Squid went to Krak….OW
**Say this to the tune of Brick House**
Sooooo since my last post I have obtained my passport! GBless that random Austrian woman who very well may have all my information copied somewhere but is a saint regardless of these illegal habits. The weekend after Berlin involved a lot of touristy activities- including but not limited to a bomb beer tasting (i am not a huge fan of the pivo but this was a cool experience), hiking up to the castle, and buying more trdelniks! I also have realized I’ve been instagramming an excessive amount so to all you loyal likers… I appreciate you. That weekend Christine and I went to a bagel place which was pretty good for it being a bagel place in a land of no bagels. Last week involved homework and working out (HHAHAAHAH WHAT who said that?!) and Maggie and a friend from her program visited! I tried to show them all the highlights of Prague but school makes weekday visitors hard.
And then this past Thursday a bunch of the girls in CIEE, including me!, went to Poland to tour Auschwitz and spend a few nights in Krakow. We left at midnight Thursday night which was brutal because Radost is the Thursday night club and I just knew I was missing out on the best night of my life. At around 8 am, after changing clothes and eating some breakfast, we started our tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau. If you know me at all you know I have no tear ducts… but actually I’m just not very emotional and would rather sleep than deal with any emotion… this was unavoidable upon stepping foot on the Auschwitz grounds. The morning was eye-opening. We went through barracks with rooms that were comparable in size to my summer camp cabins which slept 10-15, and here there were at least 100 people “housed” during the active times of the concentration camp. It was terrifying. We walked through rooms with tons and tons of items found after the camps had been liquidated- there were so many instances where all I wanted to do was vomit. it’s unimaginable, and yet was all clearly so real. Our tour guide, Eva, made sure to keep us from remembering the prisoners as statistics, but instead as human beings with individual names and lives. If you ever have the chance to experience a tour at these camps, do it. The magnitude of these events is so much easier to grasp when you see the camps in person.
Poland was beautiful otherwise and a trip I’m so happy I took. Krakow was an adorable city with the best Zara i’ve seen in Europe so far… tbd if that holds up but so far definitely #1. There’s a bunch of other funny/important stuff I’ll write about later this week but this is all for now!! …off to Chapeau :) :) :) :) :)