well i’m on my way…

While walking through Wroclaw (pronounced Vrots laff) to our hostel, Ryan and I both were picking up a good vibe.  Krakow didnt do much for Ryan, and I was excited to be somewhere new.  Ive just begun realizing that most of this trip has been repeats for me, and that could be the reason for my lack of enthusiasm.  But exciting places are on the horizon…

Since it was pretty late when we checked in, we instantly dropped our bags and headed for the main square.  The different styles of architecture and myraid of colours chosen for the buildings kind of reminded me of Bruges, Belgium.  But it was still pretty in its own way.  We stumbled across a bookshop and I had to go in-the Kafka book I purchased in Prague was boring me…We got kicked out when the place was closing and I had two books in hand, debating.  Screw it, I thought, Ill get both of them.  The book Im reading now is called Two Caravans, about Eastern European immigrants in England and Ryan is reading Love in the Time of Cholera.  We went back to the hostel after wandering and chatted with our roommates.  I read myself to sleep-something I havent done in a while.  I didnt realize how much I missed it.

Next morning Ryan, our roommate Gail, and I decided to brave the rain and head out to see the Panaroma Raclawicka, Wroclaws pride and joy, and all the guidebooks and maps cant miss of the city.  The painting was massive, in a building built especially for it, and was very lifelike.  The foreground between us and the painting was constructed to look like the foreground of the painting, with dirt, branches, rotting wood, and garbage.  Soemtimes I coudlnt tell which was which.  We got a narrative of what was going on, but basically it was depicting a battle between the Poles and the Russians. 

Ducking the raindrops, we ran from church to church, admiring their beauty.  Some of them were plain compared to European standards, with cream coloured ceilings and walls and plain stained glass windows.  The Church of the Blessed Name of Jesus however, was spectacular.  Of course it was the one that was locked, and we could only look through a window. 

We headed back to the hostel and chatted some more with the roomies.  Somehow everyone in our room spent most of the day in the room.  I know it was raining, but even on the one day we saw sun, they were all in there.  Whatever.  We started talking about our individual travels, and Ryan fell asleep.  I asked him later if he was bored and he said that he noticed that travelers kind of try to one up eachother with places theyve been and who had the more authentic travel experience.  I dont see it as one upping eachother, though, because I think most of us get off on it.  I know I do.  Hearing about others travels just makes me want to do it more.  Its addictive.  Its a healthier drug than most, but Im sure just as expensive. 

Ryan wanted to go out, I wanst too keen on the idea, but once I had a pregame beer in the room, I was ready.  Ryan googled the gaybars in Wroclaw and he found two-one of them was called Pink Inside.  We giggled over the grossness of the name, but left in search of it.  We didnt find it, but on our way back we came across a woman trying to light what we thought was a cigarette.  Knowing how frustrating that is, I offered here my matches.  When she turned around to take the matchbox, she revealed that what she was trying to light wasnt a cigarette, but a crackpipe!  We looked around to make sure there werent any police in the area, and hurried her up so I could get my matches back and get the hell out of there.  We laughed as we trotted away, although Im sure the situation isnt that funny.

We found this bar back off the street and noticed people outside singing.  It looked like two guys dancing together and they were singing Madonnas Rain.  Two other guys walked outside and we knew we were in the right place.  The building was built into a hill, so we descended the steps and went inside.  A cloud of smoke attacked us when we went in, and we had to adjust our eyes to the red light.  Not only was everyone smoking, but a smoke machine kept on depositing smoke onto the dance floor.  We watched shadows dancing for a while until the smoke machine stopped.  Thank you! 

So while we were drinking our Italian beers, we laughed at the music playing-Ricky Martins She Bang, Spice Girls Wannabe, Moulin Rouge, the YMCA, and the early nineties song Show Me Love.  Everyone went crazy for these songs, but the people were dressed comparitively to the music.  It seems to be a trend in Eastern Europe, and after looking at some maps, these :behind: countries fashionwise were all on the east side of the Iron Curtain.  Hm…  Midriffs are so disgusting popular here, as are sholder pads and the tucking in of shirts.

After a while the smoke was getting to us so Ryan and I went outside.  We were talking about dimensions and predestination when the bar closed and people started streaming out.  The three guys (well one was dressed as a woman) we noticed at the table next to us came up and asked us where we were from and what we were doing here.  We ended up going to an after hours bar with them.  Ryan tried telling them Polish jokes from home, but the humour was lost on them.  When we left there, we made plans to meet them the next day.  Ryan and I slept all day, and didnt meet up with them.  We sent an apologetic email, and got facebook friend requests in return.  They probably didnt want to get out of bed either, as we got back at 6, and they Im sure even later.

Ooh-I almost forgot to tell you about the gnomes!  In the 80s an anti communist group called The Orange Movement dressed up as gnomes and ran through the city.  What that accomplished, if anything, I dont know.  But in memoriam of this, there are over 50 little sculptures of different gnomes all over the city.  They each have names and personalities.  Of course I had to go on a search for these littte guys, and kept my eyes glued to the ground pretty much every time we walked around.  I think I found 12. 

The day after our hangover we went to an exhibit recommended by one of our roomates-Europa.  Its an exhibit of Europe after WWII and basically of how the EU started.  It started out by explaining how each treaty signed wasnt necessarily for peace, but a set up for the next war.  Interesting point.  There was one exhibit that listed all of the things lost during the war, with statistics (of course I forgot exact numbers) of numbers of people dead, homeless, without food, number of bridges destroyed in Germany (well over half), and other random scary stats.  Just when it was starting to get humbling, it turned to how Europe rebuilt itself (with much aid from the States under the Marshall Plan) and how an agreement between the Netherlands, Belguim and Luxembourg turned into this massive thing we know as the European Union.  We learned how the EU works.  It was pretty informative and I liked it.  Ryan thought he was being brainwashed. 

On the way back from Europa we found ourselves in front of the redundant named church-The Church of the Blessed Name of Jesus.  The doors were open and a cool air was coming from inside.  The church was breathtaking, with marble everything, marble and wooden sculptures, ornate decorations, and magical stained glass windows.  Wroclaw is definately a relgious town, which is also depicted by an abundance of nuns.  Ryan couldnt believe all the nuns we were seeing, and stated that he had never seen so many nuns in one place.  I told him to come to a family reunion on my fathers side. 

I got WrocLOVE from a poster for an upcoming festival.  I also think Ive heard people call it that.  Anyways, I like it.  It has a cute ring to it. 

We took the six am train to Prague which we tried to sleep on, but sleep was impossible.  Conductors checked our tickets seven different times, and we got stopped at the border between Poland and the Czech Republic.  Even though we were both half awake, we questioned eachother why we were being stopped and asked for our passports; we had learned only the day before about the Shengen Area-which means that one can travel freely between countries included in it.  Both countries we were traveling between were part of it…There was a very wet German shepherd present with the border control, so we assumed that someone had been tipped off about a smuggling…Who knows.  We got as much sleep as possible.

We both arrived crabby in Prague, and we had to wait to check in to our hostel.  We headed for the kitchen to make more PBJ and there was a TV blaring the headlines over and over: Michael Jackson is dead.  Geez.  Ive been traveling for six months, and havent really gotten any news until this.  The media sure is something.  We wasted the day in Prague and that night Ryan went out with our roommates.  Ryan and I have different sleep schedules; when I wake up in the morning hes usually just getting to bed.  So I slept while he got drunk.  It was fun waking him up this morning, but he has good incentive to get up:  we fly to Amsterdam today!!!! 

That’s the literal translation for “Arbeit Mach Frei”, the words across most of the entrance gates to concentration camps in Europe.  Since Auschwitz is about an hour and a half bus ride from Krakow, we decided to submit ourselves to the horror.  It was my second time at Auschwitz (the first time none of the exhibits were open) and my third time visiting a concentration camp.  I’m sick, I know.  It was definately my last time, though.  I can’t put myself through that any more. 

Some people ask, “Why go?”  And I’ve come up with various reasons, but there was a quote in one of the buildings that sums it up perfectly:  “The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again” -George Santayana

I walked in and read the first sign.  It was in Polish, English, and Hebrew.  Hebrew!  I wondered to myself if that many Jews really came here there is a need for signage in Hebrew.  As I was pondering this, a man dressed as a Hacidic (sp?) Jew walked by.  There was my answer.  I wondered then what his nightmares would be like that night.  Then I wondered how mine would be. 

I walked into a courtyard where lots of people were murdered, at the end of it is the infamous Execution Wall where mostly Poles were killed.  As I entered the courtyard and passed through the gates, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going through the about-to-be-executed heads?  Did they walk through, head high, ready to look death in the face, stare him down and give him a big Screw You; were they glad to stop suffering; did they cry and wail for their family; did mothers pray for their children, their health, safety, to be free from the brutality of this place?  I saw people crossing themselves, crying.  I got a little misty-eyed myself.  I walked out and noticed the gateway, the gateway out of the courtyard.  How many people have walked through these gates, never to walk the reverse route, never to see the backside of this wall?  No one knows how many, but I know the answer:  TOO MANY. 

A few months ago, I traveled with Naomi in New Zealand.  Naomi is Jewish and taught me a lot about her religion and heritage.  She even brought me to a Passover Seder, where I got a real sense of what community is like within her religion.  Now I know more about the Jewish religion, history, and culture, it’s more sad, more terrible, and affected me more than it had before.  I kept on thinking about the Seder, and how happy everyone was, and all I could wonder was “How…” 

 There were many buildings housing exhibits, but the most terrifying ones were the displays of possessions that were taken away:  suitcases, shoes, prosthetic limbs, combs.  One of the worse ones was the room full of hair.  Most of it was grey, but there were some brown braids nestled among the rest of it.  Terrible, terrible.  I cried that day.  I’m not much of a crier.  (The last time I cried was in Copenhagen, when I almost lost my ATM card.  The time before that was years ago.)

I was at a loss for words that day, and trying to write about it, I feel that no words can adequately express how I felt.  Or even what I saw. 

We took the bus to Auschwitz 2, which I hadn’t seen before, and that was were most of the killing happened.  There were some buildings still standing, where the people lived, but most of them were gone since they were all made of wood.  What is left though, are the chimneys.  It’s eerie looking out at a field with nothing but chimney stacks.  One of the buildings still had all the bunks still in it.  It’s amazing how so many people could fit in such a  tiny space. 

We walked around the perimeter of the grounds and was amazed by the enormity of it.  We saw remnants of the execution chambers and a pond where ashes were dumped.  There was a sparsely forested area that seemed peaceful and I could hear birds chirping and singing.  But people waited here before they were killed.  How could a place that seems so peaceful have a history that it does?  And then I started wondering what these trees have witnessed.  Where some buildings stood and have only foundations left grass is starting to grow over the remnants.  It’s amazing to me that life can still form in this place. 

We left, feeling like shit, and slept on the bus ride back.  No one spoke on the overcrowded bus; everyone was probably trying to sort out their own emotions, which…you can’t.  It was an emotionally draining day.  And I can’t believe that we all submitted ourselves to it.  And so many people do. 

We left Krakow the next day.  I don’t think we could have stayed any longer.  The atmosphere of Auschwitz would only have hung over us in Krakow.     

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