Kaden's Trip to Kraków, Poland

Kaden's Year 9 (8th grade) class took a trip to Kraków, Poland! The trips are designed to help the kids bond with their teachers and classmates, but they also get to do a bunch of fun activities and learn about the history of the area, too!

We had to drive him to the airport at like 4:30 in the morning to meet up with his teachers and classmates, but he was all smiles and ready to go.

Kaden had a pretty good flight, except he said "There was some weird guy on the plane saying, "Oy, oy, oy! Who wants to go to the Four Seasons Orlando?!" the whole time."

When they arrived at the Kraków Airport, they collected their luggage and took a train to the Kraków city center, where they checked into their hostel. We were told we should send the kids with some Polish Złoty (the currency of Poland), but I couldn't figure out how to get some in a timely fashion. I even asked the mother of Harrison's friend from Poland, but she said they always use a card when they go home. Finally, we just loaded my bank card onto his Apple Pay and hoped for the best. It was fine.

The teachers gave them some time to unpack and settle in, and then the kids got to buy their own lunches in the city!

The first day, they did a walking tour of the city center. I had asked Kaden to take some photos, including at least one selfie. He balked, but complied and I was very pleased.

Town square

There were horse carriages to give tourists a ride around town, but the kids didn't want to spend money one one.

They had free time until dinner, so Kaden and his roommates hung out in the hostel and found a park where they could play Infection Tag.

Dinner was at the hostel, then they had some nice time to relax and socialize, and he actually called us to tell us about his day! It was so nice to talk to him. We talked for quite a while. I think he was a little homesick right at first, but that eased up quickly. 

The next day, Kaden's group went to the Museum of Illusions. He thought the illusions were cool to look at, and he said the guide did a nice job explaining each illusion. He thought the information was interesting, but then they stood around for too long between the exhibits so all the kids could take turns exploring each one and he got bored.

Kaden and his classmate on opposite sides of the same illusion

* * *

The next day, they had a big trip to the Wieliczka Salt Mines. He thought the salt mines were really cool and sent us a picture of the staircase right away.

The church in the salt mine

I felt like the luckiest mother in the world because he called us AGAIN that night and told us all about his experience at the salt mine. He had a really nice time down there and it seemed like he had eased into his new setting a little better.

* * *

The following day, we didn't hear from him until almost 11:00 p.m. after I texted him goodnight. He said he forgot to text because they had gotten back very late. They had a pretty big day. They played a kind of scavenger hunt/escape room thing through the town square. He said they had to solve clues and find the answers to move around the town, but when I asked him, he couldn't remember what any of them were. Haha!

They also had a great tour of Wawel Castle. He said, "They gave us these little headphone things and then we got to just go around the castle and explore on our own with the audio guide in groups of three."

He said it was neat, but also that he took zero pictures. I'll train him one of these days...

One other memorable event they did was a river cruise. He said there was no guide talking to them or anything, the boat just drove them up the river and back down again while they looked at things. He said it rained hard and there were some people having a big roof party on top of a hotel or something as they passed by.

In the morning, they had breakfast in the hostel, packed up their things, and took the train to the airport. I went down on public transport to pick him up, and he was not pleased that we had to take the metro and the train back home because it was pretty warm out (i.e. stuffy trains). I bought him a juice at the airport to placate him and it improved his mood a little.

We were so happy he was able to go on the trip and have the experience (but it was also really nice to have him home)!