Daytrip to Annapolis, Maryland (a poor college-grad's vacation)

This is my very first post-graduate summer vacation. Summers no longer mean automatic vacation... which means that poor peasant mba students work through the season as if it were any other. It is hard to stay positive when you are inside for most of the daylight hours, and you do not have an exciting summer beach vacation planned to look forward to. It feels as if this summer is just slipping away as I spend my days in the office, and I have not even gotten the slightest bit bronze. 

100 Km under in Krakow, Poland

We had our first actual warm day while in Krakow, Poland! It was a gorgeous city, especially on a gorgeous, sunny day. 

Poznań, my first taste of Poland

On our bus trip from Berlin to Warsaw, Poland, we stopped for a short while in a little town called Poznan. Although there were many tourists in the town, it was mostly because several bus tours stop there on the way to Warsaw. 

The Old Town Square was adorable and there were several different groups of schoolchildren and tourists visiting. At noon, everyone was gathered underneath the town hall building to watch the clock strike 12. Two little wooden rams come out of the clock tower and butt heads 12 times. The children would count in Polish along with the clock chimes and it was super adorable. 

Since it was our first time in Poland, we found ourselves a little Polish diner to have lunch in. We had spinach pierogis, traditional vegetable soup and strawberry crepes for dessert.  

The town was full of fountains and statues, as well as little quiet streets. It was a lot different from the busyness of Berlin and Frankfurt, and it was honestly kind of nice to get away from tourist-central. 

Polish is even harder for me to understand than German is! Hopefully we can get by for the next few days. 

While we were exploring, I found some propaganda from the Capital... I have no idea what the poster says, but President Snow is on it and I thought it was really cool. 

I will probably never get to Poznan again, but the people that we met there were sweet and it was a quiet little town where we enjoyed a nice afternoon and break from the bus. 

At the End of the World

Finisterre is the western most point of Spain, and before the New World was discovered, people believed that it was the end of the world, since the horizon just goes on and on until it eventually blends in with the Atlantic Ocean. 

Before we got to the town of Finisterre, we stopped at a very windy point on the top of a mountain. There was a very long row of windmills that were hard at work, and I nearly lost my hat! 

The small port town of Muros was lovely to visit. We only stopped to get a cappuccino and take a few photos. It was nice to see the ocean again and hear seagulls.

We then drove a little bit more to get to a waterfall. Since I've visited Niagara Falls so often, these falls did not impress me too much, but they were nice to look at. 

 I also got to meet a troupe of attractive Spaniards in wetsuits.... They were getting ready to go rafting and canyoning near the waterfall for a bachelor party. 

I wanted to go with them!

When we got to Finisterre, we found the 0.00 km marker from El Camino, since some pilgrims choose to continue walking for about three or four more days after they get to Santiago de Compostela. Here, pilgrims also burn their hiking shoes out of tradition and sometimes leave clothing and stones that they have been carrying throughout their pilgrimage.

Our group stopped at this lighthouse for a few minutes, so my dad and I explored the rocks and climbed closer and closer to the ocean until it was time to go. 

When we stopped for lunch at a small fishing village, we decided to indulge in Galician favorites, empanadas with tuna and grilled sardines.