Friday November 18th
We left our residence at 4am Friday morning and arrived in Krakow by 9am. We came prepared for a drastic change in temperature- I actually borrowed my friend’s winter coat as well as wearing all 3 sweaters that I had brought with me to Rome (I didn’t exactly plan on cold weather- but luckily I did think to bring a hat and gloves- a lifesaving decision). Still, getting off the plane and hitting that frigid weather that I have been avoiding was no fun. Anyway, despite the cold we walked to the train station, hopped on, paid 10 zloty, and got to the city center in no time.
Before I move on, this was my first experience converting a new currency, so now when I saw a price I had both the euro and the U.S. dollar to convert it to. 1 Euro= 4.5 Zloty and 1 U.S. Dollar= 3.4 PLN-> shorthand for zloty. SO 10.00 PLN Polish Zloty = 2.93 USD US Dollar. So everything was cheap. Finally.
So Leann and I booked our hostel at the top rated, best hostel in Poland, and we quickly learned why. It is called “Greg and Tom’s Hostel” and it was literally one block from where the train dropped us off. Easy to find, check. Then, we walked in, showed our passports, and the receptionist said, “Are you hungry?” Um, yes! So we got free breakfast- a sausage/hot dog covered in cheesy goodness to start, tons of meats and cheeses and breads for sandwiches, HAZELNUT YOGURT with fruit to add on top (AMAZING!), and tons of fruit and salad stuff to fill us up. While eating our first of many amazing meals in Poland, we met some people from New Zealand, all traveling alone, who just happened to meet each other, as well as us, at this very lively hostel. One girl was named Chantal, and had just arrived the night before. She is 19 and finished high school last year, worked for 4 months, and took all her savings with her to travel the world during her one year off before college. She has been traveling for 8 months and has been more places than I can count, all by herself, staying in each place for 5 days to a week before booking a flight to whatever comes along. She had amazing stories and we made fast friends, and we decided to do a walking tour of Krakow together at 11. Free walking tours are very popular in big cities in Europe, and great for students as they are tip based and in English.
So we dropped our stuff and went to St. Mary’s church to meet, which was a towering Gothic edifice right in the center square. Our tour guide was funny and said “ladies and gents” about a million times between sentences. There were tons of things to see, just a few being the original city gate, the university where Pope John Paul II studied as well as the window he would stand in and talk to the students below every time he visited, and the Wawel Royal Castle. 
Pork and rice wrapped in cabbage with tomato sauce (Polish pigs in a blanket)
Meat and potato goodness
Pierogies!
It was 25 zloty total= 6 zloty each= I ate my fill of amazing food for $1.75 US. And so begins my love of the zloty.
And so, to continue in the theme of warm and happy, we got hot chocolate after lunch! And of course, it was the thick, melted chocolate and nothing else kind of hot chocolate. O, and I got mine with cinnamon. It was pretty much Christmas in a cup.
After saying goodbye to Gemma and walking around the market a bit, checking out the famous Polish amber and furs, we headed back to the hostel for our FREE DINNER. You heard right, Greg and Tom’s is the best hostel in Poland for many reasons, but I would say free homemade dinner, waiting for you in the kitchen when you get back at 7:30, is the number one reason why it was the best place I have ever stayed. And because the currency works out so well for us we paid 18 euro a night for a PRIVATE ROOM for Leann and I which had a flat screen TV to go along with our hot, free breakfast, dinner, and post dinner drinks. Yupp, free vodka until you say stop. Did I mention we loved this hostel?
Saturday 19th
After sleeping in until 10am, Leann, Chantal, and I were ready to visit the main location on our list: Auschwitz. We chose not to do a tour, even though the hostel provided one at an extra cost. We had decided we would prefer to walk around at our own pace and pay our respects in silence. It was the best decision we could have made.
To be totally honest, I feel at a loss for words at this point. Auschwitz was a place where the slaughter of millions of Jews is right in front of your face, right under your feet, where ghosts hover through the air. It was a place that made me physically ill and emotionally drained. I will never forget the piles of human hair, shoes, and clothing. The luggage that once held one’s entire life’s contents, carefully marked with their name and address. The worst was the children’s clothing. The epitome of innocence and futures lost.
The starvation chambers were horrendous as well, and I actually saw the very room where St. Maximilian Kobe died.
I would say the one place that will forever live with me was standing at the “Death Wall”. All I could do was stand there and say the rosary out loud in the very courtyard where thousands had been lined up like cattle, and faced down the barrel of a gun to their death.
Needless to say, the three of us were emotionally and physically drained when we finally returned around 6:30. Instead of going out, Leann and I had a movie night in our room (selection from 200 movies, again, great hostel). It felt like such a step back to just snuggle under these super warm comforters, watch movies- which I haven’t done at all here- and relax.
Sunday 20th
Again, an early start- 7:30 am. This time it was to the Salt Mines! Chantal had taken a separate bus than Leann and our friend Patrick (Australia- I was starting to get used to the accent), and she told me she was going to Berlin the same time as I, so we planned to meet up the next weekend!
The Salt Mines were beautiful. It was a gorgeous morning out, so the ride up was pretty, and arriving there and walking through the grounds was pleasant as well. This was our most expensive day yet, a whopping 54 zloty (wow, $15?!) for the 2 hour long tour. And trust me, you need the tour. In 2 hours we saw 1% of the mine- our guide told us that it would take 5 months to see everything (if that was even possible)! O, and she also told us that included in the fee was permission to eat as much salt off the walls as we wanted. Needless to say, I got my sodium intake for the day.
We started the tour by descending a 380 step staircase to Level 1 (64 metres below ground level) and ended on Level 3, which was 135 metres down- so we took a super cool shaft ride back up.
The “Wieliczka” salt mine has been working continuously since the Middle Ages, consisting of nearly 2,400 chambers, one of which is the Chapel of St. Kinga, the biggest and oldest underground church, still in use today. This chapel was incredible, and all carved out of one block of salt, created over a period of 100 years. It has been a place of worship since 1896, and daily mass still takes place here. All work has been done by self taught miners, which I thought was incredible since these works of art all around had been made by untrained hands. The walls are decorated with scenes from Jesus’ life and one the way out is the world’s only monument of the Polish pope, John Paul II carved in salt. In my opinion, the most stunning aspect of this Chapel is the salt chandeliers, which hang from an enormously high ceiling.
Leann and I spent the night shopping. I had to get an amber ring, of course, and Leann, well, she had to get everything “Polska” possible.
All in all, Poland was perfect. We loved every second of it and never wanted to leave on Monday morning. It was interesting because as cold as it was there, I constantly felt warm inside. Poland was just such a homey place- not too big but not too small, friendly people (who spoke English!) everywhere we went, Christmas decorations, hot chocolate, and unbelievably good hot Polish meals to warm us from the inside out.
Poland=Win
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