroclaw. We return the car. We get back in the same short-rent apartment! I go to another flea market. I didn't get a watch this time, but it was because I was being stingy when haggling. I should have just bought the watch, it was real cheap. There's a lot of photos of Wroclaw here. I couldn't decide which to get rid of, so I kept them all here.
For dinner, we travel out a bit to meet a friend of my Dad's. Of course, the trams are more than happy to take us there.
These were some of the last photographs I took on the vacation.
I particularly like this last photo. Nothing quite reveals history and the globalization of our economy quite like this scene; A Vietnamese restaurant proudly showing that they have WiFi, and the backdrop of communist-bloc apartments.
August 24th.
Leaving Wroclaw. Again, RyanAir "flies" us back to the the real greenland, Ireland. We arrive at Shannon Airport Ireland at 2pm. At 4, we get into Limerick with a rental car. It's a bright red Volkswagen T-ROC. It can only fit 4 pieces of luggage in the trunk. Absolutely useless. Regardless, we enjoy the best fish and chips in Limerick, namely, Donkey Fords. Everything on their menu except for the beer battered sausages and burger patties pairs well with Club Orange.
August 26th.
I sit in my grandmother's house and work on this photo blog.
August 27th.
I get a haircut from an Albanian man in Limerick. He's lived there since 2004. Not the most confident barber I've had. He asked his brother to help him with the back of my head. I don't like the haircut.