POLAND - KRAKOW!!!

Where to start...Poland was AMAZING!!! I suppose I'll start from leaving Malmö....

Thursday morning I was one of the unfortunate people traveling to Poland who had to attend class for 3 hours from 9am till 12pm. Then it was a rush to get back to Sommarstaden, finish packing, have lunch and be ready to leave by 1:30pm for the airport. We were able to catch a bus to the airport from Södervan which is only about 3 minutes away with the city bus. Kim, Christina and I met all the others, about 13 of them, on the bus as they had boarded at Centralen, which was further away from us than Södervan.

Malmö airport was much bigger than I expected and quite nice. Unfortunately we couldn't buy anything duty free as you have to fly to a country that isn't a part of Europe to receive the tax free. So after checking in then spending another one and a half hours killing time before our flight we were finally able to board. The flight was not the most enjoyable I've ever had. It was such a bumpy ride and the plane was even rocking from side to side as we were taking off and landing. But we made it to Katowice safely and in one piece which was relief. Then it was a quick stop at the ATM to get some zloty before borading the bus that would take us to Krakow. The bus trip took about an hour and a half so we didn't get into Krakow until about 8:45pm. When we got there, we headed for the other hostel where all the others, except for Kim, Christina and I, were staying. That took about another 30 minutes and so we finally got to our hostel at about 9:15pm. We quickly changed, dumped our luggage and then made our way to Main Square where we were meeting the rest of the group so we could go and grab some food before calling it a night.

The restaurant they found for dinner was rather amusing. It was a western kind of restaurant where there were paintings of American Indians on animal skin hanging all around the place. The food was good and nice and cheap, which was a nice change from Sweden where everything is so expensive!!! Once we were fed, we made a quick trip via MacDonalds on the way back to our hostel because Kim decided she wanted an ice cream. So at about midnight, we finally got to pile into bed and go to sleep.

That night was definitely an interesting one. We had booked a dorm room with 12 other beds and all except for one were filled that night. 6 of the beds were occupied by a group of Spanish girls. Well....they didn't come home until about 3am and then spent an hour banging, crashing, talking, laughing...basically making as much noise as possible. After numerous shushing noices were directed at them and Kim even swore at them in Dutch and threw a bottle at them they finally climbed into bed. That wasn't it from them though unfortunately. They found it amusing to make loud snoring noices and clicking noices for about another minute or two before deciding that they needed to go to sleep.

Unfortunately that was it for them. At 8am they got up and once again making as much noise as they could, got themselves ready and packed which took them another hour. The only good thing was the fact that they were packing which meant that they would not be returning the following night...luckily for us!!! So having had an eventful night, Kim, Christina and I got up about 9am when the Spanish girls had left and got ourselves dressed and ready for a day of sight-seeing. We went for breakfast, provided by a small cafe next door to the hostel. It was an ok breakfast, nothing overly special but enough to fill the stomach for the morning!

We had decided that the best way to see everything would be to start with the castle, then head to the Old Jewish Town before heading back to Main Square to go shopping. It was a really beautiful day and I was even able to walk around with my jacket and scarf off!!!! When we got to the castle, we ran into the others who had decided to start at 9am (which was just a little too early for us) and so we joined up with them and headed to the Old Jewsih Town where we had lunch before visiting the synagogue there. After that is was back to Main Square for some shopping. The big building in the middle of the square was home to a market (kind of like the Vic Market) and so we wandered round there for a while. Once the shopping was done we decided to treat ourselves to the best hot chocolate in Europe. And it was pretty good. Imagine a chocolate pudding with chocolate sauce and that sauce poured into a cup for drinking. Very filling tho and so getting through a small cup was quite an effort. Unfortunately Poland still allows smoking in cafes and the cafe we were at was like a smoke house. It was so bad that I had to drink my hot chocolate quickly and head outside as the smoke gave me a headache and made me feel a little queezy. That night it was MacDonalds for dinner as we couldn't be bothered going anywhere and it was on our way back to the hostel. That night Kim and I stayed in while Christina headed round to Dominika's (one of the exchange students here in Malmö with me) flat, as she lives in Krakow. They then headed out to the clubs I think!!

The next morning I had to get up early as I had booked myself on the tour to go and see Auschwitz - Birkenau and I was to be picked up at 8:55am from outside the hostel. Kim joined me for breakfast which was nice and I said farewell to both her and Christina, as they were headed back to Malmö that afternoon. The trip to Auschwitz was definitely one I will remember for a very long time. The tour I'd booked with meant that we were provided with an english speaking guide for both Auschwitz I and Asuchwitz II - Birkenau. We visited Auschwitz I first as this is where we met the guide and there are all the museums located in the blocks in the camp.