Not the greatest day

---

So I dont' know if I should blame today's events on being wiped out from last night, or lack of speaking Polish, or the possibility that my charades skills are fading--gasp!!! not that! It's my lifeline. Anyways, so I'm heading out to Auschwitz (largest concentration camp) by train. I bought a ticket. The lady asked if i wanted return ticket and i said yes. I am on my way. SO i check the schedule and head to platform 2 where the train is. Except, there are two platform 2's. And both of them have trains on them. One of them is kinda far down so I jog to catch it. Then i realized it started moving so I stopped running. THen it stopped. Maybe it was waiting for me. SO I ran again. ANd it started again. What the! These Polski's are messing with me. As I realized before, no one in the train station speaks English. So I tried to ask the conductor if the 2nd train was correct. after asking like 10 more people, finally they motioned for me to say on the train. And they scrawled something on a piece of paper that said some Polish word and 14:35. Whatever. So I know that the trip takes 1.5 hours. So after 1.5 hours I hop off the train into the middle of a very ugly industrial city. The people here spoke even less English. (Can you really speak less than none?) So finally I realize there are no trains coming, no buses with my town on them, so I just go up to a cab driver. After much charading, he agrees to take me. Where the heck was i???? It took a LONG time to get there. OK fine. so this trip was a little expensive now. 8z for the train and 100z for the cab. Apparently I should have changed trains according to that piece of paper the train people had written for me. ok fine. So I go to Auschwitz. Very interesting and very moving. The sheer size of this place was absolutely unreal. So sad. Afterwards, I walk back to the train station and ask someone if I am going to need to CHANGE TRAINS. ANd I started talking to a very nice Polish guy who was really excited to practice his English. He was going the same way with me so we sat together and chatted. THen my run in with the law continued. Apparently, the ticket I had purchased was not a return ticket and the fine for not having a proper ticket is 100z. Just great. So my Polish friend was yelling at the ticket guy saying "she doesn't understand and the ticket lady told her it was roundtrip". Thanks to my mate, I only just got charged for the actual return ticket and instead of the 100z fine, i was fined 4z. YES! by the way, divide by 3.2 to get the actual numbers. Pretty pricey I tell ya. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if I would have had to "explain" my situation to the conductor myself. Sheesh. To add to my problems, the train was packed when we got on, so we just kept walking and walking to find a seat. I found this great empty car, yes!! Soon I discovered that this was the smoking car. Great. DO you know, I think I am a smoker now. I have enhaled enough smoke to qualify I think, despite never smoking a cigarette. I think going to Europe is a cheap solution for an American smoker. You dont' even have to buy cigarettes, just go to any public place to get a fix. Great. Despite my challenging day, once I got back to town, I was greeted by the glorious sounds of Footloose. WOHOOO! that coupled with a delicious gyro had me back on cloud 9 again! These people love American music, 80's to be exact. How great for me...now I know why I love this place. However, sometimes they mix in a little Richard Marx and Phil Collins. But the most popular song in Poland is "one night in Bangkok". Maybe cause it sounds so glamorous? Maybe I should tell them about my little kidnapping exerience in Bangkok by a tuk tuk. Then they won't appreciate the song anymore.

---

Photos

Auschwitz
end of the road

Auschwitz 2
This place was unbelievebly enormous

Friendly Polish dude
Did you know Poland's has 20% unemployed? 40% for young people. :(

Comments

[Barbara]

Poland
I laughed and laughed. I'm so glad you got a return ticket from Auchwitz.