Leaving for Budapest tomorrow

So tomorrow I leave for Budapest. A nice long 12 hour train ride.

Krakow
Krakow has been an amazing city. I think I like it more than Prague. It rivals it in beauty and gains points in the fact that there are less tourists. The first night I was here I met some people from the states, Australia, and Canada and headed out for some drinks. We met two local Polish guys in the bar and they told us they were going to take us out for a good time. They took us to one of the underground bars/dance clubs. What is interesting is that in Krakow, and other cities in Poland, during WWII whole underground networks were built for the resistance. These places were used as places of planning and discussion and what not. The layouts are neat in that the walls are completely rock and you get the feel that you ARE in a top secret bar. So that was really cool. Then we headed out to get some Doners. Not as good as in Germany, but cheaper. Yeah, Krakow is also a lot cheaper than all of the other places I have been. We called it a night after taking shots to the Aussies 24th birthday. The next day I spent all day touristing. I checked out all the monuments and Krakow castle. They were extraordinary. When I was walking through Old Town Square I saw two guys sitting down drinking with maps next to their touring bikes. I stopped and asked what they were up to and about their tour. I wound up sitting with them for an hour and a half drinking beer and talking about their crazy biking experiences. The older gentleman has biked in 45 countries throughout Eastern Europe, Central Europe, and Asia. He gave me some suggestions for places to see, about teaching abroad programs, and even bought my beers. It was a good talk. I got back to the hostel and a bunch of us decided to go out to the Jewish Quarters and get food. We wound up getting some typical Polish meal and Polish beer. It was a semi-nice restaurant and surprisingly my portion of the bill including beer was only 20 zloty (about $7.25). A guy got a beer with red syrup/juice in it so I asked him what it was. He only spoke Polish but was very eager to communicate so started yelling across the restaurant to get his girlfriend to come over. She told me it was in fact a juice and grenadine with the Lech beer. The point here is how helpful people are - and thats a theme. Next we decided to bar hop. We started out at a bar with cool music icons and lyrics over the wall. This inspired the ladies to want to find karaoke. They stopped and asked a man in the bar if he knew where one was. He, also, only spoke Polish. But eagerly he ran around asking people in Polish. Even though he was unsuccessful, again someone went out of their way to help. We went to a Hoola bar. We ordered a bucket of vodka and fruit juices (orange, pineapple, grenadine). It was delicious and the bar was chill. The DJ let one of the girls in our group choose all the music so it was fun. There was also a stag party there so they were goin kind of crazy and the bachelor was dancing provocatively. Hah! Again we decided to bar hop and found our next destination at some Spanish bar. They played a lot of spanish music obviously and included the bartender dancing on the bar. He was quite humorous. There was also an old man who was really fond of one of the girls in the group. Also very humorous. We left again and at this point the group split. Two went home and me and one of the girls kept going. It was only 2 am! So we found a club and danced and drank more and eventually got home. The walk wasn't bad and the club was fun. Went to bed around 3 or 330 cause we had big plans for the next day.

"Work Will Set You Free"
Or "Work Brings Freedom" or "Work Liberates" or whatever ironic statement they wanted to choose. We took a tour of Auschwitz, today. It had to be one of the most appalling shocking things I have ever seen. We read about it in school. We hear about it a lot. But to see the grand scale of the operation is amazing. You really do not grasp how large it is until you go there. And the conditions. Just wow. This day really made me question humanity. I have thought of it before... but to run an operation like this how did people not know? And how do so many people get convinced to treat people like animals? Killing and genocide is one thing. Killing and genocide and systematic torture is another. You can see the ruins from when the Nazis were evacuating. The stables (they lived in wooden horse stables essentially) all burned down and what was left remainaing were the brick fireplaces. So a large percentage burned down but when you look out into the camp (as far as the eyes can see) you just see a bunch of chimneys. We walked through the gas chambers and crematoriums and its just hard to imagine what was going through either parties minds. Another thing that surprised me was how bad the Polish citizens were treated. Krakow got lucky because it was treated as a vacation spot for the Nazis in Auschwitz... but Warsaw got leveled. Polish people were also systematically dehumanized. If ever in the vicinity of Central Europe I suggest going.

Moving Away from that Depressing Bit....
I leave for Budapest tomorrow. Its a 12 hour overnight train. I read in a travel tip book much like frommers that they highly discourage night trains from Krakow or Warsaw to Prague or Budapest. Why? Oh because of the gangs of theives who come on the trains with sleeping gas cannisters to mug you OF COURSE! Well, wish me luck. If I don't get sleep cannistered hopefully I will at least get a gay Italian man with a moustaches to accost me like in EuroTrip. Hah!

Peaceeeeeeeeee!
Frank