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Jonnys Eastern Delights!
Our time in Krakow, for me at least, had everything, despite getting off to one of the worst starts possible. Arriving bleary eyed as usual, we had bought tickets for the tram and genuinely didn't know that we also needed one for our backpacks, but as fate would have it, the inspectors would be on our tram and so we each got fined. He tried to make it out that he was doing us a favour by reducing the fine a bit, but in reality all this meant was that it became unofficial and basically all the money went straight into his back pocket. I wouldn't have minded had we been trying to get away with it, but to be punished for honest ignorance was really annoying, especially when, approaching the end of almost 6 months continuous travelling, finances are gettng low to say the least. And so, sat in the hostel at 7am, tired as hell, not able to check in untill late afternoon, and just generally pissed off, I realised that I had fallen out of love with travelling. I've had a lot of bad luck with things on this trip, and little things have built up. So the afternoon, after visiting Wawel Hill, was basically spent, from a personal perspective, feeling sorry for myself.
But then I went back to the hostel - quite possibly the best one I have ever stayed at. And downstairs there were quotes about "The Point Of Travelling", along with various pictures. Almost instantly I felt my passion for it come back. I remembered why it is that I do it, that the bad things in some strange way contribute to the experience almost as much as the goos things, and realised that maybe I had lost a little bit of perspecive. I am extremely lucky to be wherever I am right now, and am free to do any number of things. And even when all this travelling malarky is over, I will go back to a life a lot of people can only dream about. So maybe I shouldn't mope about too much. After going out for a nice evening with Edoardo and Danny from the hostel, along with the girls, and waving at the trumpet player in Old Town Square, I had wel land truely remembered why it is I do what I do.
Having said all of that though, if my faith in Karma is to be completely restored, I am due some really good luck in these last 10 days or so - as in good luck of the proportion of meeting my Eastern European princess who is completely besotted by me!
So, after a real roller coaster of a Monday, we took a day trip on Tuesday to Oswiecim. Or to you and I, Auschwitz. I have struggle when asked in the days since to find a suitable word to describe it, but the best one I can come up with is harrowing. The Auschwitz camp itself just smacked of grim German efficiency, with many of the exhibitions that make up the museum housed in original buildings. It was actually at Auschwitz II - Birkenau, 3km away, - where the extermination of over a million Jews took place. The Birkenau site really did make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Its vast size, along with being able to see in the backgroud of original photos buildings that are still there today, made it for me even more shocking than Auschwitz and, like I said before, the most harrowing day of my life.
Tuesday night we went out with a bunch of people from the hostel, and I git drunk suprisingly easily - meaning that getting up the following morning for anothe day trip was extremely hard work, as we went to the Wieliczka Salt Mine - a unique underground collection of chambers all carved out of solid salt, with everything from the chandeliers to the altarpieces all made out of those small white grains! Our guide was really funny, and by the time we had made it to the Chapel of the Blessed King - a huge underground church we were around 130m below ground. All there was left to do in Krakow was have the biggest hotdog ever to cure a resurgent hangover, and then jump on a train to Warsaw - the end of an eventful few days!
Jonny
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