Karkow, Poland

Hello

The program that I studied abroad through plans different trips for us American students.  The first weekend in May was our big trip.  One-third of our program, about 50 students, traveled to Krakow, Poland.  We left on a friday night train, now that is an experience that cannot be described in words.  Imagine 50, 20 or so aged students in a train car for 9 hours...let's just say it was difficult to fall asleep.  The train ride was a lot of fun, very exhausting, and was probably not the best thing to do before visiting Auschwitz-Birkneau Concentration Camps.  We arrived in Karkow around 7am (eww) and headed to the hotel to drop off our luggage and eat breakfast.  After breakfast, which was a free for all, we hopped on the bus and drove a little over an hour to Auschwitz.  

The Auschwitz-Birkneau Concentration Camps were extremely humbling.  The monday before this I visited Terezin Camp in Terezin, CZ with my Jewish History class; so I was somewhat prepared for what Auschwitz would look like.  Walking the grounds of the camp, seeing the stalls where people endured, and touching the crematoriums was indescribably depressing.  We had a tour guide who described daily life, gave us the unimaginable statistics, and attempted to teach us a much as possible about what occurred on this soil.  We saw the hair, suitcases, glasses, clothing etc. of a small portion of the people who went through Auschwitz during the war.  There were times when tears rolled down my face, particularly when our guide talked about the treatment of children.  It was quite the experience, but I feel so grateful that I got to witness it firsthand.  My ability to teach and describe WWII to my future students will be so much more real to me now.

We had the evening after Auschwitz free.  I had my own hotel room because the cot that I was given in the room with my friends broke, TWICE.  So, a group of friends and I ate lunch, took a nap, and then got ready for the night.  We went out to dinner and had chicken kabobs.  We then met up with most of the Americans in the program at a club called Prozac.  Although the club was really nice, we were all so tired and decided to make it a early night.  

The next day we had a tour of Krakow's Castle, main Cathedral, and Town Square.  This was super cool and afterwards we had the afternoon to explore on our own.  Lindsay, Katie, Katie, Cheryl and I did some souvenir shopping (Poland is really cheap) and then headed to the Carnival grounds.  Krakow was packed this weekend because May 3rd is Independence Day for Poland.  It was so great.  We, along with a group of boys in our program, went to the Carnival, rode some rides (that may or may not be regulated as they should) and enjoyed all the festivities.  We then went back to the hotel, picked up our luggage, headed to a restaurant for a traditional Polish dinner and then took another night train back to Prague.  This train ride was much calmer and quieter than the one before.  I got lucky and was put in first class with just two other people, not five.  I got a good nights sleep and was back in Prague with a blink of an eye.  Thank God for the sleep I got, I had class at 8:15 am that Monday morning. :)

This is a picture of Krakow Castle, you can see some of the festival grounds in the forefront.
Krakow's Town Square, we visited in the Church on the right, it had the most beautiful interior of any Church I have ever seen.

This is a picture of the carnival grounds from the ferris wheel.  I went on with Cheryl and we believed that it would be a nice leisurely ride but the operator the ferris wheel spun our car really fast every time we passed him at the bottom.  I was so dizzy upon exiting the ride.  I never saw it coming.

This is the famous Krakow Cathedral.  It looks funny because their have been so many different additions made throughout the centuries.

This is a picture of the execution wall in Auschwitz Concentration Camp.  People would be brought here and shot for multiple different reasons, but mostly to scare the rest of the prisoners at the camp.

Us girls in the Krakow Town Square.  Kate, Lindsay, Me, Katie, Cheryl
This is probably an extremely recognizable picture.  This is a photo of the train lines that enter the Birkneau concentration camp.  This picture is taken from the watch tower.