I know that many of you are waiting for my “Part 2” of “Part2” about Spring Break, but I'm not finished with it yet. I am sorry, but you know finals are coming up and so you will have to give me a break. On the bright side we did go to Kraków this weekend. This is how it went.
Kraków sits on top of a salt mine. Miles and miles of salt mines. We were allowed the opportunity to explore part of the mines. When we arrived, they told us that once we got down there it was going to be cold. “Cold.” It ended up being around 65 degrees (which for us non-Europeans, is pretty perfect). The mines are always kept between 15 17 degrees Celsius for preservation purposes. They took many different steps to preserve the museum beside the temperature factor. One example is that all the corridors were sealed. Each corridor had an air supply that was specific to the type of salt that was within that section of the mine. Between each corridor was a section resembling a mini hallway that was used to separate the different corridors. The door from the corridor that we had just left had to be shut and sealed before thee next one could be opened. We even had a little trouble with the elevator. The elevator wouldn’t go up and let us out because the last door we went through had not been shut. This would have released the pressure that this corridor had been holding and would have through the whole system off. My guess is that they had had this problem before and stopping the elevator was the solution.
Enough about the system, the salt mines were my favorite part of the weekend. When asked what I did this weekend, my answer would be “licked some walls,” because that is exactly what I did. The tour began with 53 flights consisting of over 350 stairs. Down. Once we got down, of course, walls were to be licked.
How’d they taste exactly?
Salty.
The structures they have built down there were amazing. There were exhibits (obviously) for the museum and then there were creations from the past hundreds of years. There was a fully functioning chapel that was carved from the walls and the salt complete with a balcony, a carving of “The Last Supper,” and baby Jesus in a manger. It was built entirely by three men, one whom is still alive; it took them 70 years to complete it. There was also a party hall that had been there for a couple hundred years. It took 100 years to take all the salt out of the room that it had been constructed in. It used to host balls, dinners, and other formal gatherings. A wall within the salt mine had been turned into a screen for a cinema. The creativity they had to construct some of these things is way above my level. The beauty.
I can honestly say that I will never be so excited to lick some walls.
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