Day 15: Krakow to Oswiecim to Krakow

Highlights:

• All you can eat muesli - free Hostel breakfast
• Auschwitz (here I don't mean highlight in the 'Oh my god, that was SO cool' sense, rather that it was a key part of my day)
• Kindles now let you browse the web

It was pretty gloomy when I woke up, but I woke up in a private room to an inclusive hostel breakfast so I was feeling pretty chirpy. The sign in the kitchen read 'One sandwich but all you can eat cornflakes and muesli'. Yummy. Quite the expansive, continental breakfast. NON-INTERESTING SIDE NOTE I was trying to spell muesli, museli. I had to google it to verify that I was wrong. Apparently the mues in muesli means 'to mash up/puree' and muesli was invented by Dr Bircher to help his patients. And then I found 10 Zloty. 

I bagged a sandwich for lunch and ate my weight in chocolate MUESli. As it was so gloomy out, I figured today was as good a day as any to visit Auschwitz. I'd seen lots of tour options on offer, but my guide said you could just get a bus yourself from the station to Oswiecim (pronounced Osh-fyen-cheem) where Auschwitz-Birkenau are (Auschwitz, whilst a more famous name, was a smaller camp than Birkenau, and was originally the main prison for Polish political prisoners, Jews and Romas (Gypsies) whilst Birkenau was the larger, later built extermination camp). I bought my ticket for 12zl (just under 3 quid) and sat waiting on the lower platform of the bus garage, ridiculously fascinated by the traffic system the bus company had in place. It was so smooth and efficient. I could have sat watching it for at least another 20minutes longer than I did. But a little minibus pulled in to collect us, and we headed out of the city. 

On arrival at Auschwitz from the road, the first thing you see is a little hut with the words 'FAST FOOD' on the side, and then a huge coach park to the right. It seemed a little Alton Towers, but there really is no other way of doing it I suppose; it's important for people to come, more so here than to most other 'tourist' sites, so it's going to be busy and you've got to cater for them. It cost 30zl with my student card, and I quickly made the tour group just leaving. Quite sensibly, during peak hours you have to go with a tour guide to ensure flow of people around the site is constant, as certain areas did get a little crowded.

I won't go into detail about the camps. I think everyone really should visit themselves. Only by actually visiting these camps did that horrendous side of humanity really sink in to me, in a way history lessons and textbooks never really managed to relate.

One point though; in my tour group there was a disgusting, short, fat American lady, who used the reverse camera function on her iPhone to take photos of herself in front of, first the buildings at Auschwitz, which seemed weird but not outrageous, but then in front of piles of murdered victims' shoes, and then the gallows, and then the ovens where the dead bodies were cremated. It literally made me feel sick. I can't possibly comprehend why she needed herself to be in all of those photos, and why she even needed to take photos in the first place. 

It was raining the whole time. I leant my umbrella to a Scandinavian couple and my coat was soaked through by the end. After the shuttle had returned us from Birkenau to our starting point, I pegged it with an English couple to the road to catch our return bus. As their knees/hips started giving out (they were old), I took one for the team and yelled back 'I'll make them hold it for you!' and ploughed on. We all arrived at the bus, wet, tired but with a sense of satisfaction that we'd just made it, only for the bus to wait 15minutes before leaving. We shared an ironic look between us, before settling in to warm up.

Back in Krakow, I got off the bus a little early, proud that I already knew the city well enough to identify my local 'Family Dent' (this is a family dentist practice, but the quite expensive looking sign only has those letters, despite there being room for more. Apparently that's enough). I grabbed some food and a Polish beer and trundled back to the hostel, where I discovered I now had a roommate. The bed had been part slept in already, and resting on top were a pair of man-size burnt orange courderoys. Thundering footsteps passed by door and I saw a large group of French school kids heading to the common room. By French school kids, we're talking treize ans, rather than sexy Inbetweeners style dix-sept ans French exchange. The teacher sounded pretty foxy, so I was hoping he was the owner of the orange trousers, but then I saw him; a deceptively young sounding mid-50s guy wearing a T-Shirt saying Lucky Player. No no. 

I didn't really fancy being alone that evening. I'd left a note at the hostel of the Australian guys the previous day with my number, so when they sent a message, I agreed to head across town to meet them. They were staying in Kazimierz (the Jewish town) so after stopping off to ask the receptionist of my hostel how to pronounce Uwaga for my mate Tom (Tom - it's ooh-vag-ah. I'm using it all over the place now), I caught a tram (without paying) around to the other side of town. Spent the evening in a few bars in that part of town (it's REALLY cool down there. So many cool looking places to go to). Back at the hostel, I was woken at 2.30am when my roommate came back. Not a french teacher clearly, but a guy who seems to only wear block colours. I spotted all red pyjamas getting into bed and in a pile on the floor, a bright blue coat and a canary yellow sweater.

End of day 15.

P.S. My Kindle now lets you browse the web. Cool. 
P.P.S I've also noticed that Europeans generally start counting from the thumb. So to count three they'll use thumb, index, middle. Every time I see it I find it weird. It's index, middle, third finger, right?