Polly Want a Krakow?

Krakow, Poland is just how I pictured it, cold, rainy/snowy and bare. We visited the old Jewish sector that was once a place where all of the traditional Jews lived before WWII. We took a walking tour around the city which we have not done since we were in Rome, possibly. It felt nice to walk around for a 4 hours instead of walking on and off a bus all day.

Next we walked to a castle that many royalty have inhabited and was greatly damaged by the destruction of WWII. We did learn that Krakow didn't get hit by the Germans nearly as bad as Warsaw did, and was able to rebuild itself a lot easier than other cities. The guide made a lot of references to Schindler's List which I have not seen, but I imagine I will get a lot out of it if I were to watch it now. This courtyard was apparently in the movie or one just like it.

These are just a few images of Krakow and what it has to offer and you can easily see what I meant when I said it was dark and bare. But soon after this the sun came out and it really changed my point of view. It was incredible how a little sun can change a perception of a city.

We ended at the Market Square that has a lot to offer a starving student. I had the most amazing kabab there that was huge and incredibly cheap which is always the best combination. Next we headed back to the hotel to do some homework and then meet again to go to a group dinner at a US Consolate's house that is the father of a friend of one of our group members that joined us for spring break.  Follow that? They have a personal chef and servers that had what seemed to be an unlimited supply of beer for a while as we ate DELICIOUS food and mingled amongst ourselves.

Today we went to Auschwitz. I was somewhat dreading this because we all know the incredible horror that went on in that place. We were required to read Primo Levi's book "Survival in Auschwitz" for class so we were somewhat familiar with more detail about what went on there. On the way we watched a movie on the coach that was only in Polish or German so the guide muted it and did commentary. The images I saw were unbelievable. Although I feel as though I know a lot about The Holocaust, I still learned so much just from that movie. The images that stuck out the most to me where the experiments that they did on small children and identical twins for absolutely no good reason. I just have so much trouble understanding the hate, the complete disregard for people. They tricked them into thinking they were going to take a shower when they were actually going to be exterminated in the gas chambers. They brought suitcases of all of their most treasured belongings because they thought they were just moving to another place instead of going to Auschwitz. Some even had to buy the train ticket that brought them to the camp that was jam packed with people with no food or bathroom and no air.

Its just so tragic. Everyone was silent as we passed through rooms filled with shoes, glasses, hair, and combs. All of these items were just a small sample of what was actually collected and sold to Germans for profit.

Block 11 was nicknamed Hell Block. This is where they took prisoners to be held in a cell and be tortured, and starved.

This is called the wall of death. This is where they lined people up to shoot them. The flowers were laid there by family members honoring their loved ones. The windows and entire courtyard was closed off so no one could see in or get out. Yikes.

This image is from the larger camp Auschwitz II that was 12 times larger than Auschwitz I where we took our tour. Here are just rows and rows of barracks that housed hundreds of thousands of people in impossible living conditions. The barracks themselves are rebuilt because when the Germans were evacuating, they tried to bomb most of the evidence that they had ever done any wrong. The thousands of bodies were enough evidence.

This was a hard day as you can imagine. I'm still reeling from it all and I just thought that you all would be interested in seeing some images from the museum. The hard to stomach images that were taken at the time of The Holocaust were inside barracks which are not allowed to be photographed. This was fine simply because that is not something that I wish to look over again in the near future.

I made it through though. I was able to make it through the incredible emotional taxing day without crying even when we toured the gas chambers and I saw the claw marks on the walls. Its just....

The Batlic States, more than a spot on the Monopoly board

Oh the Baltic States in Eastern Europe. They brought me stress and realization that I have a lot to get done before I get back and then even more to get done after I do get back. I loved Helsinki. I think I would live there if it weren't so incredibly cold in the winter. I would imagine the landscape architecture is nice underneath 3 feet of snow, it seemed that way at least. We actually got to see some modern architecture here though. Lots of housing and things like that, but we have been seeing a lot of historical architecture and when we actually see modern design, everyone crowds around and takes a ton pictures. ohhhh modern!

 It seems to me that we did not really do or see much except the inside of a coach and a whole lot of Boroque buildings. Boroque architecture is described as wedding cake architecture. The outside of the building is done up so much that it resembles a fancy, done-up wedding cake.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are a complete blur. We went through them in one week and I am still reeling from it. So pretty much nothing special happened to me in the past week. I started to miss home a lot and with the increasing stress from looming deadlines makes it worse.

In Tallinn, Estonia, I enjoyed Old Town. Old Town is the medieval town that is still quite cozy as it once was. The buildings are all short and close together and there are practically no cars and the ones that do show up actually yield to pedestrians. I could hardly believe it. 

It is very likely that this post will be quite dull and full of my rantings about stress because that is simply what this past week has been for me. The Baltic States are cold, snowy, but everyone tends to speak English.

 A friend of mine was in the Nike store looking for sweatpants in Riga, Latvia and went up to a salesperson to ask if the price was in Lats or Dollars (no idea why he thought they would be in dollars). I think mostly it was becuase the price was so expensive. One Lat is two dollars. The price was the same in Lats as it would have been at home in dollars. So the sweats were 40 Lats which is $80. But at home they would be around $40. So anyway, he lead with the question we have all learned to start with when asking anyone in a foreign country a question. "Do you speak English?" the salesperson answere "Of course" in better English than we speak. It was quite funny and if you do not agree it is probably because of my delivery as it usually is when I tell stories.

Oh! One thing that is noteworthy is that I saw a movie. One of us has been hankoring to see a movie and the two of us thought Riga, Latvia would be a great a place as ever. Mostly it was because we spotted the movie theatre and saw that they were playing Alice in Wonderland in 3D. So the two of us told two others and then the group quickly grew to about 20 without my even knowing it by the next day. I haven't been to a 3D movie since I was 7 in Disney World when I saw Honey, I Shrunk the Audience. So I was pretty pumped.

We asked the guide what the movie situation would be. We figured that since it was an American movie that it would be in English with Latvian subtitles. The guide agreed and so we made a bold move and went to the theatre. All the previews were anamated movies and were in Latvian. We started to get pretty nervous until the Alice in Wonderland started and the title came up in ENGLISH. The entire movie was in English with Latvian and Russian subtitles. It was the perfect movie to see in Latvia. We were all anxious to see it and it was even cheaper there than it would have been in the states. Only $7. No pictures of myself in these glasses exist, so you all will have to settle for my friends, because Jake is wearing mine in the picture..

My spirits were low this week. My computer is giving me some trouble with battery life and the temptation to throw it against a wall is ever increasing. No battery life is just fine when you have an outlet nearby. I don't tend to have an outlet nearby most of the time. I don't want to talk about it anymore.

Yesterday we were on the bus from 9:30 am until 10 pm with two bathroom stops, one that doubled as a lunch stop at a convenience store and one bathroom for 45 people and 15 minutes to do it in, and no dinner stop at all. Since there was such a time crunch with the bathroom, most ended up peeing outside in a not so secluded area with cars whizzing by (no pun intended). Oh, life on the road. We arrived here i Krakow in the late evening and luckily knew where some quick food was that we could easily get to from our hotel.

I fell asleep at 11 on Krakow time, which is another hour earlier than my previous time zone in my clothes, minus pants and then waking up at 9am to get the day started. It was a glorious 10 hour sleep that was much needed despite my lack of activity on the bus.

So now, for my lack of energy, I am going to just post pictures because I have no more commentary to go with them. So enjoy.