Krakow, Poland

Hola, amigos. I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but we've had a lot going on. Unfortunately, I still don't have photos to share. I'm starting to think that all these kids travelling with their own laptop aren't stupid, but actually quite a bit smarter than myself!

We left Vienna for Krakow on 12/6 by train. We'd purchased tickets earlier, knowing that the Czech Republic and Poland are not part of our Eurail passes. So, we were a bit surprised when the ticket-taker on the train told us that we had only purchased tickets for the Czech Republic, and had to buy the additional Poland portion. The next time we saw our ticket-taker friend, he asked us where it was we were going, to which we replied, "Krakow". He slapped his hand to his head and said "Oh no, we just passed the stop you needed to transfer at!" (note that no one had mentioned a transfer to us at this point; it was appartently something that we should have known). The ticket-taker ushered us out at the next stop, and told us to wait for the next train going the opposite direction. That would take us to our transfer, and then off to Krakow. We bought more tickets and caught the next train to the transfer station. The ticket sales-lady told us to go to platform 4, but there was no train. Across the way, at platform 3, we saw a sign that said "Krakow", so we jumped on it. Naturally, we were thinking that we were pretty slick and that our mini-adventure was finally wrapping up. Until, that is, the ticket-taker on the train looked at our tickets. He shook his head, saying that we were on an express train and had non-express tickets, and we ended up purchasing the 4th tickets of the day. Finally, at 11pm, we had made it to our hostel.

The next morning, we did the usual, and walked around checking stuff out. We found the old town center, with it's two large squares, and a giant statue of some guy's head lying on it's ear. We ate a big Polish lunch with many different meat-products in different shapes and sizes and potatoes. Later in the afternoon, we walked up and around the inside of the Krakow castle. It was late, and they were near closing-time. After a short bit, a guard motioned for us to follow him through a door. In keeping with my rule of generally listening to people who have guns and don't speak much english, we did. Turns out he was escorting us out a side-door exit. The rest of the day was consumed with searching the internet for a place to sleep on Christmas and New Years, and buying our tickets out of Krakow (which turned out to be a bit easier than getting into Krakow).

The day after, we were up early to catch the bus for Auschwitz, one of the Nazi concentration camps now turned into a museum/memorial. Needless to say, this was one of the most powerful experiences either Emily or myself has ever had. I won't go into pain-staking detail of all that we saw in our 6 hours at the museum, but will mention some of the parts that stood out (for me): the giant rooms full of the victims' personal posessions (hairbrushes, shoes, suitcases) and human hair (a whole room of women's hair, some of it stil braided after all this time), the descriptions of how victims were lured into the gas chambers with the promise of a shower after their long travels in cattle rail-cars and the fake showerheads hanging overhead in the chambers, the descriptions and photos of the experiments carried out on humans, and finally, walking through the gas chambers. Never have I felt so overwhelmed by and powerless against the extremes of human nature as when I walked through these concrete rooms.

That evening, back in Krakow, we caught a jazz show in an underground club (no, literally, like in a brick basement). The band leader was a 60-something year old saxophonist who sat down in his chair and smoked a pipe every time he wasn't playing and yelled at the audience when someone spoke. It was a good show.

The next day was a train ride into Budapest, Hungary. Krakow was fun, and Auschwitz was an experience I won't soon forget.