Historical/Heritage Trip Gone Wrong...

March 27-29 (and then some...)

Since we took the previous weekend off from traveling, we decided it was time to go on our first BIG trip; so big, we left the country of Italy! Whoa!!!!!!!!!! We headed to the lovely country of our roots (for 2 of us atleast), and a country that at one time was home of a well known Nazi extermination camp; Poland.

We were departing in two seperate groups; Emily and 4 others left Friday (27th) in the early morning to catch their flight departing from Milan, and I headed out with Brad for a later flight that afternoon. Everything went swimmingly, and we all managed to arrive just fine to Krakow, Poland, and found our hostel (Mama's Hostel) without any problems. Want to know the best part of the trip?? Located right below our hostel was the magnificent creation known as Subway; Brad and I enjoyed a nice Sweet Onion Chicken Terakyi Footlong before heading off to bed that night.

Saturday was a full day of touring.

We got up fairly early and headed to meet up with our tour guide. Upon arrival, we loaded onto a tour bus with about 30 other's and headed out of Krakow towards Auschwitz I. We toured around Auschwitz I, the main camp, for a couple hours. This camp contained most of the workers who were almost 100% non-Jewish. It was a little iery walking along the same "roads" between brick buildings that only 70 years ago were inhabited by prisoner's of WWII. Obviously, we all have a fairly good idea of this time period, so one can't help but picture these people walking to and from work everyday to this hell hole. We went inside a few of the barracks, saw the displays of "beds," payed our respects on the firing wall, and also say the Block (barrack) were people were punished for not obeying the rules. In this Block, there were standing cells where up to 15 people were shoved into a 5 X 5 cement square, stood all night, and worked all day. These people were in these cells for breaking the Nazi camp rules, some of these rules included staying in the bathroom too long. Also, when Auschwitz I was taken by the Allies, they discovered one the cells (about 10 X 10) in this block, filled with 40 prisoners. While in Auschwitz I, we saw the only remaining cremetorium left from this Nazi reign. They took us inside, and told us about how they would a couple hundred people a day in this small building, until they created Auschwitz II (Birkenau). Lastly, we toured another Block that contained some belongings of the prisoner's. This included, prostetic legs, pots and pans, combs and toothbrushes, suitcases, and even the hair shaved off the heads of workers upon arrival. The Nazi's used everything and anything they could to make money. Quite disturbing...

After finishing up at Auschwitz I, our tour bus took us a few miles over to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. This camp was the actual Extermination Camp. Auschwitz I was more of the worker's camp. Birkenau is often the camp dipicted in WWII movies, where you see the men and women divided, along with hundreds of barracks filled with bunkbed's stacked 3 levels that held 30 people. (10 per each level) In this camp, train track ran right up the middle between the men and women's enclosure's. The train would stop just inside, unload its occupants, men then seperated from women and children; women and children would then be loaded back onto the train where most were taken straight to their crematorium (mainly only Jew's went straight there, other women were kept for work). The men (those not Jewish) would be looked through, and those that were fit to work were seperated from the old and feeble; the old and feeble headed off towards their fate with the crematorium.
The sight of this camp is overwhelming. There are no longer very many barracks, however, you can see the brick "fireplaces" that are left still standing in their places; they run miles back, and left and right, of the main entrance of camp. Birkenau is 20 times the size of Auschwitz I.

We finished these 2 tours and arrived back into Krakow by about 2, ate a light lunch, then got back on another tour bus and headed for the Salt Mines. There wasn't much to this tour, minus it is massive; there are hundreds of tunnels looping down and around for miles and miles. We actually only toured 1% of it, and that alone took about 2 hours. This sight is home to the largest underground Cathedral, were Pope John Paul II even visited and held mass. Besides that, this tour was more of a time passer. I guess it was cool...

That night, we went our for an Authentic Polack dinner. We stumbled upon this little resturant, and ate a lot of saurkraut and biego's (Holla Mama Zackary)... The waiter's were dressed up in interesting attire, I'm assuming it was traditional Polish dress. The food was absolutely delcious, and cheap! Probably the best part of visitng Poland, their currency (Zloty) is 1 Z to about 30 American cents. It was a nice change of pace since we've been losing money this whole trip using the Euro.

Now getting to the good part... Suday morning the first group that arrived to Poland (Emily and 4 others) headed out of the hostel about 5:30 am to get to the airport for their 8 am flight. Brad and I didn't have to be there until noon, so we did a little shopping around Krakow that morning. Emily, Joe, and I had planned on getting some Polish souviner's this trip. Well, we were doing some looking around, and at about 11 o'clock I hadn't been able to find the t-shirts we saw the day before. I was frantic, so I left Brad at the train station and ran back to the original t-shirt shop were I managed to only obtain 2 of 3 shirts. On my run back to the train station to catch the 11:30 train (to the airport), I discovered another shirt stand; luckily I found the 3 shirt. Feeling on cloud 9, I met up with Brad and ran to catch our train (it's 11:20 FYI); as we climb the stairs to the platform, we hit the last step just in time to watch the train go whizzing by... Awesome, huh?? Well, this train runs every half hour, so wishful thinking and finger's cross, we take the noon train to the airport. Our flight is supposed to be leaving at 1, the train ride is only 15 min, a short 5 min bus ride from train stop to airport and we're home free.. Ha, too easy...

Everything went accordingly, up until we stepped foot into the airport. We walked in the sliding front doors of Krakow Airport to see none of the check-in's open. Brad and I head towards information, its 12:23; the lady kindly informs us that RyanAir check-in for our flight headed to Milan is now closed and no longer taking passengers, and then she follows up with, "the plane hasn't actually arrived at the gate yet nor started boarding, but I still can't allow you to check-in." Fantastic... The next 3 1/2 hours are spent on pay phone's talking with our Professor back at the Villa in Florence, first: letting them know we won't be back for dinner, and second: trying to figure out how in the heck we're gonna even get back for dinner the next day!

After a lot of stressful planning, we end up finding the cheapest, most efficient way back. A 20 hours charter bus ride. I, personally, can't get away from these buses this year a feel; I'm destined to spend a couple hundred hours on these dang contraptions. Now, this being our only way back, we had to spend another night at Mama's Hostel in Krakow; the bus didn't leave until 11:20, Monday morning.

That morning, Brad and I got up extra early, and left with plenty of time to grab some breakfast and not risk missing our bus. Joke's on us... Our Hostel gave the direction's to our meeting point with the bus and even gave a slip for a free taxi ride. Now, our taxi driver spoke no English, and didn't understand the directions we handed him. So he took us to the general vicinity the receptionist at Mama's told us to report too. It's about 10:45 by the time he finally drops us off in front of a random hotel; we had order's to meet this bus at 11:20 at a Red Petrol Station called ARGE. Nobody seemed to know where or if this thing existed, also, no one spoke English. Brad and I walked up and down this busy road trying to find this non-existent Petrol Station. 11:20 rolls around, and Brad and I have officially hit rock bottom and are now ready to just buy plane tickets back to America... Sluggishy walking back towards our orginal drop off point, we see a little van with the same logo and name of our bus company; Brad waves them down, and lucky for us, they were looking for 2 (dumb) American's. You guessed, they were looking for us...

They took us one block further than we had orginally walked to where our bus was parked waiting; its about 11:40. No one on the bus spoke any English, not the bus driver or the lady in charge. The next 20 hours were spent watching 3 movies, 2 of which were American films with Polish voice overs, counting phesants, and reading. (I also may have spent some time banging my head against the window)

At about 5 am, Tuesday morning, Brad and I were waken by the bus driver, and he told us it was our time to go, more like he gestured it... We rushed off the bus, trying not to wake any of the other passengers, and after taken the last step off the bus, we discovered we had no idea where we were. They dropped us off at a truck stop on the side of the highway, about 15 KM south of Florence. (This trip just keeps getting better!) People inside the gas station told us we could pick up a city bus about 2 miles away that would take us into the Centro (downtown Florence). Off we walked, and soon enough we found our bus stop, its now about 6 am. The first bus doesn't come until about 6:30. There was sat, watched a man pull up and open his coffee shop, sat some more, ate a twix, sate some more, and then the man who had recently walked passed came outside and gave us a free shot of espresso; never been happier to be in Italy. Eventually our bus pulled up, and we got on headed for San Marco square where we could pick up our Bus 10 that would take us up to Settignano, a.k.a Home! Oh, but before I finish, the last real kicker of the trip: after boarding the city bus headed for the Centro, Brad and I were discussing our trip, and began talking about our iPod's; then it hit me, where exactly did I put my iPod?? Oh, that's right, its in the netted pocket on the charter bus, duh... Ha... Ha...

Don't worry, the other group ran into their own problems. Their flight was delayed about 8 hours, they finally boarded and landed in Milan about 8 pm. There were no trains to Florence, so they had to stay the night in Milan, and then catch a train Monday morning. Also, Emily managed to leave her iPod on the bus they took in Krakow from our hostel to the airport.

Overall, it was a nice trip in the beginning... Emily and I, I believe, could have done with out the last part... But every trip can't go 100% perfect, in fact, why not have pretty much 85% of the trip go bad! Yup, that sounds like this trip in a nutshell...

But, we all managed to get back 100% A-Ok; tired and grumpy, but safe.
We did manage to get out of going to a couple classes, can't complain about that!

Anywho, hope that entry was entertaining, because it wasn't at the time!!!

Until next time, Ciao...