August 17th - Auschwitz

DSC03994.JPG
Originally uploaded by cherubichomer.

Today, we were on the train for the a big part of our day. We took a night train from Prague into Poland trying to get to Krakow. It was a pretty long night. Someone came into our train cabin and was patting me down while we were sleeping. I woke up and said something stupid like "Hey" and the intruder said something like "Oh, sorry" before backing out of the door. I woke Norm to tell him what just happened but all he did was check that he still has his passport and then he went back to sleep. he doesn't remember me waking him up last night. Otherwise, our only other problem with the trains was trying to figure out where we were and when we needed to get off and change trains again. We heard that theives will get on at one stoop along the line, steal as much as they can from the riders and then get off at the next stop. It's almost impossible to find them after they get off. Norm actually figured out that we could get to Krakow by transferring through from Trezbinia to Oswiecim, which is Polish for Auschwitz. We checked our bags at the train station and then took a public bus that took us right to the Concentration Camp. It's a very somber place. The place is very large with lots of huts and exhibits that tourist can go through. Plus, they have the original gate and barbed wire fenches surrounding the area which adds to the somberness of Auschwitz. They also have an original incinerator and gas chamber that was used during the early years of the Second World War. We were there until about 330pm where we needed to get back to the train station to catch the last train into Krakow. It's not really that far away but we don't really know any other ways of getting into Krakow besides the train. We were a little anxious when we couldn't figure out what bus to take back. We bickered a little in trying to figure out how to get back before finding the correct bus and getting into the train station with only minutes to spare. The ride into town was pretty quick and we had little difficulty finding our hostel.