Mary Meets Budapest: Kracking Up with the Girls in Krakow

Obviously my favorite street in Krakow...

"Sar-tney" in Market Square

It may be somewhat redundant at this point, but traveling has opened up a world of knowledge and opportunity that I am so grateful to be exposed to. This weekend, I reached amazing highs and discovered new lows in Krakow, Poland. I’ve come to appreciate the spontaneity of traveling to a country with only an idea about what I want to do there. In this case, I’d researched trips to Auschwitz and the Wielickza salt mine, but knew nothing about Krakow. Krakow was absolutely incredible and stunningly beautiful. It was an amazing surprise to get off the bus (after a seven hour trip) and end up in such a lovely place. All of my expectations were completely surpassed. One of my close friends, Bridget, is studying there next semester: girl, ya gonna love it.

Shopping in Cloth Hall

One of the best things about Krakow is that everything is generally in walking distance. With ease, we found our way to the hostel, walking near medieval buildings and through parks covered in fallen leaves. Our hostel was a great $7/night find. The best thing about it was that there was an amazing common room that really forced everyone in the hostel to meet and talk, and I really loved some of the hilarious conversations that came out of this. Since we’d arrived pretty late, we just stayed inside on our first night, and got ready for Saturday.

Saturday came with an early wake up, breakfast, and a cup of coffee. Our walk to the city center—Market Square, took all of two minutes. Market Square is a ridiculously huge open space to which all roads in Krakow lead. It’s a perfect center, and still maintains the integrity of the design that was established during medieval times. We were drawn to Cloth Hall (souvenirs, jewelry, bags, anything you want…) to shop around for a bit, we encountered the world’s most aggressive pigeons, and were bewildered by the beauty of St. Mary’s Basilica. At 11, we went on a free walking tour of the city.

Medieval Wall!

Our tour guide, Jacob, was amazing and so knowledgeable as he brought us from place to place. We learned about Krakow legends, the layout of the city, the medieval structures that are scattered around the city, saw Oskar Schindler’s home, the place where Pope John Paul II studied and lived, along with the Wawel Castle and the Krakow Dragon. Krakow is teeming with bits and pieces of Polish history, and its story woven together with determination, strength, luck, and hope among other things.

"Pretend like you're on fire"...standing in
front of the building where people were
burned at the stake during the Medieval
age...execution was entertainment.

The white/brown building in the center was Oskar Schindler's home:
There are about 7,000 descendants of Schindler's Jews around the world,
the Jewish current population of Poland is about 3,500...
before WWII it was about 3.5 million...

Wawel Castle

For a people whose country that did not exist on a map for 123 years, the Polish are more optimistic than one would imagine. This may be unique to Krakow, which was saved from much of the WWII devastation that ruined Warsaw and other cities, but I’d imagine there is commonality throughout. After so much oppression, I imagine the sovereign power that they now wield over themselves must carry much more meaning. After our amazing history lesson, the girls and I hurried along to catch the bus to Wielckza.

Salt Sculpture of a famous miner legend!

After seeing pictures of Poland’s #1 tourist attraction online, I was convinced that we had to go to see the salt mine. Because salt is Courtney’s favorite food group (haha!), she was definitely as excited as I was. We got there just in time for the last English tour of the day. Our plunge into the ground was made in three phases: first 64 meters down, then to a total of 90 meters underground, before making our final descent, where we were 135 meters into the earth. The salt mine was started during the 13^th century, with the most primitive tools and low expectations.

Imagine having your wedding in this church?

Funnily enough, it’s still operating—and what they’ve done with the place is absolutely unreal. We started entering different shafts and rooms that were elegantly carved. We saw statues depicting fairytales, kings, gnomes, workers, and even Pope John Paul II all carved out of pure rock salt by common miners. One of the most impressive works was a replica of The Last Supper—in the wall of the underground church!! In the St. King’s Chapel, we were reassured that this was a functioning church by the presence of a priest; our tour guide said that they hold large functions there. It’s strange to be surrounded by salt everywhere, as salt functioned as the floor, the walls, the décor, the light structures, and the stairs…literally everything! Most beautiful, and my favorite part of the tour were the underground salt lakes. I really tried to get a good picture of these, and the rest of the mine, but the sketchy lighting prevented that.

Courtney loved the salt mine...too much

Underground salt lake!

Dinner with our Aussie, Monica!

After the salt mine tour, we went back to our hostel, changed into warmer clothes (traveler beware: Krakow is extremely cold, at all times of the day), and went out with our new Aussie friend, Monica, for some traditional Polish food and a drink! I was treated to Polish cuisine in diving in face-first to white borscht and a platter of three kinds of pierogis. We all tried something different and shared all the food: the more variety the better. Trying the foods of the countries we visit is often one of the most fun parts of these trips. We went back to the hostel: we had a big day ahead of us.

"Work makes you Free" - truly sadistic.

Waking up early on Sunday paid off in a big way. It ensured us a place on a tour of Auschwitz. I considered this a once in a lifetime opportunity, and it sounds odd to say this, but I wanted to see this place. It’s more than seeing this place that so greatly impacted history, it was about understanding the suffering of a people and coming to terms with the cruelty of humanity. We were lucky enough to be lead through the Auschwitz museum by an amazing guide, who showed us the ins and outs of the this horrible place. We were lead around Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau. I learned so many things when I was there that are extremely hard to swallow; I was left speechless by the experience and even now am coming to terms with how to write about this experience. I think that as painful as it is, people should see what the Nazi’s did to the innocent Jewish population. In this case, pictures are worth a thousand or more of my words, so I’ll turn to them to help me explain what I saw.

The memorial commemorating the 1.1 million lives lost at Auschwitz,
the urn contains ashes of the victims.

The Nazis, being extraordinarily sick people,
forced Jews to buy their tickets to the labor and extermination camps.

Prosthetics were taken from the prisoners before the handicapped were killed.

The shoes. 80,000 in this display case, and only a fraction of what was taken from the Jews.

This is a picture of a 31 year-old woman, taken 4 months after the Soviets liberated the prisoners,
after 4 months of intensive hospital care. At the time this picture was taken, she weighed 24 kilos, about 53 pounds.

The Shooting Wall, where thousands of innocent Jews faced the firing squad without any valid reason.

Memorial from inside the gas chamber

Train tracks that brought in prisoners to the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Compared to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Auschwitz I (shown in the previous pictures) was said to be a "sanitorium"

Death Road. If the doctor selected you to be in the line going towards this,
you were marching to your death.

Memorial at Auschwitz-Birkenau

Remember.

8 women were expected to share this "bed"

Prisoners were allowed to use the bathroom 2x/day, in scheduled intervals, no exceptsions.
You had 30 seconds on the toilet.

"It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart" - Anne Frank

After we got back from Auschwitz, we were really emotionally exhausted, and figured that we would re-group at the hostel, and head out for dinner. It was already dark, so it seemed like a logical plan. After relazing and gathering ourselves, we were about to leave for dinner, figuring it was almost 7 pm. Wrong! I checked my watch…it was 4:30. So we killed some more time, as it was too cold to be wandering aimlessly, and then went to dinner. We went to a pub, where I ordered yet another amazing meal: honey-glazed ribs (that fell off the bone), potatoes, and cabbage. We sat there and talked for a long time, having the kind of conversation that so naturally occurs when you travel and get to know people so well. This was healing girl time with Sarah and Courtney, and I loved every bit of it. We went back to the hostel, and hung out with our new friends for awhile before turning in.

St. Mary's Basilica

Amazing Altar

Monday, we woke up as late as possible, had breakfast and hit the road to get in our final hours of exploration before having to get back on the bus to Budapest. This involved another trip to Cloth Hall before we went inside St. Mary’s Basilica. I think that I can safely say this church is one of the most beautiful in the world. We also had great timing and got to see a nun open up with huge alter to St. Mary, which folded out, and was made during the 15^th Century. Seeing all these amazing churches in Europe has made me return to my roots a little: if someone believes so strongly in these religions that they are able to make such places of tranquility and beauty, there has to be something out there to believe in. Maybe I don’t have all the answers, but it’s nice to have spiritual connections to something, anything, once every now and then. We took our time in the Church before getting our final Polish lunch (I had a traditional meal called bigos, which consists of cabbage and kielbasa), taking some last pictures, and shipping out. Getting on the bus was bittersweet for a couple reasons: this was our last roommate trip, and we also realized how time is flying while we’re over here. Everything seems to be slipping out of our hands. This realization may have been a good thing though: I refuse to take anything else for granted while I’m over here.