Surprising Favourite = Poland

With the rest of the group going to Barcelona, I went off on my own to the beautiful city of Krakow. I arrived in the small city of Katowice and took a pretty sketchy shuttle from the airport to Krakow. I got to Krakow at 3am, grabbed a cab to my hostel and then met other people staying in the hostel. There was quite a group, with people from Australia, Germany, Portugal, Usa and England. Spent the rest of the night chatting with them, before heading to bed.

Saturday morning, I headed off on the local bus by myself to Auschwitz. After arriving, I had a bit of time to spend before the tour started, so I headed to a local shop for a strange dish. It was half of a baguette, with hamburger, cheese and ketchup, yet unlike a hamburger, it tasted sweet. After eating, the tour began by first heading to Birkenau. This was the larger of the camps, which held most of the people. The tour showed the size and how many of the original chimneys still existed. We headed back to Auschwitz for the most disturbing part of all my travels.

The tour provided extensive indepth information about the horrors of Auschwitz. I had heard much of the information before, but to actually see numbers made it such a horrible experience, yet one that should be done. By actually seeing an entire room full of the hair of all of the prisoners or the shoes was unbelievable. Walking into the room with the gas chambers was terrifying. Such an experience, one I wouldn't want to do again.

After such a downer, I headed back to Krakow and met up with everyone to hit up the Polish nightlife. We went to a number of bars and clubs, each more different from the rest. I loved how each club had a downstairs, which was incredibly mazelike.I Tiny rooms all connected to one another. It was very similar to the clubs of Prague in Czech Republic.

Sunday, we all slept in before heading to a local restaurant for cheap and delicious homemade perogies. It was our final meal together and we all parted after walking around the large city square. I spent the rest of the day walking through the city and exploring the small city shops, before heading back to the bus station, where I boarded my shuttle back to Katowice. Arriving back in the airport, we had a bit of a delay as our plane had smoked a bird on its descent.