Winter Wonderland

So I have been in Krakow, Poland for the past 4 nights and it has been COLD!!! I think there was a snow storm maybe a day or two before I arrived because there was lots of fresh snow on the ground. As soon as I stepped off the train at 7 that night to head towards my hostel, I got hit with an icy blast of air in the face that definately woke me up! The weather here has been in the teens the entire time I have been here, but yesterday and today it has been a bit warmer and the sun has actually be shining.

My first full day here, I headed out to brave the cold and went to Warwel Hill. It is this huge castle right on the edge of the old town that sits up on the hill overlooking the city. There are state rooms, a treasury, an armory, and a huge cathedral up in it that looks like a mini Westminster Abbey. It used to be where the Polish royalty lived. It was really impressive to see. The inside was not quite as ornate as some other castles I have been in, but it was interesting because it is a mish mash of different arquitecture styles of baroc, renaisance, and I think the other was new renaisance. That took me much longer than I expected so by the time I was done, it was only about 3:30pm, but by that time the temperature is beginning to drop and darkness is setting in because it gets dark here so early.

The hostel I was staying at was really great because it is a smaller one. There are only about 40 beds in it and it has a great kitchen and hangout room which makes it extremelly conducive to meeting people. It was a great group of people here while I was here and we were all here for pretty much the same amount of time, so I got to know a bunch of them.

The following day, 5 of us from the hostel headed out to see Auschweitz and Birkineau, the concentration camps. That was very interesting. It is one of those things that you hate to say is good, but it was extremelly informative to actually see it. We went on a guided tour and so as we went through, the guide explained to us about the history of the camp, the daily life here, what the living conditions were, and tons of other information. We went into see some of the barracks and some of the punishments cells. Then some of the barracks had been converted into places to house some of the finds from the camp when it was liberated. There were litterally rooms filled with shoes, clothes, suitcases, brushes and combs, prostetic legs and canes, jewish prayer shawls, and pots and pans. There was also an entire room filled with human hair that had been shaved off of the prisoners that had not been sold yet because the Nazis would sell the hair for money. Now, some of you know that I have a real bad aversion to hair that is not attacted to the head so walking into a room where behind glass, there is a huge half of the room filled with hair in a massive pile taller than I was is litterally like my worst night mare come true. We also saw some photos from the camp that were taken either while it was running or right as it was being liberated. Then at the end of the Aucshweitz tour, we were taken through the only gas chamber there that is still standing and then into the creamatorium. That was a bit creepy because we were walking through a room where thousands of people had been systematically murdered. Once we were done with the first part of the tour, we headed over to Birkineau, the other part of the camp a fe miles away to see that. It is just massive and so cold there because it is this huge field with really nothing surrounding it. The barracks were made of old horse stables so they were only wood and when we went in one it was pretty much the same temperature outside as inside. Being here in the winter made you appreciate it a bit more I think because you could get a better feel of what it would have been like to be so cold there. The average life span of the prisoner there was only about 4 months because of starvation and exhaustion. It was quite intense to see. It is sad to think how depraved we can be as humans and how cruel we can be to others. Even being there, you still cant even begin to grasp what it must have been like.

On Thanksgiving, one of the girls and I headed to this little town about 2 hours away from Krakow called Zakopane. It is the quintesential ski town. There are only about 30,000 people who live there and we walked up and down the main street. It has tons of little shops on it and is lined with these way cute lamp posts all along it. There was tons of snow on the ground and the arquitecture was very mountainesce with snow on the roof. All along there were also women with these little carts selling tons of types of cheese in cylander shapes with designs on them. We thought they were bread so we almost bought one to snack on but turns out it was cheese. Good thing we found out what it was first! We then took the furnicular up to the top of one of the ski mountains and had this amazing panoramic view of the mountains in front of us and could look down on the town below. Oh, it was just breathtaking! There were also horse drawn sleds which was so cute! I have never actually seen a horse drawn sled and it reminded us of the song Jingle Bells!

Then once we got back to town, we decided that we needed to go out to eat and have a Polish Thanksgiving because she was from the states too. We went to this little restaurant that our hostel recommended around the corner and it was fantastic! She had this chicken fillet thing and I had this great goulash in a bread bowl. We enjoyed our Thanksgiving even though it was a bit different than usual.

Today, I had a great day of simply walking around and enjoying the town. I cruised around the old Jewish quarter first and that was really great. It has tons of culture and and lots of old buildings to see. There are also two cemetaries, one old one and one new one. The old one is attached to this old synagogue so I went in to see both of them. The synagogue was really interesting because that was the first one that I have been to and it was really small. After that, I went to the new Jewish cemetary and that was crazy. I have never seen so many graves that were next to each other and on top of each other in such a small area. It was nuts! I saw the huge cathedral here to in the middle of the old market square and that was jsut beautiful and ornate as many of them are here.

The whole town of Krakow is just so cute and beautiful. It is an old city with tons of charm and culture and I am a huge fan. I am so glad that I decided to come even if it has been freezing here! So much for no snow this winter!