So, after saying our goodbyes in Usti nad Labem, and heading, very hurriedly, to our train, we spent some time on the train before realizing that Liam had left his camera at Cody's house. After some colourful language and vocal self-loathing, we realized that it was not a Big Deal, and that Liam could go get it the next day, as we were only staying in Dresden that night, a mere hour or two train ride from Usti. Knowing this, and staying at a very nice but not particularly social hostel, we decided to get to bed early so Liam could go and do that, while I happily slept in. When I met him at the train station later, we then proceeded on to the closest interesting thing we could find, which happened to be the German Hygiene Museum. The German Hygiene Museum is an institution from before the war, has been moved and/or bombed a few times, and is thus comprised of two main focii: the history of itself (how meta!) and Health. The word hygiene, I think, is a bit misleading, because the museum covers all sorts of human health topics, including genetics, sexuality, body systems, body ergonomics, and more. The history portion is also interesting; my favourite fact is that, shortly before and during WW2, the museum shared Hitler's ideal of the Aryan nation. Perhaps not the most positive aspect of its history, but interesting nonetheless. Anyway, after leaving the museum, we proceeded to get drenched on our way back to our hostel, as the area of town had lots of development with little shelter. We grabbed our stuff and headed to the train station as fast as we could, but still missed our train. So, we spent 3 hours at the station drying off and waiting for the next train, to our next destination, Wroclaw (pronounced "VROH-swov," crazy Polish!). Maybe that's valid after you throw all of the accents in there...
Anyway! Wroclaw was good but nothing particularly notable or amazing. By this time, I, at least, was getting a little bit over the "go see Old Town, go see this Church, etc" routine, but we went through the motions, and though pretty, it had nothing over anywhere else we had been. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our time there, also taking in an Archaeology Museum and what I can only describe as a Polish, mass-karaoke bar, where we felt a little bit out of place, spending valuable brain power trying to figure out the Polish pronunciation so we could make asses if ourselves. After a few days we dusted ourselves off and headed to what I consider to be the most appealing bit of Poland, Krakow.
First, though, I have a note on our train ride to Krakow. Upon figuring out our train and getting onto it, we were confronted with shaved head, floor-licking drunk, singing Polish men. Not knowing what to make of this, we swiftly put them on Ignore. The train, though, was packed to the roof, and upon seeing a relatively empty bit of space where I could set my bags down and maybe relax, I headed over there, continuing to Ignore. This fell apart a bit, when one of them realized that I was an English speaker, and did not know Polish. He was standing out in the aisle, but promptly went into one of the rooms to have a quick conference with his mates. I was confronted by a different fellow, who spoke a fair bit of English. He was generally very friendly, and not that drunk, so I talked with him. I was then offered a shot of vodka, and a beer, and I took the shot of vodka, and turned down the beer. After being offered another shot of vodka, I instead diverted their attention to Liam who was a little way down that train, and who I imagined would be a bit more game for midafternoon drinking. He came, and much the same thing happened. This degenerated until Liam and I each had a few shots of vodka, and I was telling them that Liam could not have any more due to the fact that he was on medication. By this time, we had realized that these guys were 'friendly' in the way that social bar bouncers are friendly: perfectly personable as long as things are going their way. It thus fell to me to consume the vodka until I had had too many shots (and thankfully, their bottle ran out), and talk with them as Liam went into semi-comatose. Thankfully, the crew had been doing so much drinking that they all managed to pass out at the same time, and I told Liam that we were putting them back in Ignore, and getting to the other side of the train, where I spent the rest of the train ride sobering up and talking to an Aussie girl who had stayed in our room the night previous (because it was a dorm room. get your minds out of the gutter!) and a few much nicer Polish people. We later saw the Soccer hooligan crew leave the train, where they were monitored by policemen in riot gear. We breathed a sigh of relief, and then another one, when days later we found out that bands of these brigands like to find excuses to start fights with foreigners.
We arrived in Krakow, where I was absolutely famished, to the point where I bought the first thing I saw outside of the train station. This was a kebab, the popular street food in both Krakow and Warsaw, and the source of most of my vegetables for the past week. Upon finding our hostel, we were a bit hesitant that it seemed to be tucked into a back alley with nothing going on around it. When we went inside though, we found a great, friendly atmosphere, and a wonderful tongue-in-cheek communist decorative scheme, which consisted of communist posters and large red utilitarian spraypaint pictures on the walls. We went to our room so I could sleep off a bit of the vodka and met our roommates, three UK Army Medic girls. After sleeping for a bit then going on a mission to find some food, we returned with some drinks and some juice, including some Apple Beet juice, because apparently this was a good idea to me at the time. I had one sip and couldn't stand to take any more, and it became sort of the icebreaker for our night out with the girls. We wandered to a few Irish pubs and finally to a club where we danced like goofs. Especially me, as I was being dared to dance with a few Polish girls who were taking themselves way too seriously. It was good fun and we all got back to the hostel safe and sound.
I had found out that the girls were going to Auschwitz, so the next day I tagged along with them. Liam didn't want to go for reasons I am sure he would love to explain to you if you asked, so I needed someone to go with and it was fortunate that we found some people! We got there and joined an English tour. The tour was a bit irritating at first, as our tour guide was very soft spoken with a very heavy Polish accent, but soon after she either hit her stride, or I became accustomed to her voice, because it ended up being a very emotional and informative tour. The woman sounded at times as if she would cry, which of course choked me up, but not as much as some of the things they still have there. There are, for example, piles of personal items that came from the prisoners, such as a pile of shoes, a pile of glasses, a pile of luggage. One of the most disturbing, though, was the pile of women's hair. Walking through the gas chamber and oven chamber at Auschwitz-I was also very emotionally trying. The walls and ceilings are stained and scratched and the whole place feels so dark that it's all to easy to imagine the horrible things that went on there. It is definitely a place that you should go to, if you are in the area, though, because it's an important reminder that humans are imperfect and capable of atrocity.
I think I'll leave it there, because it's difficult (and feels a bit wrong) to find a positive note now that I've gotten into all the Auschwitz stuff. Next time I'll tell you about the rest of our time in Krakow, as well as Warsaw.
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