DAY 49
Saturday JUNE 18 2005
I started my day by sleeping in till almost noon. I was feeling very, very tired and rather lonely. I eventually pulled myself out of bed and then met up with the tour group to go to the salt mines, but before we did that we all drank lots of vodka and ate strawberries and posed for this picture outside the hotel. Mmm... what a way to start the day, maybe I should sleep in more often.
If you ever get the chance to go to the salt mines, go! It was amazing. We descended 350 meters below ground to see chambers bigger than a foot ball stadium carved out underground. This amazes me as much as seeing a man put on the moon. It amazes me that the human race could carve out these huge chambers hundreds of years ago, it is just very impressive. Some of the chambers now seat hundreds or more and have been turned into concerts halls similar to the size of The Egan Convention center at home. We had to descend the whole 350 meters by stairs and at times I was extremely dizzy. Even after the stairs turned into long hallways I didn't get over my dizziness. I quietly asked if other people were having the same problem and no on was. Damn, some days I just have bad ass dizzy spells.
I have no good pictures of the salt mines unfortunately. The salt mine tour took many hours and at the end of the tour, nine of us, at a time had to cram into a metal cage to rise up to ground level in the dark at high levels of speed. When we entered the cage I was the last one in and I said there is nothing to hang onto. This was all the opening the jokesters in the group needed. Steve kept us laughing with a rolling commentary. He said "Well, don't worry, you can always hang onto me" Everyone laughed and I hung onto the wall. Then we started upwards and of course I let out a scream right off the bat because it was so fast. Everyone laughed. Steve said, "Whose hand is that? Charlie that better not be your hand...Hey, I didn't say stop...." It went on an on like that till the ride ended and we were just laughing are heads off. After so many hours deep underground it was nice to hear the birds singing and see trees again.
A cavern underground, big enough to hold five chandeliers.
Carvings out of salt rock made by the miners when they were bored.
By the time I got back to the hotel I just went for dinner across the street to a sushi place and called it an early day. I have suffered for over six hours from continuous dizzy spells and I just wanted to lay down.