Step on a Krak break your mothers back...

Preface:
This blog entry was written by the Bob who tried to channel Lorna and then wrote in her first person/point of view. So, carry on Bobby...

So we made it to Krakow, Poland around 730 on Friday morning. With all the troubles from the night before we still managed to get there at the correct time with no set backs. We found an atm and pulled out some local currency (quit learning the names, starts with a z). Of course, the bills it game me were too large to be accepted by the metro machine so we had to go back and pull out a small bill so we good buy the ticket (this happens in every city, pisses me off). We hopped the tram and found our hostel no problem. We found Lindsay, Derek, and Jordan (they arrived the day before) but they wanted to sleep so we went to find some breakfast.



We found a smoky little diner in the Jewish Quarter with a bunch of young, polish, hipsters hanging out (I know, Polish-hipster???).

Then we walked around old town for awhile and met up with the gang for lunch.




We got some drinks at a little Italian Cafe and then ate some crazy street food (some sort of french bread pizza thing with all sorts of toppings).


After a nap we got some dinner at the really good mexican restaurant with awesome apple mojitos (made with awesome local vodka). We later hit up some cool little hipster bars in the Jewish Quarter where the beers and vodka was a flowing (polish vodka is way cheap in Poland)

Although most of the Polskis were really nice, Jordan found the one pretentious prick in Krakow at the Alchemia bar.

The next morning the weather sucks and some of us were a tad hung over so we decided it was a good day to visit Auschwitz.

We arrived via mini-bus that was so crammed that people stood for the hour long drive in the aisle. We luckily thought to buy our tickets advanced and were able to have seats. We mostly slept for the journey and arrived to a mix of rain, sleet and snow at the camp.

We started our visit with a movie about the liberation of the camp. It was live footage of the people leaving and the ones that didn't make it and were left behind.

From there we entered the camp, passing under the famous Nazi words: Hard work earns freedom...



We walked around mainly in silence through the barracks were the prisoners lived. Each barrack was dedicated to a specific country or group that was invaded by Hitler and imprisoned at Auschwitz. Poland was the most impressive and depressing exhibit.

We also toured the crematorium, gas chambers, torture rooms, shooting wall and hanging sites...

Our ride back was quiet and reflective...

That night for dinner we were exhausted and ate at a little Polish restaurant. We all then went to bed and woke up way too early the next morning because we thought that Europe was on the same time change schedule as the states. Its not. But the Bob and I had a wonderful meal and met the rest of our group back at the train station to leave for Prague.

The trip was pretty uneventful, except when the novice train riders of the group tried to get off at the wrong station and we had to rush to window and yell for them to get back on... Oh and the super smelly Czech that we had to share our cabin with... But we made it home to Prague!

for more images check out: http://picasaweb.google.com/allen.lorna/200903_KrakowPoland#