amy and i just got back to Rome at 8 this morning (monday morning)...we had to leave for the airport at 2:30 A.M., which i will explain in a second...
Friday morning, we had a taxi pick us up at 6 AM to get to the airport on time...everything went perfectly...we arrived in poland right on schedule...found a shuttle to take us to Krakow, and then began the search for our hostel...we were there about an hour, still looking for this particular street, when i went and asked some guy if he could show us where we were on the map i had in my guide book...he said "this is a map of krakow"...i looked at him kinda stupidly and replied "yes, i know...we're in krakow"...he smiled and said, "no...this is katowice"...umm, cue panic mode...i really almost started crying...but, thankfully this guy helped me out...apparently, katowice has two airports...one which usually shuttles to krakow, and one that is katowice's main airport...amy and i felt really stupid for a while...we kinda just assumed krakow and katowice were the same...kinda like florence is the same thing as firenze...and they kept showing as the same thing on the airlines webpage...anyway, enough excuses...we messed up...but luckily, auschwitz is on the way to krakow...so friday we just headed there instead...
so, auschwitz...where to start...first of all, it was not how i pictured it...i imagined it would be sort of alone...in the middle of nowhere...but it is very much a part of the town...also, it was really green...i always thought it would lack any type of color for some reason...i am so incredibly glad i got to go...to walk where they walked...to see thousands of shoes...7 tons of hair...i really can not describe to you all the feelings it evokes...we also got to see auchwitz 2...birkenau, the larger camp a few miles away...and sadly, it looked just as i imagined...treeless, sameness, sadness...honestly, i don't want to blog about all that i thought and saw and learned there...so, just ask me and i'll tell you in person...it's good stuff...
afterwards we went to our hostel in krakow...i love hostels...honestly, i do...they are so much fun...just awesome places...this one was called Nathan's Villa Hostel...they had a kitchen, pool room and theatre room...anybody interested in opening a hostel in the states with me? locale is key, but i think it could work...that night we went to the most polish restaurant you could imagine...it was fabulous...except, Amy and i unknowingly ate lard...i don't recommend it...
the next day we saw the castle in krakow...didnt really know what it is...still dont really know...it was pretty though...the weather was great, the people were hilarious, and the town was just darling...we had the most amazing kebabs ever...and then headed to zakopane (which is kind of like the interlaken, switzerland of poland...a ski/adventure town)...once again, our hostel was so great...this one was actually a little cabin...that night, amy and i went to see Mamma Mia...we had been craving the theatre experience...this one guy behind us laughed the entire time at peirce brosnan (and for good reason) which made the movie doubly enjoyable...that next morning we waited 2 hours to go up in a cable car...it was certainly worth it...except, i wasn't really dressed for snow...i definitely had on my chacos...bad, bad decision...i didn't have a choice though...i only brought one pair of shoes...afterall, i have to carry everything on my back...some things i just have to leave behind...like snow shoes...here's what happened...i fell 3 times trying to walk up the wet/icy/slippery "path" in my chacos and quickly lost all feeling in my toes...after we had our fill of pictures and watched two nuns have a snowball fight, we started to head back down...but, umm...i couldn't...it took me forever to walk the shortest of distances...at one point, this man walked up to me...bent down and threw snow on my feet...i laughed, because i think he was trying to be funny, but you don't throw snow on people's bare feet...it's cold...but, it was pretty funny...then not 2 minutes later, a guy came up to me and offered me a hand, and made my day...he took me rest of the way down...i love poland...
and ofcourse, we could not leave poland without trying one of their traditional mystery bread things...i bought one for amy, because they are everywhere and i just had to know what it was...they are shockingly heavy and filled with terrible smelling cheese...you can tell by amy's face that she liked it...
the rest of our trip is unexciting so i'm going to kinda skip it...we slept for a couple hours in another hostel in Krakow, but because of our flight mix-up we had to leave for the airport incredibly early...all in all, another fabulous weekend...
2 comments:
sal, i love your pictures... the snow looks pretty and fun from a distance.
cah, wow, i can totally picture and almost perfectly imitate you trying to tell a Local where you are....and then your face when you were wrong - haha, thats funny. Im all about a hostel in the states -i was thinking about it when you were describing it, but then again i may not make the best hostel owner partner....i still really think that that man was trying to warm your cold feet by packing them with snow....i mean, come on, its Poland, the land of nice people apparently? right?
k, love you and am praying for you
and will be better at posting, sorry babe
love you,
hh
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