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?

Day 14: Krakow

Highlights:

• Hostel Deco
• Krolicze Oczy on Estery
• Planty

We were woken on the train five minutes before arriving in Krakow (I'm still not sure how to pronounce this. I've heard Krakow, Krakov, and I'm pretty sure the locals say Krakou and sometimes Krakouv). I heard an American guy in the next cabin saying how he'd been ripped off when exchanging cash on the street in Prague. Some slight of hand meant the middle section of his wad of cash was just newspaper. I didn't need to read the warning in the guide to know that changing money with a man in an overcoat on the street is a bad idea...if I'd been talking to him, pretty sure I'd have made a sarky comment about him only having himself to blame for being such a doughnut.

It was about 6.30am. The Czech man had got into bed at 8.30, and had promptly fallen asleep with no fuss, not waking until 6am the next morning. I knew he was asleep by the sporadic light snores he made, which unlike Eden's in Prague, had been slightly comforting. At Krakow station, we unlocked our door (a few guides I've read since say that theft is quite common on that train, and they advise either not falling asleep if you're in the general coach, or sleeping on top of your personal belongings. So the ticket lady's advice about locking the door was pretty useful). I jumped (yes) off the train, and made my way into Krakow. There didn't seem to be an actual station to walk through, so quite confusingly, you leave your platform and find yourself on this covered promenade, leading onto a shopping square. It was really foggy, and though I had a map from the hostel website, I couldn't really work out where I was. A Polish man came up to me and asked for "coins for Polish beer". It was 6.30am. When I told him I had no zloty, I think he interpreted that as me not having ANY money in the world, and he wished me good luck. Rather than stand falling prey to local drunks, I decided to make a leap of faith and start moving and found I was on the right track.  I stopped off to get some Zloty (about 4.3 zlotys are 1 pounds). My hostel was in the North West of Krakow, just outside the centre, which I liked because again it meant you were able to see a bit more of the city outside the tourist centre.

The hostel had a no show the previous night, so I was able to go straight into my room to a prepared bed. It was a 4-bed dorm but I was the only one there, so completely exhausted, I fell asleep for 5 hours. I woke to beautiful sunshine and after quickly looking around the hostel (it had a kitchen where a free breakfast was served every morning and a nice lounge. The deco theme of the hostel is pretty apparent, and it really looks very cool inside. My shared bathroom was like a hotel bathroom, not like the crappy, dirty hostel thing you'd expect). I dropped off my key at reception (a requirement) and slowly headed into the centre. It was hot. In English terms, we're talking 'shorts and T-Shirt weather and the sky was completely clear. I was still a little sluggish, and I'm ashamed to admit that I stopped off at a place/chain called 'Coffee Heaven' for an emergency coffee and muffin. It was my first stop at a chain since I've been travelling though. That's got to count for something.

The centre of town is circled by a thin park, with benches lining the path. It's called the nickname-sounding 'Planty' and was packed because of the nice weather. I had a wander around, passing several nuns, a baby that sounded EXACTLY like a Kazoo and lots of elderly couples, watching the world go by. I'd read that being fairly religious (they're clearly still HUGELY in love with Pope John Paul II - his picture is everywhere) in churches you had to cover up, but I felt myself getting odd looks on the street because I was baring my arms. As well as no socks, I somehow had also only packed It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Mac style cut off t-shirts, so there's really not a lot I can do about this. 

The main square is in the old town and was very pretty. SIDE NOTE Someone had mentioned that Polish and Czech differ a lot in language, but Old Town is Stare Miasto in Polish, and Stare Mesto in Czech. Not that different. As it was out of season, the square wasn't rammed, though slightly annoyingly was full of people trying to get you into their restaurants/offering you flyers. The best or perhaps worst was a guy looking like Big Chef (from Big Chef/Little Chef) holding a wooden spoon. From here I wandered over to Kazimierz, which was the old Jewish part of town. One awful fact I learnt was that during WW2, ALL of Polands 3m Jews were killed, or relocated. After the war, the country had been completely ethnically 'cleansed' (horrible word, but I don't know how else to put it) leaving 98% of the population purely Polish. This part of town has consequently become the sort of poor/grungy area, so I felt sure I'd like it. I walked onto a square called pl. Nowy, which had some cool looking bars and restaurants, and stopped off at one called Krolicze Oczy on Estery because it was playing Grizzly Bear. Aside from Muse, music tastes out this way have been amazing. Yeasayer followed Grizzly Bear. I sat enjoying the music and had my first Zywiec piwo (pronounced Pivo) for 7 zloty (just under 2 pounds), so a little more expensive than Czech beer. Also, really not as nice as even the cheapest Czech pivo I had. 

I walked back to my hostel slowly to freshen up, stopping to buy an ice-cream and the helpful man let me practice my polish (another example; 'Thanks' in Czech is pronounced dje-koo-yi, in Polish it's djen-koo-yi). I walked back through Planty and up into a park called Krawicki (or something) which was dotted with these odd sculptures. Pretty cool. I passed a lot of places called 'Piekarnia' which I hoped meant 'Pie Carnage', but I think probably meant Bakery. SIDE NOTE There were a few tourist carts taking people, with the translation of 'old town' on the side in various languages. Old town in Italian was 'Ghetto'. I just looked it up and apparently the word ghetto comes from 'Borghetto', meaning either Little Borgo (Borough) or Borg-Ghet (meaning waste borough), which was an area in Venice outside of the city walls where Jews lived. The best Polish word I've seen so far is 'Uwaga', which means caution. UWAGA. Amazing.

I crashed at the hostel for a bit, then headed into town to a bar called Buddha Bar, which my alternative guide had said had a nice garden. It had one table outside... Inside I grabbed a beer and then listened in horror at a woman in a group of English people say 'Well Jell' THREE TIMES IN A 30 MINUTE PERIOD. I was so embarrassed, I wrote a Tanka about it. 

End of day 14.