Last night I was able to find warm food! I went to the restuarant below my apartment Stadine and found a table for myself. It was around 9:30 and the place was packed. I ordered a Polish beer, Zywiec Light and some Gnocchi. Gnocchi isn't Polish, but it sounded too good. :) I really enjoyed eating there, I did a bit of reading, but I mostly just looked around at the people enjoying their Saturday night. The room was full of voices and music, but I couldn't understand a word, which is really wonderful. Generally if you eat alone, you can't help but overhear the people sitting next to you and hear every word they are saying. But since I couldn't understand anything, their words were just noise. I was enjoying myself so much I didn't really want to leave. But I didn't stay too long, and went up to bed.
The next day...where do I begin? Auschiwitz will be an experience I will always remember, it was sickening, horrific, quiet and yet there was a strange sense of beauty to the place.
I headed to the Hotel Royal to meet for the "Cracow Tours" at 8:50. The hotel was only about a 5 minute walk from my apartment, and it was easy to find, thank goodness. The bus for our tour pulled up and I happily stepped inside. We made three other stops and then the bus was on the way to Auschwitz. At one of the stops, we saw about 50 people dressed up in old time war uniforms and holding flags. I couldn't really tell what was happening, but it appeared they were marching or preparing to do some acting. It was fun to watch them walk around in their uniforms and pose for pictures. It is 70 miles from Krakow so it took about an hour to get there. I tried my harest not to, but I fell asleep on the bus. Something about the motion of a bus always seems to make me doze off. I did miss some of the countryside, but I managed to get a good nap in. From what I saw of the countryside, it was beautiful.
We arrived at the Auschiwitz camp and we were allowed 15 minutes to look around. Everyone on our tour spoke English, as it was an English tour, but I might have been the only person from the US. There was one other girl alone on the tour and I didn't hear her speak once, but there is a good chance she could have been from the US too. Otherwise I was surrounded by Brits, Irisih, Chinese and even Italian people. They all spoke in different languages on the bus, but they were able to understand the tour in English. Every day I am sickened by the fact that I don't know another langauge. Everyone I meet here speaks two or three different languages and I am so shocked at their abilities. Spanish was so difficult for me to learn, my memory is horrible and I struggled through only 4 years of it. I guess if you start when you are young you can pick up just about anything. Its still embarrasing to only speak one language, at least to me.
We began the tour with about a 20 minute film about the concentration camp. It was a nice overview and showed footage of the camp from when it was being built and and pictures of the camp when it was being used. The story of the camp is horrible, but it was interesting to learn about why they choose the location for the camp and how they managed to build such a large camp of death while still hiding it from majority of the public. After the video our tour divided into two parts and we each had our own tour guide. We all had headphones to hear her speak, which was very helpful because we could follow slowly behind and still not miss anything. We began with Auschwitz I, the first and primary camp. She lead us through all the barracks and the displays they had set up. The camp itself is actually quite pretty when you remove it from all the horror that happened there. The trees are now very large, and the brick barracks are very nicely built. The area surrounding the camp is beautfiul and it was a nice sunny day to enjoy the outdoors. The exhibits and explanations we saw and heard were very distrubing and it was a big hard to look at some things. At least for me it was, others I'm sure wouldn't have a problem. Its just a haunting thought of standing where bodies were piled, etc. I'll stop there. Our tour of Auschwitz I lasted about 2 hours or so.
Once we were finsihed we piled back onto the bus and they drove us to the second camp, Auschwitz II-Birkenau. This camp is MUCH MUCH larger and the living situations were much much worse than Aushwitz I. The camp is about 400 acres of ground and held about 300 buildings, some of wood and some of brick. In the middle of the camp were rail tracks where "prisioners" would deboard the trains they were brought in on and were then seperated into "Fit for work" or "Unfit for work." Those designated unfit for work were taken immediately to the gas chambers. It is recorded that about 70-75% of all prisioners were killed in the gas chambers. Our tour guide repeated the same stats over and over again throughout the entire tour. Instead of saying the prisioners were "desginated unfit or fit for work," she would use the word "design." I think someone needed to correct her, but I didn't want to be the person to do that. So I just ignored it.
One of the most horrific facts to me is that only 10% of the SS army, or people held responsible for Auschwitz and camps similar were ever punished for their crimes. The other 90% lived free lives, I think that is very distrubing. I could go on and on about the sights I saw and the information that was presented to me, but I won't. It was an experience that is hard to sum up in words, it is a site of torture against human kind and therefore a bit hard to take. One thing I am disappointed about is they never explained WHY. It is a museum, so it states mostly facts, but I think they only mentioned Hitler's name one time and they never explained reasoning for the destruction of the Jewish popluation. I suppose I will have to read Hitler's book to figure that out, but it must say something that the entire exhibit is void of any reasoning or explanation. I am very glad I went to see it and I will be the better for it.
We got on the bus and drove back to Krakow...again I fell sleep for some of the ride. Right was I woke up we passed the most magnificant castle up on a cliff. It was beautiful and from that moment on I was wide awake taking in all the scenery. The landscape was pretty, large and small homes, new and very old homes, castles, open areas, it was wonderful. The bus dropped me off at the main center. It was still light outside, and the sun was about to go down in less than an hour, so I took the opportunity to take lots of pictures. I walked around the main square and I realized I still hadn't found a post office yet. So I stopped in a bookshop and found a tour book with a map. I found a post office location about 5 minutes from where I was, and I started on my way. I got about half way there and realized...it's Sunday. DAMN. I couldn't believe the one time I went out of my way to find a post office it was a Sunday! Unbelievable.
So I went back to the square and walked around a bit more, I then followed one of the main roads leading out of the square to my apartment and looked in some shops along the way. One of my favorites is a shop called, Baio. The store is a collection of all wood toys for children, I thought everything in there was fasinating. Wooden toys are very big in Europe, I have seen them in many places. It makes me remember the old toys we had growing up, the little train you would pull with a string...back to the basics. :)
One thing I would like to note about Poland are the pigeons. There are pigeons here, just like any other large city, but here they are considered sacred. People love them! When the country was in war, all the animals fled because there was no food. However, once the war stopped, the pigeons returned. People saw this as a sign of freedom and they were able to rejoice. Therefore, people love the pigeons. I think they are crazy, I consider pigeons "rats of the sky," so I am having a hard time not shooing them away, or kicking them. But I haven't done anything but duck as they fly at my head, I am working my hardest to be respectful, but sometimes its just difficult.
I walked back and took pictures of the entry to my apartment and the restaurant I ate in last night. I wanted to document these things, but I barely ever saw them in daylight! Ha! I decided to stop in the restaurant for some quick food because I hadn't really eaten all day. So I orded rice baked with oranges and pineapple and some coffee. It looked so interesting and I had to try it. It was really good, and they even served it with orange slices! My coffee was small, but warm. I packed a little bit and decided to head over to this internet cafe. Tonight Nic and Dorota are meeting me at my apartment around 8:30 and we will head to "The Pea and Carrott" for dinner. I am excited to be able to dine and drink with other people! I just hope Nick doesn't ask me to drink more Vodka. I'll stick to the beer, Zywiec Light please!
Tomorrow I leave for Prague! My train is at 7:00 am, which is really early for me. I really hope I make it in time!! I was able to reserve a room for me at a 3 star hotel, and from the pictures it looks very posh. I got an amazing deal for last minute reservations, and I hope it lives up to my expectations. I wanted to "pamper" myself a little bit in Prague, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it doesn't end up being some hole in the wall!
Anna
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