Poland!

Hello, All!

Well, I am almost done with my trip. I can't believe how quickly this has all gone by! On Saturday (the 9th), I left my hostel in Pisa to go to the airport and fly to Poland. Everything went pretty well! I found the train alright, got into the airport, and realized that I had allowed WAY too much time for myself in the airport. The counter for my flight wasn't even open yet when I got there! Well, I guess it's always better to be there too early than too late! The Pisa airport is really small, and there wasn't much to do outside the terminal, so I sat down with my book in a cafe and waited for my flight number to pop up on the board. Finally, I checked my bag and got in the security line. Security at small airports is definitely not as intense as at SFO. I didn't have to take my shoes off, and I got my hand sanitizer through, which was definitely NOT the case when my family traveled to Maui in 2007. In that instance, I had accidentally left my hand sanitizer in my purse, and (LORD FORBID!) it wasn't in a plastic bag. I was pulled aside and my whole bag was unpacked before they finally found the abominable object that was my 2 ounce bottle of hand sanitizer. Anyway, that didn't happen this time, and I got though security without trouble. However, I was there so early that I had to wait in the terminal for 2 hours before my plane finally boarded. At SFO, it wouldn't have been a big deal. I would have just walked around and looked at the shops, gotten something to eat, etc. In Pisa, there were a total of 4 stores, all of which I thoroughly looked through before getting bored and pulling my book out again.

Finally, my flight was called, and I joined the throng of people bustling to get in line for the Ryanair flight to Krakow, Poland. Ryanair flights are definitely different than, say, my flight with Virgin Atlantic, mostly because of the lack of in flight entertainment and assigned seating. When we got onto the plane, there was a mad rush to get the best seats possible. I lucked out and got a window seat, AND no one sat next to me, which meant that I had an entire row to stretch out on for two hours. I mostly read my book and played Angry Birds (a game on my iPod that I, along with about half of the world's population, am obsessed with). The flight went fairly smoothly, and we landed without too much trouble. Apparently, it is customary on a Ryanair flight to clap when the plane lands... Maybe celebration that the barely qualified pilot managed to land the plane this time? In any case, I quickly grabbed my bag off of the luggage claim and headed out the door. My instructions told me to go to the train station... There were no signs for a train station. I walked in the dark for about 5 minutes before turning around and heading back to the airport to ask for directions. Turns out that I had to take a shuttle, which my directions conveniently forgot to mention. Oh well. I took the shuttle and met two girls from New Hampshire, who were looking just as lost as I was. Thanking God to be talking to native English speakers, we found the train together and navigated our way to the right station.

I was supposed to meet up with my friends Carli and Megan when I got off the train. It was then that I realized that my phone didn't have enough money on it to make calls or text anyone. I could, however, receive texts and calls, which left me helpless, waiting for them to contact me. They finally did, and I met up with them. We were all starving, so we set off to find some food. We found this little vegetarian restaurant that reminded me of East West Cafe in Sebastopol. The food was delicious. After dinner, Carli and Megan helped me find my hostel, and I passed out on my bed pretty much immediately.

The next day, the three of us met up and explored the city on our own for the morning. We found a little shop that had free coloring pages of dragons, so we spent a little while coloring! That afternoon, we decided to go on a free walking tour of the Jewish Ghetto of Krakow, Kazimierz (pronounced Kaszh- miszh). We met up with the group in front of this beautiful church in the middle of the town centre. We walked around the ghetto and saw Oscar Schindler's factory, as well as a bunch of other places depicted in Schindler's List.  The guy that led the tour was really interesting, but 2 hours and a TON of Polish names later, we were getting tired. Finally, an hour later, the tour ended. We walked for 20 minutes to get back to the city centre. Poor Megan, who had had to pee for the ENTIRE tour, was on a mission to find a bathroom. We finally asked a nice lady in a Chinese restaurant if we could use her bathroom. We got strange looks from all of the people in the restaurant as we raced to the bathroom. We were absolutely starving after that, so we attempted to find a restaurant that Megan had a flyer for. Apparently, it doesn’t exist anymore… But we went into the restaurant at the same address and had dinner.

The next day, the three of us went on another free walking tour, this time of the city centre. We had mentally prepared ourselves for the three hour tour this time, and therefore enjoyed it much more than the previous day. We saw a castle that is right in the middle of the city, and right next to it is a statue of a dragon that REALLY BREATHES FIRE!!!! Our guide told us the legend of how the dragon  became the symbol of Krakow: Apparently, there was a dragon that lived in a cave underneath the castle. The king at the time didn’t want a dragon living there, so he ordered his soldiers to kill the dragon. When the dragon killed all the soldiers, the King made an announcement that whoever could kill the dragon could marry the princess. So, a man took a dead sheep and filled it with peppers and other really spicy things, and put it in front of the dragon’s cave. The dragon ate the sheep, and pretty soon, his mouth was on fire. He fled the cave to the river (which runs right next to the castle), and drank so much water that he exploded. Good story. When the tour ended, We decided to split up for a while and go take naps at our respective hostels before meeting for dinner that night. We slept for a while, and around 9:30 or so, we walked around the city centre and found a little restaurant that pretty much had any kind of food you could want. We sat down and ordered. Fun fact about Europe: If you ask for water, they won’t give you tap water. You have to pay for your water. And they don’t give you very much water in the little glass bottle. It gets really frustrating, especially when you order something spicy and want to wash it down with a decent amount of water. Anyway, we were at the restaurant until it closed at 11, then headed back to our hostels.

The next day, we got up early and headed for Auschwitz, the concentration camp about an hour and a half from Krakow. We first went to Auschwitz I, the smaller camp where they have set up a museum. There were windows where you could look into rooms that contained piles upon piles of confiscated eyeglasses, pots and pans, clothing, shoes, even crutches and prosthetic limbs. The worst one, though, was a window probably about 15 meters long that looked into a room full of human hair. That was hard to look at. We walked through the gas chambers and the barracks as well. As if that wasn't bad enough, then we went to Auschwitz II- Birkenau, which is about 3 minutes by bus from Auschwitz I. It was enormous. As I walked through there, I could picture the people living there. Birkenau was left pretty much as they found it, which made it hit home for me a lot more than Auschwitz I. We walked around the barracks and came across one that mothers and their children had lived in. There were still drawings on the walls that the children had made. I couldn't stand being in there for very long. It was crazy being in the place that I had read about in my history books, and standing in the midst of it all was even more terrible. We were in a somber mood by the time we left to take the train back to Krakow. While we were on the train, we looked out the window and saw the beautiful sunset. The three of us all felt a renewed appreciation for how lucky we are, and we celebrated by turning on some happy music and singing all the way back to Krakow.

The next morning, we checked out of our hostels and went to grab a quick breakfast before catching our train to Warsaw. We found a place called "The Piano Rouge" and decided to have breakfast there. We walked downstairs into what I can only describe as the sparkliest room I have ever seen. There was glitter in the paint, little lights all over the place, and rich fabrics draped everywhere. I probably would have thought it was just a cool place, if the lady seating us hadn't asked us how old we were before letting us sit down. We found that rather strange. After sitting at our table, the lady asked us if we would like the wine list (WITH BREAKFAST??). We said no. There was no one else in there, and as the meal wore on, I kept feeling more and more like a naked person was going to jump out at us and start dancing. Luckily, this didn't happen, but I have a feeling we unknowingly ate breakfast in the front room of a strip club or something.

So, with that interesting start to our morning, we set off for Warsaw. The train ride went pretty uneventfully, and we got to my hostel without too much confusion (although we did go the wrong way on the tram and had to go back the opposite direction...) We walked around the city that afternoon and had Indian food for dinner (YUM!), before heading to the university pub. We had some coupons for cheap drinks there, so we sat and had a beer. It was a really cool place. Every inch of the ceiling and walls was painted with some cool character or design, and they were playing good music. If I lived there, I would definitely hang out there.

The next day, we planned to walk more around Warsaw. This didn't really end up happening. Megan was sick, and we were all exhausted. We walked into a coffee shop to grab something to eat and ended up sitting there for 4 hours, just hanging out. There was a scary lady at the table next to us, who we nicknamed Cruella DeVille. Carli and I were spinning coins on the table, and one of my coins rolled under her chair. We were too afraid to go over and get it, so we decided to wait until she left. Pretty soon, we saw her bend over, and I'm pretty sure she picked up the coin and pocketed it, because it wasn't there when we went to look for it later. Rude. A while later, I went to sign up for my classes at Chico next semester, and then we met up with the lady that Carli and Megan were staying with. She was really nice, and showed us a couple of cool bars.

All in all, Poland was really cool! It was so different from anything else I had ever seen.

The town centre of Krakow

St. Mary's Church in Krakow

These pretzel stands are pretty much on every street corner in Krakow!

We took a colouring break... Yep. We're in our 20's.

Here's my easter bunny picture for this year!

I just thought this was crazy.

We had Mexican food. It's better in California :)

Funny graffiti we found in Krakow

The fire-breathing dragon statue!

Random guy dressed up as a mug of beer. Carli had just poked him and was running away.

The sign over the entrance to Auschwitz. It means "Work brings Freedom"

Just a fraction of all of the confiscated shoes

A starvation chamber.

In between two electric barbed wire fences surrounding Auschwitz.

The bunks they slept on.

The bunk houses looked like this.

Things I'm Loving: Traveling, Meeting up with friends, how cheap everything is in Poland, how as soon as you hear someone else speaking English, you immediately strike up a conversation with them.

Things I'm Not Loving So Much: Living out of a suitcase, moving every few days, feeling constantly tired.

Things I'm Learning: To take cool pictures, that I rely on the internet WAY too much.

Sorry I'm so behind on my blogging. I've just been so busy with my travels, and internet is not a guarantee in hostels. I'll write about Germany soon!

Love,
Jenn