POLSKA!

Just the day after I arrived back from Belgium, which was again after Spain, I left with Miguel (classmate at Uni DO) to Poland! After just a quick hop of 2 hours through the air, we landed in Krakow, where Marlena (another classmate) greeted us at the airport.

The first day, we toured around Krakow, where we found most things to be pretty cheap with the Polish Zlotys. Krakow was a beautiful city with a lot of older buildings from the middle ages that were unabstructed by WWII. The best sites included the main square, the cathredral where Pope John Paul II was, and a castle along the bank of the Wista River.

Following Krakow, we visited Auschwitz, which was the location of the largest Nazi Concentration Camp. Over 1.5 million Jews, Gypsies, and Pols died at this camp alone. Following return to Krakow, Miguel and I parted from Marlena and went to Zakopane, a winter tourist resort for skiing and skijumping. Without much time we were only able to have a quick ride up the cable car and hike for about an hour after checking out the town the day before. The highlight was staying with a random Polish family (met the guy at the train station) and having shots of Polish vodka!

Finally, we visited Warsaw where we had an entirely historical tour of the town including sites rebuilt from royal times, the ghetto wall, the 1944 Warsaw Uprising Museum, and the old city center. Its amazing to believe that 88% of the city was flattened by the Nazis in late 1944.

Early Sunday Oct 16, we made our way back to Dortmund via train. Via Posnan, Berlin, Magdeburg, Braunschweig, Hannover, and Bad Oeynhausen. A total of 14 hours!! See photos here.