So.. Poland..
We (my friends Amber, Beth, and I) flew into Warsaw Friday evening (two fridays ago now). That night we figured out the bus and hopped on to find our way to the lovely Backpackers hostel. It was my first hostel experience.. so it was slightly scary and exciting at the same time. Amber being the lovely navigator she is found our way to the hostel where we proceeded to simply pass out. 
The next morning it was time to wake up and be on our way to Krakow. We arrived, dropped off all of our gear in the City Hostel and were off to discover what Krakow had to offer. Well my suggestion is definately go to Krakow if you want to see the Polish culture. Not only were the buildings just simply gorgeous.. but the Polish culture is very apparent as well.
One of the first stops, of course, was to find some perogies.. and they were pretty delicious.. we all enjoyed quite a bit :) Then off to discover the culture. In the centre of Krakow is a market of sorts. It is a building packed with vendors selling traditional polish clothing and items as well as the touristy materials as well. We all collected our souveniers and went to discover a Polish Castle.
The architecture of the Castle that we saw was just crazy. Our conclusion is that all of the different eras added their own touch onto the church that was located in it. Of course the grounds of the Castle were gorgeous.. But since we got there around sundown we were kicked out before we truely got to explore the castle. After leaving the castle we walked around the centre city a bit more and admired all of the buildings and architecture and parks.
That evening we decided to grab some dinner and then head off to a local pub. Well we decided it was a good idea to follow a group of guys that turned off the road and went through a hallway. We found ourselves in the middle of a beautiful courtyard with an adorable pub coming off of it. We stayed there for a little while and of course tried out some of the local drinks. The most popular one seems to be their local grass vodka mixed with some apple juice. It was quite delicious. The conversations we had there were quite entertaining and made me love those two weirdos a bit more.The next morning the plan was to be up early and head off to Auschwitz. We did this and took the train to the city that the camp was located in. Upon arriving we noticed that all the tourists were in the same state as we were.. Everyone only knew english.. and well the people there didn't. Auschwitz was no where to be seen.. no signs or anything pointing out where we should go. So part of the group decided to take a stab at having a conversation with someone that knew no english at all.
The result of this adventure was a map that was drawn and we tried our best to follow it. After walking a little of a mile we somehow found our way into the camp and we were all quite relieved. Walking around the camp is quite shocking. We were unable to discover everything that there is to be seen there, however a lot of it sunk in and was pretty shocking. It is an experience that I am happy I never had to go through.
After walking around it was time to head back to Warsaw. Now, as I had previously mentioned.. No one there spoke English, not even the ticket place for the trains. So we attempted to ask them how to get there and they sent us on 3 connecting trians. Some how the one station we went to did not have the correct connection so we found ourselves traveling way longer than we were supposed to and eventually by a few miracles found our way home. Tip.. if lost in poland ask the younger kids.. like my age and younger.. they all know english.. anyone older.. not so much! Oh yea.. and from the train.. all the houses we saw were brightly colored.. like the one below..
So once we finally made it back to Warsaw we again checked into the hostel. We still hadn't had dinner even though it was 11pm thanks to the train mix-ups. So we headed off to a Cafe that serves breakfast 23 hours a day. They close from 5-6am. We enjoyed a delicious breakfast and had a little bit of coffee. Then the exhausting day of traveling hit us and we were off to bed by 1am.The next day was exploring Warsaw in the morning and then shopping and heading back to DTU. Warsaw has a very limited area that looks pretty, but we managed to find it. Essentially, go to the old city and the mall. The old city was really pretty, but my camera died so I still need to steal those pictures from Amber. The mall just has amazing architecture, and being an architecture jukie.. I thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the food court at lunch and looking at the structure of the building.
That is about all (all.. quite a bit..) of the information about my Poland trip.. Back to the homeland as all my friends have teased me about :)Miss you all!!
-Kristyn
