"Everything happened in Poland.."

For you, my dear blog readings, I apologize this update is so long overdue.. but here's the last weekend in April for ya - Slovakia & Poland!

On our bus drive to Slovakia we stopped at a castle and hiked up the "mountain" to it. I don't remember what castle it was, but it was really old, and cool. Our bus drive continued to Levoca, Slovakia where we stayed the night. We ate at a small restaurant near our hotel and they had mashed potatoes! They were delicious, and I had been craving them the week before when I was sick. The next morning we went into the church in the town, which is home to the tallest alter in the world, 60 feet tall! We walked around the square just a little bit before beginning our journey to Krakow, Poland. We got stuck in a big traffic jam, which was annoying, but we made it entertaining enough. One of the guys started telling us great things about Poland which was really entertaining.. like Earnest Hemingway wrote a novel about the evergreen trees of Poland there, Tu Pac is actually living there, and lots of other random stuff like that. He came up with "American history is a myth, everything happened in Poland" which then became a great joke.

On the outskirts of Krakow we stopped to tour the salt mines. From what our guides were saying, I was expecting more of a "cave" with small spaces and stuff.. but it wasn't really like that. It was really "touristy" you could say, and nothing that made you feel claustrophobic or anything. It was interesting, but not as cool as I thought it was going to be. There was a cavern there that 2 men spent 67 years creating, and it was just beautiful! People even get married down there. Crazy! The next day we saw some government buildings.. I'm not really sure what they were, because by the time we had waited an hour to go in I had lost interest. It just kind of like another old building with old stuff. We also saw a cathedral where a lot of Polish royalty are buried. For lunch we ate at Pizza Hut! It was sooo good, and they actually had free refills on pop! (No where in Europe has that!) I spent most of the afternoon with a friend down at the riverfront, talking and people watching, which was really nice and relaxing.

Sunday we went to Auschwitz. It was such an experience.. although I did get really upset at some people on our group who spent most of the time joking around and talking about stupid things.. I feel like if you don't want to have the experience there, that's your own decision, but you don't need to be rude and ruin it for other people. It was difficult being there of course, thinking of the horrific things that happened there. I will admit though that it was not as moving of an experience as the one I had when I went to the Mauthowsen (not spelled right!) concentration camp in Austria when I was in high school. Auschwitz felt more.. touristy.. there were way more people there and the museum was not as personal as the tour we took in high school.. where there weren't many people around, and you could feel what happened there. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I got to go and it was an experience, it was just very different. It's a hard thing to do, but if you ever have the opportunity I encourage it!

Well, that's about it for Poland I guess! I'm leaving now for Berlin with one of the girls here, so you'll get an e-mail about that next week! Hope you're all doing well, and Happy May Day!