Poland May 23rd-25th

On May 23rd, we got on a train heading to Krakow, Poland. We were about an hour outside Krakow, when a girl knocked on our cabin door. She asked us if we were backpackers, and Shane and I looked at each other and said, "Well, yeah, I guess." So, she said she and her friend were too and invited us to join them in their cabin. That was the point in our trip where we met two crazy girls from Norway, who managed keep us laughing for the next few days. Their names were Theresa and Lone, and as soon as we stepped into the door of their cabin, we started laughing. They were traveling for 22 days around Europe and it was the first time to travel for both of them. They had absolutely no plan about where they were going or what they were going to do. Their only plan was.."there is no plan!" They had spent a night sleeping in a train station and another night in an old woman's apartment that they found them at a train station (a big "no no" when traveling).


Our friends from Norway. Theresa and Lone.

They had been sitting in their cabin writing a song about their trip (which they immediately performed for us while I used their video camera to video it.) These two adorable girls were so excited to be traveling and were so interested in our trip. They kept saying how jealous they were and that they wanted to travel around the world too. I don't think I had ever met two people so pumped up to be traveling. They even had business cards made for their trip that had their names, email address, and slogan (livin on the edge) on them. They were hysterical.

We arrived in Krakow at night, and didn't really know what to expect from the city. The girls hadn't booked a hostel anywhere, so we told them to just come with us and we would see if our hostel had any beds. When we started walking around, we were impressed with how clean the city was and how friendly the people were. Shane and I usually just keep wandering around until we find what we are looking for, but Theresa and Lone's method was simply to ask everyone who came near us if they knew where the Dizzy Daisy Hostel was. That is how we found out how friendly and helpful the Polish people were. Of course, no one actually knew where the hostel was, but we managed to get some help finding the street, and therefore found the hostel. The Dizzy Daisy quickly became one of our favorite hostels. EVERYONE who worked in reception was super friendly, and it was just a great hostel all around. The girls ended up getting 2 beds in the same dorm room as us and we were just one big happy family.

The four of us decided that we definately wanted to go to the famous Salt Mines and the 2 concentration camps in Krakow, Auschwitz and Birkenau. So, we booked an all day tour for the following day, May 24th. We woke up early to catch the shuttle and were off to the Salt Mines first. In all honesty, we were not too impressed with the mines. If you have been in a cave or a mine before, they all pretty much look like this one. The only difference with the salt mines is that their is salt everywhere. I think a lot of our disappointment came from the fact that we couldn't understand most of what our tour guide said. He had a really heavy accent, so it was difficult. He was, however, a lovely man who reminded me a lot of an older version of Mr. Bean, so I kept laughing when I looked at him.

Theresa and Shane on the tour bus on our way back from the Salt Mines.

Lune and I on the tour bus.



After the mines, we had a 2 hour break and then, we took the bus to the camps. These camps were something that Shane and I both had always wanted to see. We went to Auschwitz first and then Birkenau. Since we had booked a tour, a tour guide was included in our price. However, if we had it to do over, we would definately do it on our own. Everything is really well marked if you didn't mind taking the time to read it and you weren't rushed through. With the guide, we didn't feel like we had enough time to see everything. However, it was an experience that I am not sure we could ever put into words. One of the things that we noticed first I think was the stairs. In all the buildings, there were stairs made out of marble and each stair had a dent in the center from so many feet passing over them over the years. It was something we had never seen before and it just really hit you how many people had passed through there. Then, we saw things like the rooms full of hair, shoes, suitcases with the names and addresses still written on them, and countless other rooms that you can't even describe. It was just room after room of sadness. There was one building full of photos of the prisoners as they came into the camps and it had the date they arrived and the date they died. Most of the women and children didn't last more than 2 months. The thing that impacted Shane and I the most I think, was going into the gas chamber. When we walked in, you could just feel that the air was different, and on the walls, you could actually see claw marks. It was probably the most sobering experience of my life. You just can't put into words what it makes you feel. The fact that humans could do these things to other humans is impossible to comprehend.

One of the buildings when you first enter Auschwitz.

















This is the first building we went in where all the rooms full of hair, shoes, suitcases, etc. were.











This is just a small section of this huge room full of suitcases.

This is a little girl's shoe in the room full of prisoner's shoes.



This photo is kinda hard to see, but it is a room full of hair from the prisoners at Auschwitz.



The electric fences and guard towers surrounding the camp.





These are the gallows where they hung the man in charge of Auschwitz after the Allies came in and closed the camp.
This is us going into the gas chamber at Auschwitz.

We went to Birkenau after we left Auschwitz. Birkenau was the biggest camp and the one that most of you would have seen in photographs when you studied this part of history in school. This is the camp where the train tracks are and where the man stood in the center of the tracks and gave the signal for death or life when the prisoners got off the trains.


Looking across the vastness of this camp just makes your stomach churn. It was massive and sickening. At Birkenau, we saw the bunk rooms where the prisoners were kept and the conditions were horrible. Animals are treated better than these people.

The bunk houses where the prisoners were forced to live.

Looking out over Birkenau.

The chimneys where mostly all that was left after the Allies burnt all the bunk houses. There were still a few bunk houses left, but not too many. Just enough so that they could show people and people wouldn't forget what happened there.

We left Birkenau feeling very sober and quiet. I think we were all kinda wrapped up in our own thoughts. Perhaps Shane said it best when he said, "How can some people deny that this ever happened after seeing this place?"

Theresa and Lone were supposed to leave and go to Budapest on a night train on the 24th. We had met a nice guy at Dizzy Daisy who was orginally from Romania but lives in New York. His name was Alex and he had left the day before to go to Budapest. The girls were supposed to meet him on the 25th. However, we managed to convince them to stay with us and leave the next night instead. One way we managed to convince them to stay was by teaching Lone a line dance (she was obsessed with country music...yes a girl from Norway who loves country music.)

The gang hanging out watching a football game...Liverpool lost:(...the night that Alex left. Lune, Theresa, Shane and Alex.

The girls pretending to be gangstas. I had stolen Theresa's glasses for the evening.

So, the four of us stayed in Poland for one more day. We had a look around the city and ate the best icecream ever known to man. The city of Krakow was very nice and I really liked it there. There is a lot that we didn't get to see, but on the night of May 25th, we boarded our first night train and headed to Budapest, Hungary.

A sculpture that we saw in the main square in Krakow. Remember this sculpture, cause it pops up again in Italy.