Tatras National Park.

It is refreshing in so many ways to get out of the city and into the wild.

It's hard to believe that we've already been in Europe for over a month - our trip is a quarter over! We've done/seen/eaten so many things that we are so happy we've had the chance to do. Two years of saving up for this trip and so far, it is completely worth all the sacrifices we had to make (such as sticking it out in SoCal traffic for an extra year and going on little vacations every weekend).

Anywho, after a month of traveling around the cities, we have found ourselves in Zakopane, Poland, in a quaint room in a mountainside lodge that is literally right on the border of Tatras National Park. Zakopane is in southern Poland, right on the border of Poland and Slovakia, and Tatras National Park contains the northwestern end of the Carpathian mountain range. These mountains are called *drumroll please* the Tatras Mountains.

Our first evening, we had dinner at a little restaurant down the street with an outdoor seating area that faced the steep slopes on the tree-covered mountains. There was also a herd of sheep grazing in the ski slope area. You can't really get more rural and outdoorsy than that. :)

We decided to share the Highlander supper, which is meant for two people and consists of fried potatoes, fried cabbage, fried sheep cheese, chicken, pork, kielbasa, lamb sausage, and black pudding. BLACK PUDDING! This is a blend of barley, onions, pork fat, various seasonings, and... BLOOD! Probably sheep's blood here, but I'm not 100% sure. AAHHHH! It didn't taste like much, which is good because the idea of eating blood sausage kind of grossed us both out. But now we can cross that one off the list! :P

We spent the first part of the next day sleeping in late (late by my early-riser husband's standards, which was 9am) and walking 4km into the downtown part of Zakopane to find food and a map. The highlight of that excursion was eating me a soft-serve ice cream cone (there are little stands EVERYWHERE here) and having it melt and leak all over me. :(

In the afternoon, we took a cable car up Mt. Kasprowy Wierch and spent a couple hours hiking around the mountaintops. It seems a littlenhazy here, but Steve guesses it's the humidity here that makes it look so foggy even though it's warm outside. It's strange for me because I'm so used to looking at mountains with crystal clarity versus looking at them through a curtain of moisture in the air.

And no, I am not holding Billy over the edge á la Michael Jackson baby scandal; I am holding him up like Simba :D

I'm pretty sure Steve broke some kind of law picking those flowers for me, but it was still sweet and I appreciate the gesture. :)
Also, we saw a mountain goat! The video is a bit grainy and the wind makes it hard to hear anything, but take a look anyway: the view is worth it.

That evening, we had dinner at the same restaurant we had gone to the night before, where we got up close and personal with those sheep. Steve thinks my obsession with the sheep is silly, and yes, I am aware that the proper term is "flock of sheep" as opposed to "herd of sheep" like I state in the video. Oops.

One cool thing about this restaurant (besides the sheep) is that they have a little pond stocked with trout, and if you order trout for dinner, you have the option of catching your own fish! Which Steve totally did. Here's proof.
It was probably the most delicious fish ever. Caught and consumed within an hour, not to mention baked in butter.... Mmmmm.

We ended the night drinking pink beer (apparently it is very common in Poland to put raspberry syrup in beer) which was a pretty color but really not that tasty, and listening to the Highlander folk band that showed up at the end of our dinner. Overall, it was a very good day. :)

And here is another video of the sheep! :D