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Published: July 17th 2012
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July 4th - Well there are snorers and then there are snorers... I mean I've heard snorers but this guy last night takes the cake, takes it, shoves it deep into his sinuses and then goes to sleep and snores. Each snore was SO loud that you'd swear his head was about to explode (we should be so lucky)! In the end I secured a pair of earplugs from reception and did the whole 'sleep' thing.
Went off on my tours today; first was the salt mines, we had to descend 384 stairs (I didn't count, they said it was that many and I took it on trust)... I was worried that we'd get to the bottom then they'd shut the gate behind us and put us to work! There was a fee of 10 zloty to gain permission to take photographs in the mine, I foolishly decided that this was unacceptable and opted not to take any pictures (actually it'd be good if they prohibited photos because the constant flashbulbs in the enclosed space was bloody annoying) I regretted my decision when we got the 'chapel' which was nothing less than a huge cathedral hewn out of solid (salt)rock
Fountain of light
my light at the end of the tunnel a hundred or two metres underground. It had salt chandeliers and kind of 3D portraits of famous biblical moments (the last supper was particularly impressive). There was a huge statue of pope John Paul carved out of salt... apparently he was from Krakow + catholocism is kind of a big deal in Poland. The whole room sounded great too like it would be good for concerts... and just as I was thinking this a choir suddenly formed and sang a lovely hymn and in that room it sounded incredible!
The whole thing ran into a problem though when you get to gift shop... I mean all they have to sell is salt. They can package it any way they like but salt is salt. They had t-shirts with slogans like "ROCK salt" and "to salt, or not to salt" ...strangely I didn't buy any of these.
Various restaurants and street carts are smelling pretty good... might have to invest in a bit of lunch.
~Later~
Good lord, all the hair.
At Auschwitz at the moment, some 70km out of Krakow. It's a fairly grim place, as you'd expect, though I got a much worse 'vibe' when I visited Dachau back in 2007. But when they took us in and showed us the room full of human hair that really affected me, like I nearly broke into tears. The rooms with the piles of suitcases and hairbrushes and such were horribly impressive too but it was the hair that got me... I don't see how anyone could NOT be affected.... having said that, the guy who's on the tour with me (from my hostel, he's from the Phillipines) has been setting up his tripod and camera with self timer to get photos of himself standing in front of things smiling... not a vindictive smile, just a sort of "yay, I'm on holiday... and this is one of the places I've visited!" I kind of get the impression that he doesn't really know anything about Auschwitz, judging by some of the questions he's been asking the guide, he didn't even realise that people had died here.
The Birkenau part of the tour was pretty horribly impressive, it's so much bigger than Auschwitz too. After the tour the Phillipines guy asked me if this was the same place from "Schindler's List" (the tour guide and I had both referenced the film a few times) so I guess he does know something about the place but just didn't realise that that's where he was.
After all the deathcamp stuff I was hoping I could end on a positive note... I can & I will. The drive back to Krakow was great, we had one of the guides riding back to town with us and he and I had an enlivening intelligent discussion about (amongst other things) Poland, WWII and the current political situation. Then, after a late dinner I set to wandering around Old Town which, as dark sets in really just couldn't be more full of joie de vivre. The trio of hardcore hardworking accordion players from yesterday were back in the square belting out more fast, fiddly and impressive tunes, a man was walking around on stilts with a hat made of balloons, there is a fountain full of light, a huge swarm of either bats or else bat-like birds going crazy around the top of the church and just people, people everywhere, kids, old folks, families, young people (such as myself of course) eating, dancing, playing, taking pictures or just sitting back and enjoying it all, like me!
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