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Published: April 15th 2009
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Hello Krakow!
Arriving on the 12/03/09 at approximately 3:00pm we hopped off the train and walked into the station supermarket. There we bought our dinner and some beer 😊
I had appointed myself leader of Krakow and lead us to the hostel, which was only 30 minutes walk from the station. We arrived just before 4:00pm. The walk took us through the heart of the old town past St. Mary's cathedral. The old town is really stunning and full of activity from youths on bikes, to street performers trying to make a living, and lone travelers busking for the next leg of their travels.
We arrived at the reception and casually asked if we could check in under the name of Helvetia (name of the hostel at which the receptionist made our reservation - Warsaw). The pretty lady looked a bit confused and then said 'hmm 1 night 3 people?' .... not really what we had in mind! We said there must have been a misunderstanding, we asked for 3 nights and 4 people! Unfortunately they were fully booked and could only offer us one night at 45zl a human being. We discussed for a moment and decided
to accept the offer and stay the night and make a booking to move into a new hostel the following morning. If you want something to work, do it yourself!
After checking in, we immediately felt the warm welcoming family like atmosphere of the hostel. Everyone was friendly to one another and there was free cake! We sat around doing not much for a couple of hours and then had dinner, which was pasta again.
Day 2
Morning came and we checked out at around 12:00pm. I tried to take out some money to pay for the hostel, but the card was rejected. I decided not to risk a second try... Miriam J Skinner phoned the bank in the U.K and asked what was wrong with it. The bank told her that they were confused as to why her card was taking money out all over the world and blocked it. This was really annoying because she went to the bank specifically to say that she was traveling!
After paying for the hostel we packed our bags again and wondered out to the next hostel. It was literally 5 minutes back the way we came down from
the station the day before. We entered the reception and locked our packs in the luggage room (as the room wasnt ready for us yet).
We went out almost immdediatly after arriving. I took us on a tour of the city with our map whilst explaining things about buildings... I didnt actually know anything, but it was fun and we had a nice time looking at the cool parts. The tour ended in a book cafe which had floor to ceiling book shelves of anything from childrens books to science/social science etc. We stayed there for an hour and a half.
Day 3
This day was supposed to be the day we visited Aushwitz. Unfortunatly we didnt get our act together on tike and decided we should take this day off to rest as we have been moving around non-stop for over a month by now.
We went to lunch at a really nice polish restaurant. It was like a log cabin on the inside, with meat drying in the windows. It was really good food. I had Onion Soup with Omelette, Lilly had Mushroom Soup, Miriam had pea soup and Alice had pancakes with yum garlic
sauce.
We decided to go out in the evening. Our first attempt was a bar that was full of people, good! However, the bouncers came and found us and basically said get out this party is closed. That was fine, but for some reason these bouncers were extra grumpy and crossed armed hard arsed looking people. I think maybe they were bullied a little bit at school. We said OK, sorry, and left. We tried to find some clubs to get into but failed many times... the age for clubs is 21! Eventually we found a club that let Lilly, Mim and Alice in, however I was blocked by the big bouncers who said no, 10zlotes in a deep Polish accent. I said no and stood outside until Alice came back up to find out where I was. Eventually he said it was cause I looked like a tramp basically! He pointed at my white (now black) shoes and grey (stained) tracky bottoms and said 10 zlotes. We decided to leave that place and find another. We didnt find another so went back and paid 10zlotes. I was not in a party mood by this point and got bored
very quickly. Mim and Alice had a great time though!! They made some friends who bought them unlimated amount of drinks (stag due) haha! Eventually Lilly and I decided to go back to the hostel cause we were really tired.
At 3:30am! Mim and Alice arrived back at the hostel and stomped around as if it was 3:30PM!! Lilly and I both woke up and got really mad at them and then stropped off and slept in the kitchen downstairs! It wasnt until after our visit to Aushwitz that we finally started talking to each other again properly! and only then did we see the funny side!
Day 4
This day we finally got our act together to go to Auschwitz. After only having 2 hours sleep because of wondering if the girls were safe, and then not being able to sleep because they were safe and home, we left the hostel at 10. It was funny to see the girls in a bad state because we were still angry at them haha!
The bus to Auschwitz was 1.5 hours long. We didnt pay for a tour as we thought we could get the same out of
it if we just read everything (someone we met on the train told us the tour guides tell you not to read the signs, then tell you basically whats on them!)
We didnt really know what to expect I suppose, but almost as soon as we went in there I went numb and felt really weird. The feeling of that place is so strange, its really sinister and scary... It really helped connect the reality of what happened, with what I'de learnt from school.
We visited the 'museum' part of Auschwitz. Its basically a partially reconstructed area of the camp. The origonal barracks are still there, and are now seperate parts of the museum. The two things that really made me realise the reality were 1. the hair, bags and shoes collected from the dead and 2. the only surviving gas chamber and crematorium in the part of the camp we were in. Its horrible to imagine what all these people had to go through and the fear they must have felt after realisising that they were in a gas chamber...
I'm not really sure how else to describe it or what more to tell you.. I
think you should just go there yourself. Its something you should see in my opinion.
After leaving Auschwitz we stood at the bus stop for 2 hours!!! We missed a couple of buses (only one an hour) and a few public buses. We had bought return tickets with a specific company in the morning, so couldnt take the normal buses running to Krakow, and we had 0 money. Eventually we got on the bus and arrived at Krakow around 7:30pm. We headed back to the hotel for some dinner and then headed to the station.
At the station we tried to buy our tickets, but the ticket lady said mine and Lillys passes were not valid... Which is true (not valid in Poland) but we had already used them from Warsaw... It turns out that they didnt really know what the passes were... Lilly got really cross at the lady because she was telling us that we didnt use the passes to get to Krakow! it was very funny, cause Lilly doesnt give up! We ended up paying for the tickets (but only to the boarder... which meant they would either chuck us off, or our pass would
be valid to get us through to Praha).
We boarded at 10:15
Thank you readers
James
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