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We're in Prague just for the day. Got here at 7:00 this morning after taking the overnight train from Krakow. Really enjoyed Krakow until we were ready to leave town. The hostel was clean, we had a huge room in a historic building and the hostel owners were so nice. Our room wasn't clean when we got there, and we had a double bed instead of twin beds; their cleaning lady had gotten into a car accident and broke her leg!! Everything was fixed though, and they kept appologizing profusely. Even gave us a box of chocolate!! We also had the best breakfast in any hostel we've stayed in.
We took the bus tour to Auschwitz/Birkenau..our guide was fabulous; it was the first time I've been with that many young people who were stunned into silence..they were very quiet the whole day. What got to me was just the sheer scale of the operation. The artifacts were hard to absorb...mounds and mounds of human hair and piles of thousands of shoes; and these were just the ones left at the camp when the nazi guards left. At it's peak Birkeau was killing 7-8 thousand people a day as soon as they came off the trains.
I stood in the same spot as those souls did when they went through selection; whether they would head straight to the gas chambers, or die slowly in the camps. It was row after row after row of barracks. The ground if grey dust with specks of white....the left over ashes. It was unreal.
So after that we're going to hop on a tram to get to the train station, so far so good..all of a sudden a ticket checker told us to get off the train..he shouted...we complied. We had bought tickets but he said we hadn't bought tickets for our bags. Through an interpreter he insisted that signs were posted in english on the tram...thing is when we bought the tickets the conductor didn't say a word about paying for our bags, and I didn't see a sign, only the folded up pamplet this guy showed us. He wouldn't let us go to catch our train until we paid him 150 plotzy (about 50$ US). We already had our train tickets and we were stuck. Corruption lives on. He never gave us tickets, a receipt or even wrote anything down, just took the money and pointed the way to the station. I'm sure the tram-driver and he had a nice little side business going.
Oh well, it's the only bad experience we've had. The night train did look like it came straight out of the communist era, it was VERY old; but we had a compartment to ourselves, and it was just for sleep anyway. No babies this time!!
We take the 4:30 train to Cesky Krunlov where we'll be for 2 nights...hope to do some white water rafting........seeya
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gary bouge
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Camp news
It does sound like a scam job. Its just as well that you paid what you did for your luggage rather then give them a bad time because you don"t know what they wouldhave done next.I"m sure glad that you are all right.All the information that you sent home is great . It will be so much fun listening to you explain about your once in a life time trip.About 2 more weeks left. We all miss you[animals and i] so please come home saftely.Call me when you get a chance.I don"t care what time it is. Miss and love you BUNCHES.