As the bard said all’s well that ends well.  We boarded the plane in Salt Lake City, after having to do what neither of us anticipated to do at arrival. Checked luggage was fine – mine was way underweight, but my carry-on stuff had to be redistributed because I was told it was too heavy. Marek had to check a bag not just take a carry-one for the same reason. At check-in, the very nice but insistent person told us that the bags would be weighed before boarding the plane. Of course they were not.

We boarded the plane, and just as we expected it to take off, the pilot announced it would be delayed – the amount of fuel they had loaded was about 300 liters (I think he said liters) was too little and the people who do that sort of thing needed to come back and actually put in sufficient fuel for us to arrive at our destination.

We had less than an hour to make a connecting flight in Amsterdam, so this was a little concerning – there would be a rather large airport to rush through and passport control, but of course it was out of our control. So, we sat back to wait, because of course, there was nothing else we could do.

We arrived in Krakow safely after an uneventful flight and found that the flight we were to take had a delayed departure of about 25 minutes, and although there was a long line at passport control with only two windows open, we got to the gate just as boarding had begun.

Tired and  hungry, we got to Krakow and to our delight, saw sun outside! The weather forecast had prepared us for rain, clouds, thunderstorms and more of the same for the next week.

We arrived at our hotel. We had hoped that this hotel, the Hotel Wawel, situated close to Kazimierz, Krakow’s historic Jewish quarter would prove to be as charming as what we saw online – the hotel we stayed at last year, the Polski, didn’t have openings.  A short drive up a cobblestoned street, and we arrived at our destination.  The staff was wonderful the hotel is charming, and their recommendation for dinner – right on the main street, Miod Malina, was wonderful.  I had halibut over black beans, and kopytka which is a potato dumpling similar to gnocchi; and Marek had potato pancakes with goulash.  Ice cream of course followed when we walked through the streets of Krakow. The pistachio was less than supreme but the chocolate I chose (72%) was wonderful.  Who knew – the chocolate ice cream, like bars of chocolate comes in different percentages.

Tomorrow morning we are off to the archives.