Polish Sausage

Hello!! We are alive and well for any of you who have been worried...i know i haven't posted in a long while. My appologies--and a new post!

After Vienna, we headed to Krakow, Poland where we stayed 3 nights in Mama's hostel. The hostel was wonderful and had everything we wanted. even surprises like polish cake thursday and spiced wine wednesday. we had breakfast, and nice beds, and even got to watch movies on the dvd player! The morning we had in vienna trying to catch our train, then missing it and having to wait 4 hours for the next one was a bummer, so coming home to a nice hostel was just what we needed.

(side note: i also got news that night of my acceptance into Western State University of Law--and they're offering me an awesome academic scholarship and an invitation into the "dean's circle." it was very exciting!)

Our first day in Krakow, we took a bike tour around the city and learned much of the history of the area. We saw the main square, the church, the jewish quarter, the jewish ghetto, the park that used to be a mote around the city, the river, the castle, and schindler's factory. For lunch we had mexican food! good mexican food at a place in the middle of the square. it was so fun to have tortilla soup and fajitas while people watching in poland. the city is a fun place to walk around because of the pretty architecture and entertainment. Horse and buggies clomp by, accordion players serenade, and the church trumpeter plays every hour on the hour.

Our second day we took a train out to Auschwitz, located about 1hr 40min away. it was a very interesting trip. we've learned so much about WWII and Auschwitz in particular as an extermination camp, but to be there was something very different. The setting was strange: green grass, brick school-looking buildings and a very organized layout. If I had not known the nature of the camp, i would have guessed it was simply a quaint village. It was a shocking contrast to Dacau, the concentration camp we visited when we were in Munich. The bunkers at Auschwitz had living quarters very similar to Dacau, but some of the exhibitions of the museum were quiet jarring. A whole room filled with hair, human hair, uncovered in the Nazi collections of things to be sold, was on display. Mountains and mountains of shoes, half burned clothing, glasses, hairbrushes, and other personal items of the victims. We saw the execution sites, gallows, gas chambers and other parts of the camp. A sign across the entrance reading "work brings freedom"- the appaling deception used to keep victims calm. It's important to learn the realities of such atrocities like Auschwitz, and i'm glad we were able to go.

When we got back to Krakow, there was an easter festival going on in the square, so we got a traditional polish dinner from the booths: big brautworst sausage, potatoes, dumplings and "vegetables." The food was so heavy, and after about half we were done! we walked around windowshopping for a while and decided to try what looked like a polish waffle desert with jam on top. So having 4 zlottys left (polish currency) we got one to share between the two of us. So Emily takes a bite and chews a couple of times, then makes the worst face possible. "Oh, oh, gross, gross!" I was like, come on, it can't be that bad. so i took a bite. it was terrible. utterly terrible. What we thought was a waffley thing was instead a salted cheese mass that tasted like it had been fried in dirty sock juice and slathered with cranberry sauce. it was Naasty! worst thing we've tried yet! we threw the rest away and had to get the taste out of our mouthes with some candied almonds.

Back in the hostel we had 2 new additions to our room (which we had previously had to ourselves). Two Australian boys, Anthony and Roghan. We spent the rest of the night hanging out with them, chatting about our cultures, and enjoying the hostel. They were really fun to hang out with and made our last night really fun. In the morning we had to get up before 6 to catch our train so we tried to get as much sleep as we could.