Originally Dated: Oct. 3, 2006.

So the last four days I was in Krakow, Poland (and vicinity.). what we did, in chronological order:

-Night train to warsaw
-EARLY morning train to krakow
-Wieliczka Salt Mines
-Explore Krakow... Wawel castle, flea market, etc
-Auschwitz

details!

So we left Berlin at around 10 pm. We had a few beers on the way to the train station (no open container laws!), and met the rest of our group. when the train came, we like ran around trying to found our car, but eventually we found our car. we had beds! The cabins had 3 levels of beds, 6 beds per cabin thing. We were 5 of the 6 in our room. (the others in our group were in another cabin). So we get in there, spread out, take pictures, laugh, and we're on our way!

The passport control thing was so sketchy, and the trains are weird. It was awfully hot, loud, and the whole train jerked every stop. BUT it was a ton of fun. i really enjoyed the train ride. We got to warsaw around 5:30. We had a half hour or so before we transferred to krakow. the train station was weird, dirty, and there were drunk bums passed out in puddles of liquid all over. and people yelling at emily in polish because she didnt realize the bathrooms were pay toilets. then we get onto the train, and it starts going. we're standing in the aisles. people are in our seats. BUT we show up and they leave. three hours later, we're in krakow!

Krakow is small. and GORGEOUS.

so we get to krakow, and find cabs to get to our hostel. and the guy is like "3 tram stops, no taxi." so we wound up being like "NO, we want to take a taxi!" and he wound up being like "NO, 3 tram stops!". so we walked to our hostel. But since krakow is so small, it wasnt that bad.

The hostel was awesome. There was chill music playing all the time, lots of nice people, free breakfast, and really really helpful employees. it was a good time.

So, the first day we decided to go to the Wieliczka (Vee-leech-ka) salt mines. they have these like... privately owned vans that go places. but they're small and packed and we had 9 people. AND the drivers dont speak english and we dont speak polish. so we tried to do it but failed miserably. after a brief period of indecision and frustation, we went back to our hostel. where we found out that the tours offered by our hostel, which was supposed to stop sept 15th, were still running! so we got a charter bus and group tour of the salt mines.

the salt mines were awesome. our tour guide was monotonous and HILARIOUS. her jokes were usually funny anyways, but they were made even more awesome because of her lack of intonation and her accent. but the salt mines were incredible. 1% is open to the public, but it takes a few hours to go through. the miners used to live down there and not go back to the surface, so they carved everything they'd need out of salt (the mine has been mined consistently since the 1200's). there are underground cathedrals, statues, restaurants, stores, post offices. the cathedrals were INCREDIBLE. there are also underground lakes and stuff, which are really really cool to see.

i was talking to our tour guide, and i asked her if she's still amazed by this place, or if it's all routine to her by now. she told me that if things became routine, she'd just quit. she said she started as a 2 month summer job, and has been doing it for 11 years. she told me about all the other mines she's seen, and told me to go see one if i could heh. she told me about the cool people she meets, like this couple last week that was walking from sweden to asia. she said they have about a year and a half to go. she was just a really interesting woman.

After the salt mines, we just wandered around Krakow. The city is tiny... you can walk across it in 25 minutes. It's GORGEOUS though. people walking around, gothic architecture (i think, i dont know what to call that kind of architecture), and cobblestone streets. It was really touristy, but really really cool. We went to some great restaurants and some cool bars.

That night, at the hostel, I saw a girl with a "Geneseo" sweatshirt on. Being from Rochester, i thought i'd say hello. Turns out this girl was also from long island. She was also learning sign language. AND SHE'S WORKED AT ANCHOR FOR THE PAST 7 YEARS. we literally worked in the same place for four years and didnt know who the other was. Her friend and she came to Krakow for the weekend; they're both studying in Prague. They were really really nice and offered us places to stay in Prague, so i'm probably going to take them up on that offer. And they want to come to berlin and we told them we'd show them around. So that was cool.

The next day we explored Krakow. The old town is gorgeous. We went to the Wawel Castle, which was great. It was a gorgeous building, with cool views of the city. Afterwards we went to this flea market, which is the one thing we did that was untouched by tourists. It was east of the old town, and was mostly people's old crap. There were lots of photos, books, casettes, movies, porn, etc. There was WWII memorabilia. There was jewelry. It was huge, and really interesting to just walk though a Polish flea market and watch the poles do their thing. No one bought anything (most of it was junk) but i really enjoyed it.

The next restaurant we went to makes my journal. We went to this place in the old town, and they were like... it'll take awhile. and we were like... that's fine, we dont have anything to do. so we went, and like tried to order stuff, and they were like... we only have pizza. and pizza will take a half hour. so we're like... uh okay, and order pizza. around 40 minutes later, the pizza delivery guy comes. Then 5-10 minutes after that, we get our pizza!

WHAT KIND OF RESTAURANT ONLY HAS PIZZA, AND HAS TO ORDER IT IN FROM TELEPIZZA?? it was awful pizza but frickin hysterical. oh poland.

so the next day, we went to auschwitz and birkenau. which was... intense. i dont really know how to describe it.

there are two camps that are open... auschwitz I, and auschwitz II- birkenau. we spent lots of time in auschwitz I, which is more like a museum, and didnt really have any time for birkenau, which upset me. birkenau is more like what i was expecting. but Auschwitz I was REALLY interesting.

The museum is free. which i liked. They sell books and stuff, and i bought a guidebook and map for 9 zloty (around 2.50 €). But I really liked that it's accessible to everyone, that they're not trying to make money off the site.

When you walk in, there are stories of people who died. Last letters to their families, things found that were carved in their beds and cells. It's really really sad. Then we went and watched the movie, which is pretty much what you'd expect from a short movie about Auschwitz. It talks about the murders, experiments, and awful conditions at those camps. It's sad, and ends abruptly.

We didnt take a tour, we just wandered around on our own. The barbed wire and signs are still there. The gate, with the words "Arbeit Macht Frei" (work brings freedom), is still there. There are signs in multiple languages that tell about things that happened at different points in the camp. A lot of the buildings have different exhibits in them. There's one about the tortures, there's one about the things the Nazi's confiscated from inmates (Including the famous rooms of hair, pots, shoes, artificial limbs, clothes, etc). There are buildings dedicated to the living conditions. There's a building dedicated to the tortures and deportations from a certain nation. You can tour a crematorium. You can also go into Block 11... which was the "death block". they describe the tortures against people there... the rooms where people were forced to stand for days. The rooms where people were put after sentences of death by starvation. the rooms where people were put to suffocate to death. The room where the board sat to hand out sentences, the "death wall" where people were shot. The room where the "on duty" officer stayed, waiting to carry out the sentences passed out by the board. It was... it was eerie. really really powerful. really really sad.

we spent several hours there. apparently the bus back to krakow leaves from auschwitz, and the last bus to auschwitz from birkenau leaves at 5. the bus we had to take to go to birkenau left at 4:30. so we literally just got to walk around for 15 minutes. some of my friends spent hours at birkenau, and ive seen their pictures, and they're intense. id go back just to see birkenau.

birkenau is sad. it's HUGE. while auschwitz I was formerly a bunker for polish troops, birkenau was built by the Nazi's to be a death camp. most people were sent to auschwitz I, then when they were sentenced to die, were sent to birkenau. The train tracks go directly through the front gates. They go straight to four different gas chambers. A lot of birkenau was destroyed by the Nazi's when liberation was imminent, but a lot either survived or was recreated. It's.... HUGE. SO sad. Compared to Auschwitz I, there are very few pictures or descriptions. Which I think makes it so much eerier. It was just a surreal place. You could imagine little children, thin and sickly, in black and white, standing and staring through the barbed wire. It was just... an awful, awful place. I can't even describe it. I dont think I said one word while I was in there.

Apparently there are still crematoriums, bunks, etc. around Birkenau. There's a lake where the Nazi's used to dump ashes. The places where bodies were burnt are still marked. It's just an intense place.

Going to Auschwitz made me think a lot. I'm not a religious person by any means, but if I was born 60 years earlier, I might have been killed. My parents were jewish, so therefore I was to be killed. Millions of people, Jews, Roma, political prisoners, Soviet POW's, gays, etc. were tortured and murdered, the vast majority for no reason. They didn't do anything, they simply existed. Or were born to certain parents or a certain way. It's so sad. It honestly made me feel bad that like... so many people died for being Jewish, and i take it for granted and don't even really believe in it. It was weird.

While most of the people there were really respectful and everything, some of the people there really bothered me. There were a bunch of high school groups, and high schoolers never take that stuff seriously. But there were also a lot of other people that bothered me. People taking pictures of exhibits you weren't supposed to take pictures of, due to the horrors that occurred there. People taking pictures of themselves smiling in front of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gates. People laughing. People MAKING OUT ON THE SHUTTLE BETWEEN AUSCHWITZ AND BIRKENAU. People talking really loudly, about nothing. It was just really distracting and made it hard to reflect, even on the hour and a half bus ride back to Krakow.

Plus one of the parking guys had an islanders jersey. Boo.

SO that was my trip! It was fun, pictures are up, so check them out!