Krakow, Poland

Hey!
So this post will probably be my most depressing one.  Krakow Poland is an amazing city with incredible history, however, it is very sad history.  I'll start from the beginning of the trip.
The bus left Prague at about 3pm.  As soon as we crossed the border into Poland, our bus broke down.  Luckily it broke down when we had stopped at a gas station and McDonalds!  We had to wait three hours in rainy nasty weather until another bus could come pick us up.  It was St. Patty's day so we bought some beer and nasty mini boxed wine from the gas station and had a little party bus! After being rescued and continuing on our way, we finally made it into Krakow at about 3 in the morning.

The next day we went on a walking tour of the city.  We saw the main square, which is really neat, and we also saw the Jewish quarter.  The Jewish quarter was also really neat and filled with great restaurants and bars.  Later, we went to the Schindler Factory museum.  It was one of the best museums I've been to.  The museum not only told us the Schindler story, but also about the Polish situation during the Nazi regime and the war.  Poland is sandwiched right in between Germany and Russia.  During the war, they were in a horrible situation.  With two fronts invading their country, they were stomped on by the Nazi's and by the Soviets.  The Nazi regime came into Poland and took over everything.  Not only was the government taken over, but the cultural life was too.  German people moved to Poland and basically shoved the Polish aside.  The Nazi's created a Jewish ghetto in the city.  The Jewish population was not the only population that feared the Nazi's.  Non-Jewish Poles feared them as well.  One thing I found very interesting was a video of an old man in the museum.  He said that at the time, it was so normal for somebody to die by gun, bomb, beating, etc... that as a boy, he never assumed a death to be natural.  If somebody died, he would have never guessed that it was from old age or illness.  The violence that so many people witnessed and endured during the war years seeped into the culture.  It is shocking to think that a child would find it normal for people to die by beating or shooting and abnormal to die a natural death.  Overall, the museum was great.  It gave me a new appreciation for Poland.

Jewish Quarter

Wall of the Jewish Cemetery.  It is made of old gravestones that were recovered after the war.  Nazi's were taking them and using them as sidewalks...

Inside the Krakow castle

Town center

Later that night we went to a really cool little bar called "Propaganda".  So if any of you ever go to Poland, go there!
We had a very early night because we all had to wake up early and go to Auschwitz.  Auschwitz is actually a camp complex.  There are two different camps.  Auschwitz, which was a work camp and Birkenau, which was a death camp.  If people were sent to Auschwitz, they lived in big brick buildings and worked.  If people were sent to Birkenau, they were gassed upon arrival or shortly after.  Auschwitz and Birkenau was one of the most difficult things I've ever seen or done.  It is well worth one visit though.  I don't really have much to say about Auschwitz because it was all so hard to see.  It was kind of difficult to grasp a lot of the things because now they are just old empty buildings standing there.  But to think that I was standing in a room where thousands and thousands of people were gassed and burned is horrifying.  I think the things that really hit home for me and made it such an emotional trip were the little things.  Such as the baby clothing.  The Nazi's saved everything.  Upon arrival, the Jews were stripped of everything they owned and all of those articles of clothing, glasses, bags, toothbrushes, everything, were saved.  Seeing baby shoes, women's make-up, hairbrushes, and glasses was so unbelievably sad.  They did not know what their fate was, and so they packed all of their things.

Birkenau.  It was enormous.

It was the eeriest place I have ever been.  Birkenau was a huge massive chunk of land.  During the liberation, before the Nazi's fled, they burned a lot of the building to try and hide evidence.  Even though many of the blocks were burned, the chimney's still stand which is super creepy to see.  I felt very uncomfortable taking these pictures and putting them up so I only put a few on here.
I was at the biggest crime scene in history.  It was a horrible thing to see, but also very important I think.

The next day we drove home to Prague.  It is always so great to be back!

Berlin, Germany

I know I haven't posted in forever, so here we go! 

I think I left off right before Berlin.  A few weekends ago I went to Berlin with about six other kids in my group.  We left on a thursday morning and came back sunday late afternoon.  When we first got to Berlin, we checked into our awesome hostel and went out exploring the neighborhood we were in.  We ate a currywurst which was basically a sausage covered with ketchup and curry powder.  And a bunch of fries.  It was delicious and I found a new love for curry!  

We had an early night and woke up early for a free walking tour of the city.  Our tour guide was great and the history of Berlin was definitely the highlight of the trip.  The city is not old and beautiful like Prague, because it was so heavily bombed throughout WWII.  Most of the apartments and buildings are relatively new and many of them in East Berlin are communist housing (very dull looking).

* Interesting note: Germany finished paying reparations from World War I in October 2009.  Crazy!!

Here are some things we saw on the walking tour:

This is the last standing gate left from Midieval Berlin by which German royalty entered and exited the city walls.

This is the hotel that Michael Jackson held "Blanket" over the balcony!

The Reichstag

 Above is the Reichstag, known as the Nazi headquarters.  In actuality, this building was not used throughout the war.  It originally held Nazi Party leaders, but right before the Nazi take-over there was a huge fire and the building stood in ruins throughout the war.

These two pictures are of the Holocaust memorial which is located right in the middle of the city.  It is a very creepy place to be.  It gets very cold and claustrophobic as you walk through it.

Below this dirt patch is the nuclear bunker where the Nazi's camped out throughout the last few weeks of the war.  This also is the location where Hitler committed suicide.

  We learned that Hitler got married, and then a day later he and his new wife committed suicide.  His Nazi's partners attempted to burn him to be rid of any evidence but could not do so successfully (how ironic).  Instead, they buried him a few feet away from this spot.  Later, when he was found, he was successfully burned and his ashes were scattered in the Elbe River.  There is no burial site for Hitler for fear that neo-Nazi's would have a place to congregate and worship.  

What is left of the Berlin Wall which separated the East from the West during the Communist regime.

The wall was not nearly as big and exciting as I had expected, but nonetheless, it was amazing to see.  Little did I know, this wall dividing the city was basically built in a night.  People woke up and there was a wall splitting their city in half.  Many people could not go to work, school, or see friends or family members.  What is most shocking about this was that after ten years of the city being completely divided, after the fall of communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall, citizens of the city seemed to reunite well.  The city has meshed back together very well.  

On a lighter note, here are some interesting things we learned about and saw in Berlin:

Street "walk" sign in East Berlin.  When the Wall went up, communist East Berlin wanted to be as different as possible to the Western Capitalist world.  They changed nearly everything.. even the street signs.  Here, you can see, they put a hat on the man in the "walk" sign.

 Later in the day, a couple of us checked out a really neat place called Techeles.  Techeles is an old building converted to an art house.  Artists spray paint everywhere and create art in the building as well as the back yard.  It was all really cool to see.  We wandered around and checked it all out!

That night we tried going to a club in the city.  Berlin night life is supposed to be amazing, but what I learned from it is that while it might be amazing, it is also very exclusive.  We waited in line to get into a club for about 40 minutes only to have half of us get in and half of us get denied.  They chose at random and are pretty ruthless.  While I'm sure the places are awesome inside, going to choosy exclusive clubs are definitely not my thing.  Luckily I live in Prague, where bars are cheap and friendly and don't care if you are dressed like a movie star or not!  Also, the German beer is nothing compared to Czech beer... 

Sausage wrapped in bacon filled with cheese covered with mustard and ketchup in a bun. 

The next day I spent wandering around on my own.  It was great! I spent the whole morning in a really neat neighborhood on the north end of the city.  There was a great farmers market and tons of adorable shops.  The neighborhood was very young and spunky (a nice change from Prague) and kind of reminded me of Lincoln Park Chicago or Madison Wisconsin.  I got the best sausage of my life in that market.  

Cute neighborhood! 

Market

Things in Berlin that in my opinion, should be everywhere:

Beer Bike!  Exercise while drinking beer, socializing with friends, and seeing the city! 

Yum! Who wouldn't want to eat there?! (and I think it's weird that it's in Asian looking writing)

Permanent ping pong tables in parks!

Overall, I thought Berlin was amazing.  I learned so much history and saw a culture that is completely different and unique to that of the Czech Republic.  The only complaints I have of Berlin was that it was expensive and HUGE/tricky to get around, but other than that I'm lucky I was able to see it!

Prague Astronomical Clock 600th Anniversary!

Follow this link, it's really cool!



http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2BBhtJ/www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DQjWJHEmFfPA

Dobry Den!

I'm about 4 weeks in to my Prague stay and the Czech Republic gets better every day!  While I haven't had a chance to get out of the city to travel in other countries yet, I have explored a lot of Prague and the surrounding areas.

Two weekends ago while everyone from my program went to Budapest, my old friend Sarah came to visit me from Sevilla.  We had a blast wandering around the city, getting lost, cooking delicious food, sleeping in, going to a Czech hockey game, and visiting a little castle town about 40 minutes out of the city!
We had beautiful weather all weekend!  We tried hot mulled wine (which is delicious) and went to the castle one day.  We went to a hockey game that night which is great fun!  We got lost on the way there and ended up at the Sparta Soccer stadium rather than the Sparta hockey arena... I had to use the little Czech language that I knew to figure out how to get to the stadium which was quite a scene, but we made it and had a ton!

Cool graffiti we found while lost in Prague 7

Hockey Game.  SPARTA!

Vasclav Namesty at night

Sarah and I at the castle

Cathedral in the castle

Karlstejn!

The next day we went to a small town outside of the city that was a 45 minute train ride.  Karlstejn was a very strange town to say the least... While it was pretty cute, it was also really touristy and the castle tour felt something out of the late 70's.  However, it was a beautiful day, and the castle was nestled in some pretty mountains so it was great!  

Just this past weekend, we hunkered in here in Prague and enjoyed some cool new bar scenes!  So far, all the bars we've been to have been really neat.  Usudu is a favorite because it's in a cavern underground and has a bunch of different tunnels leading to different cavern rooms.  A place I hope to check out soon is a bar that was a nuclear bunker converted into a bunker bar.  It's supposed to be really cool and actually is supposed to be converted back to its original state as a nuclear bunker if there is a need for it in the future.  We also checked out a bar that was pretty cool called the Beer Factory.  They had a tap coming up through the table and 4 taps available to refill whenever need be!  It was fantasticky!!  

As for beer (James I know you've been curious), its THE BEST!  Their "crappy" beer equates to our good beer, much of the time.  Also, as I said earlier, it's cheaper to get a huge beer than water at a restaurant so we're pretty much forced to get beer instead of water.  Not too big of a problem though I guess!  So far my favorite beers are Pilsner (found everywhere in the Czech Republic), Staropramen (cheaper, but still great), and Hoegarden (which is Belgian and also phenomenal). 

Usudu bar

More Usudu

Beer Factory

As for school, I've been learning some Czech history, mostly on Communism, and Czech Language that will help us to get around the city.  We've been learning Czech basics like how to order in a restaurant and how to ask for directions, which have definitely come in handy.  

Hello = Dobry den

Goodbye = Na schledanou

I would like 4 beers, please = Dam si ctyri pivo, prosim!

I'm planning spring break this week and have a bus booked for Berlin this weekend!  Shout out to all my peeps who trekked it to NOLA for some Mardi Gras shenanigans this past weekend.. hope you had a ball and I'm jealous I missed out!  Love and miss you all!