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we got into krakow last night at around 930pm after a 7 hour train ride from prague, where the ticket guy made us move seats like 3 or 4 times. at one point we were just standing in the free space that connected two of the cars because we didnt know where to go. the guy couldnt speak much english, so he could tell us to move but he couldnt tell us where to go. you would think that if they were so concerned about where u sit they would put seat numbers on the tickets, but they dont do that on eastern european trains.
it is 10 am now, so i havent seen much of krakow at all, but what i have seen has really been incredible. we are staying at mama's hostel, a famous hostel located just off the town center. the town center, called rynek glowny i think, is in theory like a big spanish plaza, but in an eastern european style. there are castle like buildings and churches, and everything is just in a very unique style. like prague, krakow is extremly clean and really cold. for some reason the heat in our dorm room is not working, even though it seems to be working everywhere else, so we slept with 3 blankets and a fleece on. last night the front desk girl told me it would be on in an hour, but it was still freezing when we woke up this morning.
one of the nicer things about eastern europe so far is that everything is much less expensive then some of the other places we have been. we can actually afford to go out to dinner and get a souvenier or two. this has been a nice change.
i dont really have much else to write because we have not seen much of krakow. today we are going to aushwitz which should be pretty intense. it is about an hour and a half bus ride from here. after that we will probably just walk around town a bit and find somewhere to eat dinner.
justin
our time in krakow has really been great. this is definitely one of the coolest and most interesting places we have been. luckily, world war 2 did not do to much structural damage to the city. We started our first full day in krakow by walking to the wawel castle. the castle is surrounded by a huge wall, and is much more impressive than the prague castle. the prague castle seems like it has been changed alot to accomodate tourists, but the wawel castle seemed much more castlelike. after that we walked to the jewish district which is call kazimierez. we went in to the high synangogue which was built in the 1550's. from the jewish district we walked over to where we were to meet our tour group to go to aushwitz.
Aushwitz was about an hour and a half bus ride from krakow. It was originally just one camp, but when the number of prisoners increased Aushwitz II Berkenau and AUshwitz III were built. in an attempt to cover up for their crimes, alot of aushwitz was destroyed. aushwitz III was completly destroyed, so they only use Aushwitz I and Berkenau to show tourists. Aushwitz still has the barracks, the lookout towers, and the electric fences around it. the barracks have been made into museum rooms. berkenau is a huge field surround by the elctric fences. everything was just really intense and heavy. its kind of hard to describe.
today we went back to the jewish district and went to the galicia museum. the museum showed us what the jewish ghetto that was set up in krakow was like. my internet is about to run out.
Justin
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