After playing cards last night, we woke up so late this morning that we ended up going out for lunch instead. We decided to try Moa Burger- a place recommended by Corinne’s church friend. Although it’s more New Zealand cuisine than Polish cuisine, this friend swears by it plus it has received many good reviews, so we had to try it. While we expected the burgers to be fairly large, we certainly did not expect them to turn out as big as they were. The Moa burger comprises a beef patty, bacon strips, onions, lettuce, beetroot slices, pineapple rings, tomato slices and some sauce. The burger was literally bigger than my hand and we felt so intimidated just looking at the size of it. The burger was a challenge but we had fries/wedges and milkshakes on top of it, so we unknowingly made our lives more difficult for ourselves. Eventually, all of us did manage to finish that mountain of food, but we’re certainly not going to have burgers anytime soon.
Desperately needing to walk all that food off, we headed to the Wawel Royal Castle. There were multiple cathedrals in that area as well as various exhibitions housed within the castle, but because each one had their own admission ticket, we decided to save some money and explore the open areas instead. The courtyard was relatively pretty, so we had a mini photoshoot session haha.
We then took a long walk around the castle, pausing in between to soak in the sun.
As we were leaving the area, we chanced upon ‘The Dragon’s Den’- this underground cave-like thing at the bottom of the hill, on which the castle stood. Unfortunately, I never actually found out its significance or its purpose 
We took a short break by having tea in this really hipster-looking cafe, but it wasn’t long before we set off for the Jewish Quarters. Initially, we planned to simply walk around the area on our own, but we chanced upon a guide giving one of those free walking tours (they’re not actually free because people tip the guides at the end as an actof courtesy, but y’know because they work for their tips, they put in alot of effort to show people around). He covered so much content about Jewish culture, history of the Polish Jews, etc that I’m so tired from absorbing all that information.
One of the new things I’ve learnt today was about Jewish customs- apparently, Kosher food is the food that are fit for Jews to eat. Jewish rules dictate that the animal must have hooves and must be able to chew and that dairy cannot be eaten together with meat (for example, cheeseburgers are a strict no-no unless the cheese was made out of soy milk). The blood of the animal must also be drained, otherwise the meat will be deemed to be contaminated. I’ve never really known what Jewish culture was like, so it was really insightful having someone introduce these things to us.
A large part of the tour was dedicated to the war-time history in the Jewish Quarter, particulary in and around the Jewish Ghetto. According to him, about 6000 Poles were displaced from the original area and 18,000 Jews were deported to the Ghetto area. Outside of the Ghetto, Jews literally had no right to live and would be executed immediately. Living conditions within the Ghetto were inhumane, with food rations being restricted to less than 600 calories per person each day and the young and elderly were regularly sent to the concentration camps to be executed. Walls were built to demarcate the Ghetto and they resembled the curved headstones common to Jewish graveyards- the walls were deliberately designed to symbolise the impending doom the Jews were going to face.
When we got to Schindler’s factory, the guide also explained how inaccurate Hollywood’s version of the story was. For example, Schindler wasn’t a hero from the very beginning, in fact he forcefully the acquired the factory from 3 Jewish owners- 1 of which only agreed under the threat of force. He only decided to do what he did towards the end of the war when he realised that the Nazis were losing.
Honestly, there was so much information that I simply can’t remember everything that he has said. I’ve written down what I can remember/ what I find interesting but it really is just the tip of the iceberg. All in all, it was an incredibly educational journey and I’m so glad we stuck through the entire 2.5 hours.
We have a rather early start tomorrow, so we headed back after grabbing dinner at the same place as last night. That’s pretty much it for today, goodnight!!
adventuresofxmm 