There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

Same morning routine as yesterday. Today we were going to investigate the synagogues around the old town of Kazimierz. This part was known as the Jewish quarter, and for a while, was a separate town from Krakow. Apparently Krakow has over 600 churches, but Kazimierz has like 30 synagogues.

This is the "Old Synagogue", the oldest synagogue still standing in Krakow, and now a museum of Jewish history. Now, I used to work at a Jewish summer camp for kids (only counsellor there to have gone to a Catholic summer camp as a child, raised by a Buddhist wannabe mother, and Presbyterian grandmother), so I thought I knew a bit about Judaism, but damn! I have no idea how anyone can keep orthodox these days. For example, it's forbidden for Jews to work at all Friday to Sunday. This includes cooking, cleaning, lighting candles, making fires, etc. Fair enough. Which is why is ye olden times, children under the age of 13 did all that stuff for their families since children under 13 wern't seen as proper Jews until they underwent their bar mitzvah/bat mitzvahs. But then came electricy. Was flipping on a switch the same as lighting a candle? Yes. As is powering up any electronics. Like computers, cell phones, and elevators. Which is why apparently there are some elevators in orthodox communities that are programmed to stop on each floor in a cycle so that no one has to 'work' to press a button. But I can't imagine having to either never turn the lights on or on the flip side, never turn them off, thus having to either live in a world of darkness or pay out the nose for electricity. Unless you can always have a live in slave child.....

Anyway, the Nazis went through and removed all the Jews, but they left a fair ammount of the buildings in the Jewish quarter for other purposes.

Afterwards, we wandered down the Planty. The Planty used to be part of the moat surrounding Wawel castle, but was drained and converted to a garden walkway in the 18th century. It's filled with benches, trees, flowers, and is a nice stroll around the perimeter of the Old Town. For dinner, we went to this authentic Polish restaurant where the seats are big wooden benches covered in sheep hides. Spinning wheels and other farm utensils cover the walls.



The food is really good too! We got Pork Knuckle, something we've seen a lot on the menus. It's basically a large part of pork (but don't know what part the knuckle is-- either the knee or ankle) and it takes 2-3 people to eat it. I also got a side of beets which were so sweet and delicious I could have eaten it as a meal unto itself. Like candy. Only beet-ier. The meal also came with bread and two spreads: Cream cheese and chives, and LARD. Or as The Dad called it, drippings. Aka the white fat and oil that most people drain off their bacon in fatty solidified form. He loved it and couldn't stop eating it, but the rest of us gave it a miss. Okay, well it is me here, so naturally I tried it, but have to say I didn't really enjoy it. Afterwards we walked back through the Jewish Market Square, which is nothing but clubs are bars, to get some drinks. And that's where I had my first taste of Cherry Vodka. Oh my god, it's delicious, especially mixed with coke.

Seriously. This isn't just your granny's flavoured voddy, it's a cherry cordial called Wisniowka, which you either sip from big shot glasses or, if you're like me, have in coke. And I just remember I lied- we actually had this drink at the crazy restaurant that served me the giant stien of beer. After the meal, as if we weren't tipsy enough, they came around and gave everyone a shot of this Cherry Vodka as an after meal digestive. That we sipped. I just forgot about that part until now. Anyway, the bar we were in was pretty cool. The whole place was lit up with candles. There were 3 rooms to the place, and you entered from one to the over via a wardroboe. As in, why have a door/archway into another room when you can have people walk through a wardrobe, C.S. Lewis style? But after a few drinks, it was getting late, so we swayed ourselve outside and back to the hotel.