Poland!

Now that I am finally done with my uni work for this term, I finally have time to post a blog about my trip to Poland a couple of weeks back. 

The first point I want to make before anything else is that the weather was glorious. After what feels like a billion years in the rain in England, this was a very welcome change. I had to change my outfit minutes after leaving the airport in Krakow because it was so ridiculously warm. 

My initial opinions of Krakow weren't that great in all honesty. Sophie and I got on a ridiculously crowded train in the boiling hot and when we got off we weren't that sure where we were, all we knew is that there was a lot of building work going on. We found a McDonald's and grabbed some food (typical Brits) and couldn't actually find a patch of grass to sit on to eat. However when we made our way towards the Old Square where our hostel was located, we ended up walking through some lovely parks and past some beautiful buildings. 

Krakow's Old Square is beautiful, and much like in Prague, they have a clock tower which chimes every hour and is followed up by a short trumpet solo by a man in the tower. Pretty much one of my favourite things in the world. 

The first day was pretty much just taking it easy, getting a feeling for the place and Sophie getting started on her photos (because the reason we were there was so she could do her uni project). We climbed a tower and saw a giant statue of a head (just a head.. on it's side.. not sure of the significance) and then went and sat in the Hard Rock Cafe with a beer. Pretty much the perfect start to the holiday. We also stopped in a Magritte exhibition, but it wasn't quite as awesome as either of us had hoped. 

We were also going to get a start on the night life, starting with some Mexican food, but a (ridiculously funny oh my god I'm a terrible person) fall from Sophie led us right back to the Hostel. To be honest it was a good thing we had an early night. I slept like the DEAD. And Sophie took the opportunity to plan out the next day. Amazingly, we stuck to it really, really well and it was a brilliant day. 

After sampling some of the local cuisine (pizzas on baguettes instead of pizza base, a speciality, apparently. Also, awesome) we took a wonder towards the castle, after getting caught up in a parade. I'm not sure exactly what the parade was for but Sophie's guide book informed us that it was something very patriotic. 

The castle was beautiful, but incredibly busy. We took a wonder around there and before long ended up having to sit in the shade and drink lots and lots of water (did I mention that the weather was seriously amazing?) It wasn't all bad though because we ended up going back after a slight camera malfunction so that Sophie could capture everything digitally in case her film camera had decided not to play nicely. It was also at this count my nun count got a lot more interesting. Usually most places I go I count dogs (habit, don't know why, kind of started on my last day in Prague because we saw SO MANY dogs!) but on the first day in Poland we'd seen about 6 nuns and only 1 dog. 6 nuns was more nuns that I'm pretty sure I'd ever seen in my life, hence the count began. There was a monastery at the castle, so my count went from 19 to 47 in a matter of minutes (final count 68). 

We also went and visited an old Jewish Synagogue and graveyard in Kazimierz. We had to tie material around our shoulders and legs as a sign of respect (as modelled by Sophie) 

and ended up getting looked down on by some Irish woman for having to do so in the first place (to which Sophie said "We're obviously English Jezebels" and caused probably too much laughter for inside the walls of a graveyard). 

It was really beautiful though. The Synagogue not so much, because it was undergoing some reconstruction or something, so the scaffolding kind of ruined the atmosphere of the place, but the graveyard was really quiet and all of the graves had stones on them. I still haven't looked into the meaning of this, but it was something that we also saw on the train carriage that we saw when we visited the Birkenau concentration camp the next day. 

Also there was a wall, made up of broken Jewish tombstones, which also had little stones on it, placed where ever people could get them. 

We stopped in at the Jewish museum as well not long after this (I think, it was such a long day I'm having a hard time remembering exactly what we did and in what order) and saw some really good exhibitions. The permanent exhibition is called Traces of Memory which was a "contemporary look at the Jewish past in Poland". It was actually incredibly powerful and made me think quite a lot. Also, one section of it was focused on Auschwitz and Birkenau which made me incredibly nervous for our excursion the next day. 

The other exhibition we looked at was called "Poland and Palestine: Two Lands and Two Skies" which were a series of images by Zeev Aleksandrowicz. Despite the fact they just seemed like photographs of his friends, they were actually really wonderful. The Magritte exhibition we'd seen the day before was similar, but the photos didn't have the same kind of spark as the ones in this exhibition and they were really, really wonderful to look at. 

Lunch was superb. We had it a little later because we kept stopping off at various places, but we ended up in a place called Bagel Mama. Unfortunately, it is the only Bagel Mama in the world. I'm waiting for a day that it becomes a world wide chain so I can eat it where ever I go. And I didn't even think I liked bagels. But seriously... tuna melt with pesto on a garlic bagel... I can think of nothing better. And it truly was wonderful. 

We kind of slowed down after this. We got yelled at by some Polish girls who we think were trying to talk to us but we weren't sure what they were saying and we also weren't sure they were being friendly so we walked on with the excuse of a language barrier (once again, typical Brits). This is when we went back to the Castle, and also this time got to opportunity to climb the tower that there was too many people queuing for the first time we went. It's quite sad that for some reason in Poland you don't actually go outside at the top of the tower, you're just in the top of the building and there was 6 tiny windows to look out of. Despite that though the view was incredible. 

We also had a view of a fair and the river, so it wasn't long before we were down there, sipping on some Tisky and chatting about pretty much everything and debating whether or not to go on one of the boats (we didn't in the end, neither of us wanted to stand up in order to go and ask about prices etc), leaving when the mosquito's made their appearance. 

We ended up having dinner in a little vegetarian cafe that I can't remember the name of but was very, very yummy. We did have a case of eyes-bigger-than-belly when we decided after our main to have a side of garlic bread supposedly before pudding. What we didn't realise is that the side of garlic bread could have sustained both of us as a main and so we didn't have room for a pudding (or half the bread!!) but it was still nice regardless. 

We also got a first taste of the night life. We ended up in Kazimierz again, because we'd seen a little bar earlier called Alchemia, and it looked nice. It really was. It was nice and relaxed and I finally started drinking vodka and mixers (because I'm not particularly a beer drinker so it was all getting a bit too much for me). Also, behind the table we were at there was what we thought was a cupboard. That was until about four people stepped out of it. Turns out it was the door to a smoking area but I'm pretty sure it was designed like that to be sneaky and confuse tourists. It succeeded. 

There was also supposedly a place that was designed to be Alice in Wonderland themed (or 'down the rabbit hole' to be more specific) but it really wasn't so we lasted all of five minutes there before ending up somewhere that looked like the inside of a cave. We called it a night after that because as much as I don't thing we wanted to admit it, we were ridiculously tired (and we wanted to beat the Germans-who-never-stopped-showering back to our hotel so we could actually get in the bathroom and have showers of our own (shared hostel bathroom)).

The next day we went to the Photography museum. There was a really wonderful Arno Fischer exhibition there and the photos were just wonderful. There was also some Sibylle Bergemann polaroids which made me actually want to cry with how absolutely beautiful they were. I strongly recommend taking a look into her work if you haven' before, because they are really beautiful.

It was in the afternoon that we took our trip to Auschwitz. We only paid 90zloti each, and that got us an English speaking tour around Auschwitz and Auschwitz II-Birkenau as well as the transport there and back. It was also pretty nice that there were only 6 people in total on our tour, so it's not like you're stuck in a massive group (despite the fact there were a lot of giant groups there, which kind of takes away from the atmosphere of the whole place). 

The displays of things belonging to the people in the camp were absolutely mind blowing. One of the things that really got me was a the case of hair. An absolutely unbelievable amount of hair, and it was terrifying seeing the way  that some of it was still plaited. It's awful just to think about now. 

We also saw the 'Wall of Death' which was, again, horrifying. You can also see the way the windows of the buildings alongside it have been boarded up, because the Nazi's wanted to have an element of mystery about punishments. Just seeing it from where we did was horrifying and it's awful to think of the things that happened there. I'm running out of things to say about it because there literally are no words. 

I'm going to have a seperate post about the gas chambers (here) because this post is getting long enough, and I still have a lot of feelings about the whole thing and I just... I feel like it stands so much better alone because I've never felt anything like I felt in there. So.. moving on from that we left there and got on the bus to Birkenau. One thing I will say, not so much about Birkenau, but about Auschwitz, is how close it is to the town. I imagine that we'd go through the town of Oswiecim and then drive for a while longer before actually getting to the camp, but it was actually so, so close. It was almost frightening. 

But from what I remember, Birkenau was further out (though not really far away). The first thing we did when we got there was go up to the watch tower. From there you can see the entire camp. The scale of it is absolutely amazing (not amazing good, amazing bad, obviously) and standing there, and looking out of the window out at the train track and the area where people were sorted into men and women/children and then sorted into those who were fit to work, and those who'd be sent straight to death, was a really long moment. You honestly don't really take in what you're seeing. It hits you hours later and I actually felt sick for about a whole day and a half just thinking about it. 

After that, we took a walk into one of the barracks. It was the one with the 'toilets' in it. In reality, they were just cement boxes, with holes in the top. We were told about how the people in the camps were only allowed to use the toilets once a day, in the morning and at night and only a 5 minute window in order to do it. There wasn't nearly enough toilets for the amount of people who'd need it. We were told about how awful the smell was (obviously) and how getting the job of cleaning out the toilets was one of the best jobs you could get because, despite the smell, you pretty much had any opportunity to go to the toilet, because you're with them all day, and you were never guarded, because the Nazi's didn't want to go near them because of the smell. It's an awful idea, that cleaning out a massive mutual toilet would be one of the best. 

We also went into one of the barracks were people would sleep. It was one of the women's barracks and we were told that about 800 people would be forced to live together in one barrack. There were 7 of us with our group, and another tour of maybe about 30 people.. and it already felt too crowded. 

After that we took a walk along the train track, up to one of the train cars. We stood exactly where people were 'sorted'. But like I said.. you don't realise it. To me, the Holocaust is already too awful to believe it's real anyway, let alone actually being there. 

All in all, the Poland was a really great trip. It's sad that we didn't get to spend more time there, but the time we did have was awesome. It's somewhere I'd definitely like to see again. 

I'm not really sure how else to end this blog post so here have a lame obligatory tourist photo of me outside the castle. Also, it'd be cool if you could go and give my FACEBOOK a like or even follow this blog. I also have a FLICKR SET of all the photos I took on this trip. Thaaanks. 

Oh! Also! Go take a look at Sophie's book on blurb (I will also drop the cheeky hint that it is available for sale too) because this was essentially the whole reason behind the trip, and it really is a lovely book.