In a sudden and dramatic turn for the worse, we were greeted in Poland by sheeting rain. A little sad after our beautiful, warm days in Italy and Spain. But we found our hostel with no problems. Except we forgot it was Easter—aka NOTHING WAS OPEN. Fo serious, nothing. And we failed at preparation: we didn’t bring any food with us. So we walked a good 30 min in the pouring rain to McDonalds (cause we’re classy like that) and ended up with some delish cheeseburgers and a kebab (it was disgusting, actually) from next door. Nbd.
Kraków was awesome because the Polish currency, zloty, is rather cheap compared to the Euro. Like, 3.50 zloty to a euro. WOOHOO. Shopping was awesome, let me tell you. We didn’t really go anywhere the first day because of the rain and Easter, but we did have an exciting (SARCASM) surprise in store for us. The train ride to Berlin, which was originally said to be 4 or 5 hours, turned out to be 10, or, in the case of the overnight train that stopped everywhere, 14. So we canceled a night at our hostel in favor of traveling overnight with no beds on a public train, then switching to a German one at 5am. More on this later.
This unfortunate mistake meant we lost most of a day in Kraków, so we had to cut out some of our desired activities. The only thing I actually wanted to do in Poland was see Auschwitz, but unfortunately it would have been a 6+ hour thing, and we wouldn’t have seen anything else in Kraków, so we didn’t go. But the city itself is amazing—so much interesting stuff happened here. We walked to the Jewish Quarter, a place that was decimated during WWII but has grown back to near its original size. The main square of the city itself had this amazing Easter market with traditional Polish things all on sale for very little cost. We each had like over 100 zloty after paying for the hostel and such, and it wouldn’t have been worth it to exchange the currency again, so we all went on shopping sprees. I got SO MUCH awesome stuff there, and I really wish we’d had more time because it was a beautiful place.
The Wawel castle, where the Polish royalty was based since the 1300s like, was absolutely magnificent, and included a massive cathedral that has been in use for hundreds of years. There was a stone dedicated to Chopin, the famous composer from Poland, which made me happy because I love his music. If you ever have an hour or so, Wikipedia the Polish royal line, because it’s actually quite interesting and filled with craziness. I mean, people were marrying, killing, tricking, betraying, and beatifying like mad. Good times.
There was a bunch of stuff dedicated to the late Pope John Paul II, who was Polish, because he was to be named a saint by the current pope in the beginning of May. Everyone was super excited, and there were pictures of him all over the main square. Did you know that he is one of the only non-Italian popes? Excitement.
Polish desserts are awesome, lemme just say. In my haste to buy and spend my zloty, I bought several delicious foods, none of which I can name. But seriously, Poland is grand and I def wanna go back.
Apparently the hostel we stayed at in Poland was once a Gestapo headquarters and prison for Polish officers. The receptionist was telling us that many of these rooms were cells and many were interrogated and tortured here. There was a museum next door that gave tours of some of the cells as they were, but it was closed sadly. I mean, since Auschwitz is only an hour away obviously the Germans had a huge influence in Krakow, but I didn’t realize that even the apartment buildings were occupied by them. They even stationed themselves at Wawel Castle for a while, which was the seat of the Polish royal family for years. I wish we could have made it to Auschwitz, if we’d had another day, because I’ve heard so many stories about it from the people at the hostel.
And the end you’ve all been waiting for…our somewhat hilarious mostly horrifying journey on the overnight train! When I’m old and rich, I will never take a train without beds again. Or one without private compartments... At first there weren’t many people on board, so we eventually stretched out and were about to go to sleep when these two Polish guys opened our door and were like, can we come in. Well, I mean, what were we gonna say?! It’s a public compartment like and we couldn’t take up 8 spaces with 3 bodies (though I wanted to…). They clearly were interested in talking to us, and all we wanted to do was sleep, but these morons wouldn’t give up. Actually, only one spoke English, and he just wanted to practice by talking to us. Usually it would’ve been fine (we loved hearing English after so long in foreign countries) but at this point we were miserable. So we finally tell them we’re going to sleep, I put on my sunglasses and hood, and curl into the corner, as Ronnie and Rafa do the same. But this fool doesn’t go! He kept trying to make conversation with us, and we were like, NO WE’RE ASLEEP, but as kind as possible. Finally he leaves, though only to get his bag so he can move into our compartment, fml. Luckily, a bunch of other people with no interest in talking come into our compartment and ask if it’s free—we, of course, immediately say yes. So the guy from before comes back and everyone is asleep, but he taps me and is like, c’mon let’s go. Ignoring the fact I was asleep, I was not moving, mostly because I was cradling my valuables like they were my children (the chess set was the most awkward to hold haha). So he leaves again, and I passed out until we switched trains, so I have no idea if he came back. Sigh, people are strange. Essentially that was up there with the worst nights of my life, mostly because the train was creepy and the ride was far too long. On the other hand, it got us to Berlin, which was magnificent!
Slán go fóill!
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