Oscypek in the mountains

Yesterday we hiked over 20km through the Tatra mountains. It was cold and a bit misty at times but we had a good day. Our first stop was the famous Morskie Oko (lake). After 9 km of hiking on a very good asphalt road that is now closed to public traffic we reached the lake. We couldn't see much of the mountains but it was still a beautiful alpine lake. Thanks to the weather we could also move around as there weren't too many people there. There have been as many as 17,000 people visit the lake in one day!

We took a horse cart down the trail to escape the rain and save some time and then hiked back into the mountains in search of cheese. The trail to Polona Rusinowa was much more interesting as it was made of rocks and steps and felt like a proper hike. After about an hour we reached a clearing. You could hear the sound of logs being loaded onto trucks and I thought I heard a sheep. We reached the crest of the hill and sure enough there was a little cabin and not too far away a flock of sheep. One of the shepherds was carrying down a pail of fresh milk while another sold us some oscypek smoked cheese, some fresh cheese and some sheep's milk. It was all delicious. And so fresh!

Happy 4th of July

We spent the night in Lourdes for the 4th of July. It's a popular pilgrimage site that has become very touristy with tons of shops selling candles, rosaries, and bottles you can use to collect the holy water. And at night it all gets lit up with neon lights. 

If you can put the tourism aside though it is really an impressive complex with so many diverse chapels and churches in such a small place. You can give confession in at least 6 different languages and people come from all over to heal themselves. 

Every night at 9 they have a short mass procession with candles. It was a rainy evening and still so many people showed up for it. I can't imagine how many people must visit this place each year if there were so many for just an ordinary day! 

We weren't expecting to have the town fetes too. After the mass we walked through the neon lit tourist streets to the carnival and outdoor concert that was set up for the Lourdes festival. We waited for the main act to take the stage - Willy William. He sang Happy Birthday, which was cool since it was the 4th of July. Happy birthday USA!

Trilingual Reunion

After five years we have finally managed to see our French friends that we met in Spain. Between the five of us we all lack knowledge in one of our three common languages -French, English, and Spanish. With me being the worst in my lack of French. Somehow we managed to communicate all of us with a funny mixture of the three languages.

I was really looking forward to this visit and finally seeing our friends again and somehow it was even better than I could ever have imagined. We had so much fun and learnt so much about the food and culture in the north of France. I'm learning alot about french cheese. We went to a supermarket and they had an entire aisle just for cheese! And all of them different! I think we had cheese and dessert after every meal, even if there was already lots of cheese in the meal. Like the flamiche au maroilles that we had for dinner.

We visited an old swimming pool that has now been transformed into a really cool art museum. And it's in a town that used to be very famous for its textile industry so there were some old fabric catalogues and fashion exhibits in the museum too.

Today we explored Lille and it was full of Swiss people for the French Swiss soccer game tonight that was in the Lille stadium. (We went to the fan zone for another game last night and I scored a goal to win a bag! We even saw the Swiss soccer team yesterday by coincidence as they were staying at the hotel right by the museum and arriving just as we were leaving the museum.) 

Lille's such a nice city (even with all the drunken soccer fans) and so easy to walk around or take the metro or tram. Lots of character and of course delicious food. Apparently we need at least two weeks to try everything typical of the region but I think we got a pretty good sample.

Thanks guys for everything! I hope we get the chance to host you soon. Missyou already.

Copenhagen

So even with a delayed flight from Boston we still had a bit of time to get out of the airport and explore Copenhagen. It's very easy to get from the airport to the city. We got an overview of the city by climbing a tower with a spiral staircase around the outside. It didn't have a top landing- the stairs just kept getting narrower and narrower until you couldn't climb any higher. 

After this we explored the Christiania neighborhood that was recommended to us by a lovely older couple we met while waiting in Boston for our delayed flight to board. They said it was a friendly, open neighborhood that smells a bit like Amsterdam and is very safe with no trouble and lots of interesting houses. They were right. You aren't allowed to take photos on one of the streets so pardon my hand blocking the photo but I thought it was interesting how the booths were set up to block the identity of the sellers. We didn't explore too much because we had a flight to catch to Paris.