It was a big day today.  I could hardly sleep last night.  We were being picked up at 8:30 and taken to the Motorola Krakow office.  Since I was going to be in town, I really wanted to stop in the office and try to meet some people that I’ve been working with for a while.

Aneta helped me arrange a conference room where I could meet with people.  I sent out emails last week to let them know I would be in the office today.  I had gotten a few responses.  There were a lot of people I should have told, but I couldn’t think of everyone.

Our driver picked us up at the hotel and drove us out to the office.  He was giving us all kinds of facts about the city and the population here.  It was amazing to see some of the things he was telling us about.  The drive is only about 15 minutes or so out there.  Marcin had taken us by there the night before we were buzzing around town.

I had trouble with my badge getting into the building.  The young lady at the front desk fixed the issues for me.  We went upstairs, but couldn’t get into the office area.  A very nice young man let us in.  We found our conference room and then realized it was the wrong one!  Oops!  We went down the hall a couple of more rooms and found Mississippi.

After Rich got his computer up and running, we sent out emails to let people know where were in.  Rich had a meeting scheduled with a couple of developers working on a tool that could interface with his tool set.  I figured I would meet with some of the developers I work with and go down to the meeting with them.

Pawel and Mikolaj from one of the teams showed up.  I was glad to see them.  Pawel has worked with us for a while now.  Jacek with whom we have met a few times came by as well.  After talking for a bit, Pawel (No, Rich’s Pawel) came by to pick him.  We packed up and walked down to another building for their meeting.

I got my email running and answered people and made comments back to my team.  I had a meeting with another team at 12:30 for a few minute.  I gathered up my stuff and walked back to the original conference room.  I was running late, but caught them before they left.  We grabbed a small breakout room and talked for a bit.  I realized we were having a shared experience and offered them some additional information help.  In the end, this should help my team as well.  It was good meeting.

I walked down to Building A to try and catch up with Rich and his development contacts.  I met them along with Marcin and Aneta.  That was great.  We all went to lunch in the cafeteria.  This was an experience.  The plates are weighed and you pay by weight.  The food was really good compared to other cafeterias I’ve been in.

After lunch, Marcin gave us a tour of the labs in the development building.  It was pretty and clean.  The older side of the lab was a little more of a tangle, but still pretty nice.  We walked through the SIT testing lab and looked at their environment.  It is similar to what we have in Schaumburg.

We made arrangements with Marcin to meet at the hotel and go up to the Kosciuszko’s Mound before heading to dinner.  It was a plan.  We met our driver back at Building C and headed back to the hotel.

We arrived at the hotel to find our room being cleaned.  We dropped our stuff and went down to get coffee and go sit in the Planty or park just outside the old wall.  We watched the students walking by.  A lot of business people seemed to be out for a stroll or getting somewhere quick.  A bicycle came zooming by and almost took out Rich’s foot.  Good thing he was quick.

We went back to our room and gathered our laundry.  Time to do one more load that would get us through the rest of trip.  I unloaded my suitcase and we placed all of the laundry in it with the detergent I had bought in Germany.  Outside the hotel, we headed out the Florian Gate and into the Planty.  Rich had mapped out a way to the Laundromat that the front desk had marked for us.  It was only a couple of blocks away.

We got in the vicinity of where we thought it should be.  No Laundromat though.  I went into a shop to ask about the Laundromat, but the lady didn’t speak English.  I went over to the next shop where a nice older gentleman spoke great English and came out into the street to show where it was.

In the Laundromat, we now had to figure out the machines and how to pay for it.  I separated the load and got it into the machine.  Rich had some money to feed the washers, but needed more for the dryers.  You put money into a cashpoint on the wall and selected the machine you wanted.  Pretty cool.

We got the washers going and Rich went out in search of change.  Pretty soon, he was back with no luck for getting the 50 zloty bill changed.  He set off in the other directions.  I looked up and Rich was back with bottles of water and orange candied pacnzkis.  He had successfully gotten change for the 50 and something good to show for it!

We ate the delicious doughtnuts and found orange filling inside.  This was a good day.  The washers completed and I moved everything over to the dryers.  It took a couple of cycles to get things most of the way dry so we could pack them up.

While we were waiting for the dryers, young man came in with two rather large IKEA bags full of laundry.  It was apparent very quickly that he had never done laundry before.  From his speech, I believe he was French.  I assumed he was a student in the area.

Rich walked him through getting the washers to run by putting money into the cashpoint.  Unfortunately, he stuffed everything into the washer today.  Then he didn’t even add soap!  He left the washer to run without waiting around for it.  His clothes might be somewhat clean, but not really.

A couple of British young ladies came in and started a machine.  It seemed that they had done this before.  Of course, they didn’t stay around either.  From what they said, they already knew about the bakery down the street and were determined to go and find something sweet.  I don’t blame them.

Our dryers finished and we folded up the clothes.  After loading them back into the suitcase in an orderly manner, we were back on the street and heading for the hotel.  We just backtracked exactly as we came in and were in our room in no time.

Then at 6:00, we were downstairs to meet Marcin and Aneta for a tour of the Kosciuszko’s Mound.  Traffic was absolutely horrible. It took a good while to get around the city and find out what out to the mound.  Marcin drove right up a hill to the fort that surrounded the mound.  At the gate, the man said he would only take cash.  Rich handed over the money and got the family deal since there were four of us.

We climbed the stairs to the roof and walked out on the first level of the mound.  There was a paved path that wound all around the mound.  This path used switchbacks to get us to the top.  From up there, the entire city and surrounding countryside was laid out before us.  Aneta pointed out the Tatra Mountains to the southwest.  This is where we are headed on Friday to Zakopane.

We could see the St Mary’s Basilica which indicated where the main square was.  We could see the entire town on the eastern side of the mound.  Aneta had explained about a monastery on the mountain opposite of the mound where friars lived in silence tending their gardens.  The sunset was showing off in that direction so I took a picture with the monastery displayed on the mountain.

We walked back down the mound and wandered over to the fort.  Most of this area was undergoing renovations.  It was must since the area was deteriorating.  We checked out a cannon on the roof, which looked pretty decorative and not for real use.

Inside the building where we entered, there were maps showing the battlefields that contributed dirt, including those in the U.S.  Containers for ceremonial use were displayed in a case.  There was a chapel for the general in there also.

We decided to head off for dinner.  Marcin decided to show us how American grill food was done in Poland.  We went to the mall and Jeff’s Grill.  You would have thought you had entered a Tex Mex place.  We ordered drinks and found out after the fact that it was Happy Hour with 2 for 1.  I really only needed one beer.  Aneta got two Tequila Sunrises.

We ordered up burgers, which was a little bit different than normal.  The waitress wasn’t really fluent in English, but Marcin helped out.  We got our burgers, which were huge.  They were good considering where we were at and not in the States.

We ate and pretty soon were talking about working and how things happened to developers.  We laughed and exchanged stories.  It was so much fun.  We really do have some common experiences no matter where we live.  It nice to know it’s in Krakow as much as in Schaumburg.

We tried to pay the bill with a credit card, but the machine would stay connected.  We scrambled for the cash, which meant we needed to find an ATM soon.  On the way to the car, we found an ATM and got enough cash to help us for a few more days.

Marcin drove back to the hotel and dropped us off for the evening.  Thanks again to Marcin and Aneta for making our stay so nice.  We love spending time with you.