Well, the parents are off to the airport, headed back to
Chicago. We have had a GREAT 10 days! It was so nice to see them, travel and
spend time together.
But back to late April and my trip to Krakow, Poland! I’ll
try and make it somewhat short. We left on Thursday, April 25 at 5:00 AM –
luckily (?) our bus trip ended up being about 12 hours, so we had plenty of
time to nap! There are some strict laws about how bus drivers have to stop ever
hour or two for a certain amount of time, and then every few hours for 30
minutes – I’m sure it’s for safety reasons, but we are convinced it’s so they
can have an excuse to smoke!
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| Krakow, Poland |
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| Krakow, Poland |
The trip was through the Buddy Network again, so it was 65
people. We were all staying in the same hostel, so checking in was very hectic and
took a long time. All of our breakfasts and dinners were included though, so
that was nice! The food there was great – pirogues, goulash, cabbage rolls,
bakery!
The town of Krakow was so cute! I wasn’t expecting to enjoy
Poland so much – I always thought it was cold and gray, but it was beautiful!
80 degrees and sunny, and the people were all so nice!
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| Square at night |
One of the days we went to a salt mine, which was actually
very interesting. It is no longer used for mining, but has only recently been
retired, and had been in use since the Middle Ages. It had 20,000 chambers and
we only saw 20 on our 3-hour tour. Ever since the beginning of its existence,
after the work day was over, the miners would stay and carve the walls off
excavated chambers. None of them were artists, but the work was amazing! This
continued to happen through the 1900s, so the amount of art is huge. There are
multiple chapels, dining halls, stages, banquet halls…. Carvings of The Last
Supper and other famous paintings, sculptures, lakes…! It was crazy!
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| Chapel in the Salt Mine! |
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| Underground Lake! |
One of the other days, we also had the opportunity to go to
Auschwitz and Birkenau (Auschwitz II), only about 1 hour outside of Krakow. We
had a guided tour, and got to see only a portion of both. It is so hard to
believe how large each is. Auschwitz is the main portion of the visit, and many
of the existing barracks have been turned into museums. The museum was full of
photographs describing the exact process the victims went through upon
arriving, the items they brought with them expecting a better life as they were
promised, and documents discovered – only a portion of the belongings and
documents, since most had been destroyed during the liquidation. We were also
able to go into the basement of one of the buildings that showed the types of
torture cells used for those who tried to escape, or were otherwise imprisoned.
The most disturbing and emotional part was walking through the gas chamber and
crematorium – there is only one still standing at Auschwitz, the others were
bombed by the Nazis before liberation.
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| Shoes discovered upon Liberation |
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| Auschwitz I |
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| Memorial in the Gas Chamber |
Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II, is only 3 kilometers
from the main camp. This was where many of the victims lived in barracks. Much
of it was bombed before liberation, but some has been reconstructed to show
visitors the conditions. This site was even bigger than the first, and we were
able to see how far the barracks stretched from a watchtower. As much as I have
read and learned about the Holocaust and this location in particular, visiting
put the terror into better perspective. I find it even harder to wrap my mind
around now; that this could have happened on such an extreme level, less than
70 years ago. I’m very glad I had the chance to visit, and I will never, ever
forget it.
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| Birkenau - Auschwitz II |
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| Barrack at Birkenau |
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| Barrack at Birkenau |
- - - - - - - -
On to a happier note – my parents came to visit! They got
here on Tuesday April 29, and I picked them up at the airport.
We spent Wednesday through Saturday in Vienna, before
heading to Prague. I had class on two days, but we still managed to see almost
everything. I won’t go into tons of detail, because I have posted about most of
the sights we visited in previous posts. We saw all 3 main palaces, visiting
Stephensplatz and the First District many, many times, went to multiple
museums, went to the Naschmarket (my favorite!) rode the Prater Ferris Wheel at
night, walked through many parks, and walked, and walked, and walked some more.
We also had many great meals – one of the perks of their
visit! J
Luckily we walked a ton everyday, or we all would have gained 20 pounds instead
of 10… Just kidding, maybe not 10, but we sure did eat a lot!
One of my favorite parts of the week – and something I
hadn’t done yet – was going to the wine gardens and Vienna Woods on the
outskirts of Vienna. We had to take an U-bahn to the end of the line, then a
bus, and then do some hiking, but we ended up high above Vienna – with a view
that would have been really nice, had it been a little less hazy! We had a
“liquid refreshment”, hiked down a ways, and then caught a bus into the town of
Grinzig, where we went to a local wine garden and had some wine and cheese! The
weather was perfect, and it was a great day!
We were in Prague Sunday-Wednesday. I had been there with
Nolan in March, and I have to say it was one of my favorite cities then and ten
times better this time around. It is definitely one of my favorite places I
have traveled to! As you may recall, it was freeeeezing when Nolan and I were
there, and this time around it was beautiful! We had a little rain, but mostly
cloudy/sunny skies and 70-degree weather.
We stayed in a cute, very old hotel called “At The Green
Grape” (My Dad like to make many grammatically correct jokes about the name, an
example; “No, I left it in the room at the At The Green Grape.” Ha!) Our room
looked like the interior of a log cabin, and was very nice. The only problem
was that the doorways were not made for a family of our height – we all hit our
heads multiple times!
We did much of the same sightseeing as Nolan and I – we even
had the same tour guide for our walking tour! We had time to see more of the
Jewish Quarter this time, which was really cool. We went to the Old Jewish
Cemetery, where 120,000 people are buried on top of each other in a very small
piece of land. Back when it was a Jewish Ghetto, they were not given any more
land to bury their dead once their cemetery was full, so they had to being
bringing in earth and burying people atop one another – taking out the
gravestone and then replacing it between others. It was definitely one of the
most unique cemeteries I have been to!
One interesting tidbit about our stay in Prague – we were
staying up the street from the US Embassy and walked passed multiple times a
day, so we got to see what was going on all the time. We (my mom & I
especially) were quite interested in the level of security. There were always
police officers watching from the street, and every car passing would have to
stop for inspection. The officers would have them open the hood and sometimes
trunk, and they would also use a mirror to look underneath the car. This applied
even to public transportation buses! Luckily it wasn’t a super busy street. We
concluded that we were staying either in the safest or most dangerous place in
the city!
We covered pretty much all the ground (literally and
figuratively) in both Prague and Vienna, in just 10 days! I loved having them
here, and spending time with them! I don’t think I’ll be seeing too much of
them this summer!
It’s so hard to believe that I will be home a week from
Tuesday! I have two finals early next week, and then I am off for one more last
minute trip to Spain (Thursday-Sunday), and then I leave bright and early
Tuesday morning!
