Krakow

After getting of the train that morning the first job was to locate the hostel I had booked. Claire and Luke decided to come with and check into the same one. It turned out to be a very nice one on the edge of teh Jewish quarter (Kazimierz). It had nice rooms, free internet and free phoen calls. I also managed to get some laundry done there, which was in real need.

It seems that Polish is were Borat must have got all his phrases from, I found it very amusing everytime I said thankyou - "Dziekuje."

The home of John Paul II

We did a tour of Krakow that afternoon, which was really factually useful. The main tourist location was the castle there, which this tour took us to. The guide was really good and told us some weird folklore stories. One Polish tale which is meant to be a joke about the Jesuit church there.

"There is funny story about this church, we say in Krakow, that this is the smallest church in Krakow, this is becuase the 12 statues of the Apostles who are standing outside can't fit inside."

I'm still not sure on the jokes' meaning, but we all gave a fake laugh at the time. Polish humour, maybe it is just comedy genius that I'm not getting.

We ate at a recommended place near our hostel that night, which was very cheap. About five pounds for alot of food and beers. We all had the speciality potato cakes with a kind of meat stew in the middle, it was really quite nice.

The next day we decided to go to Auschwitz for a tour around the two death camps there (the other being Birkenau). It was a very strange day, it was interesting, but just a bit despressing. But, it did really hit home the scale of what the Nazi's really did, and how planned and clinical it really was. It was factory like, to the point where they recycled the hair of the dead for the textiles industry.

After that we needed a pick-up, so we went on a Booze Cruise along the river. There was a BBQ on board, so it was nice to eat alot, we also met a Kiwi called Tania who tagged along with us for a few days after. It was a bit too touristy though, so don't recommend it. We went to some strange undergound club after that, which was pretty cool and had a good night in the end, after we managed to get rid of the hen party that was with us (from Liverpool I think), they were a bit full on.

The next day we just chilled out around the old town and visited a few churches (I seem to have been to more churches in the past few weeks, than ever before in my life). We watched the Charity Shield in an Irish pub that day also, which again was full of English. Always nice to get some footy in though.

Our train was about 8:00 that evening, which had one change at another city in Poland, then straight through overnight to Bratislava. I have realised that I've  lost my camera charger, think I left it a Vlad's, so going to have to be economical with it now, which is a tad annoying. Just have to make sure I get pics from the people I"m going around with at some point.