Poland & Auschwitz

I've been putting this blog off for a while. Auschwitz wasn't something that I was looking forward to blogging about. As I am leaving for Berlin tomorrow however, I figured I had better finish this as not to get behind.

I really enjoyed Poland, and I'm sad that I didn't take more pictures of the city. The people were very nice and most spoke English. The food was similar to Czech food, and was not expensive. At the moment, their currency is about two Polish Zloty to the Dollar. They also had Pizza Hut and Mountain Dew - neither of which can be found in the Czech Republic. I think out of all the places I've visited so far, I would live in Poland.

Krakow Castle and Gardens

One of the Tombs of a King. These reminded me of Lord of the Rings!

The only place pictures were allowed was in the tombs. The rest of the castle was very beautiful, but no pictures were allowed. In 1596, the capital was moved to Warsaw, so this Castle was only used for special occasions and burials.

This is duck - Polish style. It was goooood.

In every city we've visited thus far, a large demonstration has taken place. In Krakow, it was Skinheads vs. Homosexuals. Over 75% of Polish people are Catholic and against gay rights. Some friends and I were walking to the Jewish Quarter when we encountered the Gay parade. They marched to the town square, where a large group of Skinheads had gathered. Police were everywhere. Another guy in my group got a video of the meeting of the two groups, plus some Skinheads getting dragged from the fight by police. I'll see if I can't add it. Stay tuned.

This is the Krakow Jewish Quarter. It was part of the original Jewish Ghetto from WWII. I believe this building was used in the filming of Schindler's List. I would like to watch that movie when I return, just to put my experience into perspective.

Part of the original wall of the Ghetto. In the Jewish Quarter, we also visited the Synagogue which had been transformed into a museum. No pictures were allowed. Boo.

This is the entrance to Auschwitz 1. There were actually 3 camps. We visited Auschwitz 1 and Birkenau. Birkenau being where the barracks for Jews and Gypsies were located.

These brick buildings were originally home to the women's camp and then to the political prisoners. Enemies of the Third Reich including but not limited to intellectuals, Soviet prisoners of war and homosexuals were confined here until either murdered or sent to Birkenau.

These buildings have been converted to make up the Auschwitz museum. We saw pictures and heard information regarding the crimes of the Nazis. One of the buildings housed evidence of these crimes. This evidence included an entire room of human hair, collections of hair brushes, shoes, suit cases, glasses, nail polish, false limbs and crutches. These items were collected before victims were sent to the gas chamber by Kanada (Canada) Jews. They were given this nickname because they viewed Canada as a place of great wealth.

This was called the 'Wall of Death' by the prisoners. Political prisoners were shot here. The windows to the left were boarded up, so that other prisoners would not know what took place here. The building to the right held prisoners awaiting 'trial' and special prison cells. There were three types of special prison cells. First, the starvation cells, where victims were starved to death. The second, was a dark cell. Prisoners were given food, but forced to live in a completely dark cement cell with only a 5 by 5 INCH air hole. Finally, there were the exhaustion cells. These cells held 4 prisoners at once. The victims were forced to crawl through a small space and then stand through the night. They were then marched out each day to hard labor jobs. Many died from exhaustion.

The first attempts to gas victims took place in this building as well. Pellets were placed on the floor during the night. The next morning, not all the victims had died. The basement was too well ventilated. The Nazis also had trouble removing the dead, so they created the gas chambers to increase efficiency.

Electric fences

Door to the gas chambers/crematorium.

This picture was taken after we departed Auschwitz 1 and arrived at Birkenau. This is from outside the camp. The tower on the right is part of the train depot.

The entrance to Birkenau by train.

The entrance to one of the barracks.

The "beds" inside the barracks. We asked why the heads of the beds were on wooden planks, but our guide was unsure.

The latrines near the barracks.

There is a lot more information on this subject, and I'm sure most of you have an idea about the conditions in the camps. The information posted here are facts that I was not aware of prior to visiting Auschwitz. For more information, I would recommend doing an Internet search.

Slovakia

We stayed in Levoca (pronounced Le-vow-ka) in Slovakia. This place was creepy!! I guess we stayed here because it was one of the most preserved mid-evil towns. The town was surrounded by a stone wall. All the buildings were painted in bright pastel colors with well trimmed lawns and bright shop windows. The other kids with my trip were saying it reminded them of the horror movie Hostel. I guess the movie was also supposed to be in Slovakia. Anyway, all the people traveled in groups and the city was virtually empty by nightfall. I stayed in the room most of the night. I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep well that night!

The pictures below don't need much explanation. I took them at random spots while driving through the countryside. We also stopped and looked at some random castle. The high-up pictures were taken at the castle.

Broadcasting from my basement. .

I find it funny that I was so nervous to leave for this trip. While Dara and my Parents drove me to the airport, I told them I didn't want to go. I told them "I'll just sit in my basement and Google places for my blog. I'll paste pictures and pretend I went." haha

I apologize for not blogging for so long. Be sure to check out my Israel blog and leave a comment!

I have pretty much assimilated to life in the Czech Republic. Hearing Czech music, Czech people and other noises I don't understand has become second nature. It's more of an annoying buzz. I don't know what they're saying, but it's a constant.

Tomorrow I am off to Krakow, Poland. All my underwear and bras are wet. I'm so glad I waited until the last moment to do laundry. Note to Mom - I will be kissing your washer and dryer when I get home! This visit will also include a visit to the Wieliczka Salt Mines and Auschwitz Birkenau. I can't imagine the ride home after visiting Auschwitz. It is definitely on the list of places I want to visit before I die, but the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C was almost too much for me. The only thing that made the day bearable was the fact that we went to a cafe afterwards. My Mom tried a knish for the first time and absolutely loved it. She couldn't stop talking about it. It made us laugh, and feel a little better. I guess I was wrong about not letting her accompany me to the concentration camp.

On the topic of travel, my list of places to visit is running thin. This weekend I will be in Poland (obviously), the first weekend in May I will be in Berlin, the next weekend I am meeting Johannes in Prague and then I finally have a free weekend. May 20 - 23rd we are going river rafting through Southern Bohemia and Slovakia. May 24th through 28th we are free, but as funds are low, I will probably stay in Olomouc.

Some friends and I had discussed going to Chernobyl in Ukraine. This would be an interesting and awesome experience, but scary at the same time. To actually enter the site of the former towns and exploded nuclear reactor costs around $180. That would be on top of train tickets and hostel. Plus there's always a chance I could get radiation poisoning and die. They make you wear a special suit and check your radiation levels at the end, but considering the treatment the USSR gave the citizens of Chernobyl, I'm a little skeptical.

Lastly, I need drugs. If anyone is interested in sending a care package, any type of over the counter meds would be gladly appreciated. Czechs are not as pill happy as Americans, and reading Czech medicine boxes is difficult. . so I have been unable to buy anything here. I am completely out of Tylenol PM (which if you know me, is a desperate situation)! I have enough IBuprofuen, but Cold Medicine, Allergy Medicine, Pepto Bismol and ORIGINAL FORMULA DRAMAMINE would be great! The package should also be sent rush order because they take like a month to get here otherwise. The smaller the package, the quicker it will get here as well. I have included my address for your convenience:

Palacky University
International Liason Office
Křížkovskěho 8
771 47 OLOMOUC
Czech Republic

P.S. I really miss Sushi as well. . but somehow I don't think it would travel well. :)

Israel

Sooo this blog has been long in the waiting!! I wasn't getting any comments, so I withheld the pictures of this trip. Don't worry, I'm not dead!

I put these pictures here with the explanations that I was given. My Bumpa also brought to my attention that there are many interpretations of these holy places. My guide was Jewish, so I wasn't well informed of the Muslim aspects of some monuments. I apologize for the biased view.

As all if it is religion based, most of it can be debated. I'm not religiously inclined, therefore you should not expect much more than what is written here. In other words, no questions or debates please!

As in Egypt, I marked the places we visited and our route on the map. We actually visited Israel prior to going to Cairo. Let me first say, that the journey was NOT enjoyable. Our trip was organized through a Czech travel agency. All the people on the trip spoke Czech, and most refused to speak English with us. They eventually arranged an English speaking tour guide, which was most appreciated. We still missed a lot of stuff.

We left the resort at around 11pm. We rode on a large tour bus. Around 3am, we were instructed to take our things and exit the bus. We then waited for 3 hours at the Israeli border. Re-entry to the Egyptian border took less than 20 minutes for all 100 Czech tourists. The Israelis however, decided to make things difficult. They wanted to know why we were studying in the Czech, why we were with a Czech tour group, why we went to Egypt and why we decided to go to Israel. Then they made a big deal about how long we would stay in Israel. After all the hooplah, they stamped our passports for a 3 month trip (we were only staying 1 day). Ridiculous!

This is the Western Wall a.k.a Weeping Wall. Solomon's Temple once stood here but was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586BC. The Holy Temple was built a second time by Herod the Great. The wall is what is left of the Holy Temple that was destroyed by the Roman Empire in 70CE. It is called the Weeping Wall because Jews come here to Mourn the loss of their Holy Temple. They also proclaim that the Holy Spirit rests here at all times.

Personally, I didn't feel any kind of revelation here. There were plastic lawn chairs and children everywhere. Israeli guards were constantly pacing the perimeter with large machine guns. I went down to touch the wall and the praying space was overrun with tourists. Some lady and her husband were taking turns photographing themselves touching the wall. I kind of want to visit Mecca now, just to see how different it is. From what I've heard they don't allow non Muslims to participate, but you can watch from a far. Saudi Arabia anyone??

This is the entrance to the marketplace. See all the tourists, children and sales people? Notice how crowded it is? I couldn't get over it. This is also the same entrance Jesus took while carrying the cross through the city. Even though they may not share the religion, I think a little more respect should be shown.

Jesus fell 14 times while carrying the cross. This was his first fall. They have little monuments near some of the places he fell. If there is not a monument, they placed a marker on the wall like the one below.

More of the market place.

This is where Jesus was brought after he had been killed. They brought him here to clean, anoint and wrap his body before he was placed in his tomb.

Beneath all the decorations is the stone which was broken when Jesus rose again. Tourists can't actually visit the cave because the later ruler of Jerusalem had temples built over several historic sites. This meant that historians knew where to excavate, but many artifacts were badly damaged.


This is the stone on which Jesus was placed to be anointed and wrapped.


Another picture of the stone. Lots of annoying tourists.

This is The Dome of the Rock. It is the oldest standing Islamic building in the world. Islamists believe that the rock held at the center is the spot where Muhammad ascended to heaven. Jews as well as Muslims believe it to be the holiest place on earth.

I'm not sure what the gold building in the background is. I thought it was the All Nations Church, but we visited that. . so someone can leave a comment as to what it is.

This is the Church of All Nations. This church was said to be where Jesus was praying after he had been betrayed. The church is on top of Mt. Olive. I believe it is called All Nations Church because after it was destroyed, several countries (including the USA) gave money to restore the church.

This is the garden where Jesus was said to have been praying when the soldiers came to arrest him. The olive trees are original, but the plants were destroyed along with the first church.

GOATS!!! This is in front of the Church of All Nations. We were standing outside waiting for our bus. Cars were driving buy in normal traffic. Then someone yells "Goats!!" and this herd of goats ran by. haha.

Egypt

We stayed in a resort town called Sharm el Sheikh. The resort was pretty nice, but the food was awful. It was a lot of mixed meats and vegetables. I was sick most of the trip and am still not feeling very well. I marked the spots in red where we were, and then the green line is where we drove.





These are pictures from our resort. Our room was similar to a condo. It had a separate bedroom and a full kitchen. The kitchen didn't have any utensils, but that's okay because the buffet was included and open most of the time. The resort had 6 pools and was on the beach.

This is a view of Cairo from across the Nile.

Views of Cairo. I really don't understand the buildings. There are miles and miles of concrete skeletons with reebar sticking out the top. Like construction was never finished. The majority of the people live in these buildings. Most of the windows have don't have glass panes. As we were leaving, we saw a small boy playing on the roof of one of these buildings. There wasn't a rail or anything. He was playing so close to the edge, I thought he was going to fall off.

King Tutankhamoun's Pyramid - the biggest one.

This boat was buried next to the pyramid. It was used to carry all of the contents of the King's pyramid down the Nile. The Giza area was only used for burial/funeral purposes.


Three groups of Muslim girls came up and asked to take pictures with us. They liked our blonde hair and the fact that we wore western clothes.

Yea that's right - I saw the Sphinx!!

I took this picture for all the Carlson people! I ate at TGI Fridays on the Nile in Cairo. We all had the same thing because we were on the tour - but it was normal American stuff. Potato soup, grilled chicken, rice and a salad. We also had Oreo ice cream though!! I hadn't seen an Oreo in so long!!

I hope that you can see this video!! I took it as we were leaving Cairo. Our Czech tour guide would not shut up on the bus, so that's her talking in the background. I swear we were like 30 minutes outside the city and she was still talking!!

Random stuff I noticed about Egypt:

There are no stop lights. There are medians everywhere and all the drivers simply make U turns. Pretty much everywhere you go, you drive past wherever it is you are trying to drive, and then you must stop and make a U turn up ahead.

They don't use any coins at all. Everything is done with the Egyptian pound. The conversion rate when I was there was like 5 pounds to the dollar.

Buildings are also strange in Sharm el Sheikh. There are randomly abandoned resorts/buildings everywhere. On any street, you may have 5 working resorts and 5 abandoned resorts. I don't understand this.

Men were very overbearing. Everywhere we went, they tried to talk to us. They would address us by trying to guess which country we were from. The most common guess was Russia, which I thought was funny. Our travel agent had warned us not to go off the resort at night, but we wanted to walk to a nearby convenient store. As we were walking, some random guy came out of no where and started talking to me. I told him I didn't understand and walked faster to be near my friends. At that point, he sped up and was walking next to my friend Julia. He started to talk to her, and then put is hand on her butt. As he did this, she got up in his face and yelled "HEY!!" He jumped about a foot in the air and took off. They're not used to women sticking up for themselves.

One other note about Cairo - we were told not to even touch the Nile. They dump trash and other materials into the river. As we were eating at TGI Fridays, there was junk floating by the whole time.

For those of you who don't know. . I also ended up going to Israel during spring break. We went to Jerusalem for a day. I took a lot of pictures and have a lot of information to share, however, it's late and I am tired! I will post more tomorrow (hopefully). We had some Internet problems earlier today that delayed this blog. . but anyway. . until tomorrow!