4 reasons why we visited Poland.

Date: 22th – 26th. October (3 nights/5 days)
Location: Krakow, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Warsaw, a small train station in Czech Republic.
Polish team members: Carmen, Charley, Raquel, Seko

October 23rd is a Hungarian national holiday. Good thing was that it was on Thursday in this year. Why good? Since Friday (next day) also changes Holiday. And because of that, we could obtain 4 days weekend at the end of October (In such case basically the Saturday on the last week will be work days, however our boss is kind enough not to order us to come to office on Saturday).

3 Spanish drunkers and I teamed up for going to Poland, having hoped to visit some of former Polish trainees who already had gone back. Here comes 4 things which I want to blog about our Polish Travel. Who’s gonna read through this post? Enjoy Pictures!!


(1)To be beaten by Homeless at a small train station in Czech Republic.
The journey had already begun since when we visited East station in Budapest. We were stupid enough not to buy any train tickets until 5 day before the departure. We tried to buy the direct ticket from Budapest to Krakow, but all of them were sold out. Even worse, there is no train to Warsaw as well. No wonder. it was national holiday. The day every Hungarian had been waiting for. We went to ticket office 2 times (Friday and Sunday), and asked persistently all the possibilities to get to Krakow, but could not make it. It was when we almost despaired that one station man showed another option.

It was Katowice, a small city close to Krakow. According to him there is a night train from Budapest to Katowice. The guy unwillingly explained 30 minutes bus ride will take us to Krakow from Katowice. On hearing that, we relieved temporary before he started to give next words. As he mentioned in Hungarian accented English, we had to change trains in some station on the way. We asked which station should we get off, but he told us to ask a conductor as he did not know. We fairly persisted him believing that he must have known the exact spot, but he just kept shaking his head. Finally we gave up and went home.

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On the day of departure, we arrived to the station earlier so as to ask conductor about where exactly we should get off and for occupying 4 seats as we had not reservation. After secured our place to sleep, Carmen and I went out for searching him. As soon as we found him and started to ask in English, he turned around as if saying “no questions are available”.

Then we turned to other workers, and asked, but all of them just refused and went away. Even ticket checker s could not comprehend English. They just flattered us and went away. The train was about to depart. We sadly returned to our seats and got prepared to rest. We were so unease but it could not be helped anyway. After small talk, and played Charley’s NINTENDO DS, we totally got to sleep.

Ours were not reclining seats. It was not easy to sleep comfortably. Having repeated sleeping and waking up, one roly-poly station guy approached to me with annoying big snort, and asked me to show the ticket. I did. And I did not forget to ask the station which we were supposed to get off, but he did not understand, as I expected. After a while, the train stopped at a small station. Then he came to me again then tried to explain something in loud voice enough to wake up surroundings, with disgusting shouting.

I really was sleepy but doubted here might be the changing spot. Desperately, we asked the guy if here is the place or not in very simple English word by showing our tickets:”Katowice, change?” ”Here is the station?” He nodded, though did not say even yes or no, just kept nodding. He got off and shouted to us something very roughly, but of course we did not understand. Being afraid of we had stopped the train for more than 3 minutes, we finally followed him. The train had gone as soon as we got off. We got rapidly unease as he still kept saying something .Without knowing anything, he was getting upset and angry. Eventually he poked me in my forehead strongly and disappeared leaving his nasty scoff. It was 2:30AM. It was Czech Republic. It was chilly, windy, and scary.

I have to appreciate another female station lady at ticket office for being English available. She kindly, but a bit laughingly told the next train would start at 6:30, which means we were forced to wait in the station until next morning. We headed for lobby and found relatively warm place where there are 8 or 9 benched which were already occupied by homeless people. We had no choice but to sleep on extremely ice cold floor. I could not take any sleep at all. Having given up and hanged around the precinct for almost 1 hour, cursing my inability of my Hungarian, I was thinking about at least train officers working for international line should speak English, or some trivial stuff like that. It was raining outside.

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By the sound of the lady yelling to homeless to get out, I a bit happily went back to the place which 3 Spanish friends were sleeping, and found all of the homeless totally eliminated. I dashed into one bench and tried my best to get asleep. I guess the temperature was around zero Celsius, but I succeeded, at shortest for 5 minutes. When I was woken up by angry homeless beating me in my ass, I found all of them had just returned their warm home again. She was useless. And his punch was not that light one. Feeling upset though, I pretended to be fast asleep and could gained 30 minutes sleep on poor wood bench in extremely cold building.



(2)To visit Krakow

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We arrived to Krakow at 10 AM. After leaving our luggage off at hostel, we cheerfully went out for sightseeing. The dormitory was cheap.6 EUR for one night each, includes coffee and sandwich for breakfast. The place was big enough, clean and comfortable. After settled down on each bed, we have started to talk with roommates: an American guy named Ricky and Bulgarian girl studying at Ukraine. Ricky is 26 years old and now traveling around the world. He had stayed in the hostel more than 2 weeks and was writing about his C.V. for his coming job interview. He gave me the direction of Krakow, his impression of Auschwitz, impression of memorial museum of Cambodian massacre and other stories from his trip.

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Hot wine was good, and cheap.

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All Jewish restaurants were expensive....at least for us.

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dumpling:)

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hummmm,,, i do not have so much beautiful pictures of Krakow, but with your own eyes talks more.

I also met with one Japanese girl who also quitted her job and currently traveling around the world. She said she was 29 years old. She does not speak English. Actually, I have met with this type of backpackers before in Budapest, Prague and Bosnia/Herzegovina, but she looked same as others. Shipwreck. My friend Shiki called them so. “They looked shipwreck. “ I can agree with what he said. She said she has already quitted 2 times, one time was for traveling Asia, and another time is for traveling Europe.



(3)To visit Auschwitz-Birkenau
This is the main reason to visit Poland. I guess a lot of people would think Auschwitz was the place millions of people we killed, but actually it was the nearest prison called Birkenau which had been used as massive killing industry. Both remains are now exposed to all the visitors around the world as free museum. We spent one day to visit there. Unfortunately the most impressive and probably the saddest part of exhibition were not allowed to be pictured. Since I am not confident to explain what I felt there, here I will drop as many pictures as I took.

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Wall of Death. Thousand's of people were shot on this wall. There are still many visitors includes Japanese pray for victim.

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hanging gallows over there.

Just imagine. Thousands of glasses, tooth brushes, baby shoes, empty bag, clothes, women’s hair, artificial legs, lugs or carpets made from women’s hair, number tattoos on arms, instruments for live human experiments…….Non-private toilet, standing prison (cannot even lay down even after 12 hours work), corn soup like washed-rice-water, 3mm thickness barrack extremely cold wind always goes through, the sound of opening the door which commanded prisoners to work like a dog for full day, 365 days….

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Birkenau

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this rail leads to death and endless penal servitude.

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inside a barrack, pretty cold.

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guess what. this is toilet. for both gender. no privacy. Man and Women were forced to come here only on fixed time.

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I wonder, with what sort of feeling do they walk along...

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extensive

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tried to imagine... what were people thinking about... looking at same sunset, same sunrise, same work, sleeping at same place, seeing other prisoners had been killed.... I imagined, but trying to imagine itself is painful....

The memorial statue says more than 1.5 million people were killed in Auschwitz. Some people say more, some people say less. And of course more and more innocent people were killed by Nazis in this kind of concentration camps everywhere in Europe. I do not recommend visiting there alone, since I felt so lucky for being with 3 Spanish guys. Without them, I would have serious depression.



(4)To meet our friends in Warsaw
Mart !! was former trainee stayed 3 month in Budapest, and we spent so much time together. One of the closest friends of mine. I did not expect but she had studied hard and got prepared for guiding us, not only picking service at train station or providing place to sleep (her brother’s flat).

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transfer to Warsaw

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Mart Joining.

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Mart's bro

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old town

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Oh no,,, new religion devotee are approaching...get away, get away...

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Eh,,,

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we are lucky,,, maybe...

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Warsaw Uprising

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Nicolaus Copernicus

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Library at Mart's Univ... there are so many statues inside.

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Hot beer !! Tastes.....let's say..good, yes.

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stuffed cabbage, mashed potatoes, and chicken-fillet. Polish home made style. It was 700yen(7USD), as i remember.

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Not everyone says Warsaw is beautiful, but for me it is completely lovely, historical, and vast city. This was maybe because of Mart’s intension and hard work. Compared with Budapest, Krakow, or Prague, however, Warsaw looked racking of its integration by group of skyscrapers. Maybe Tokyo in developing days also looked like that, no clue though. But I do not want Warsaw to be another Tokyo. I want this city to stop building extremely unnaturally high buildings. Looks odd. At least, the repaired old town district after the complete consumption from long time war should be preserved.

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thanks Mart !!　Dziękuję!! Carmen, Charley, Raquel, GLACIAS!! Vamos Vamos !!