Poland

I arrived in Warsaw, Poland's capital city late at night on July 31st, the eve of my three month anniversary of being abroad. Seeing as my bus was running late and my new travel accomplice Robin was on the next bus coming through I hung around the central bus station so that we could make it to the hostel together (both of us are not gifted in the understanding directions department). Whilst waiting, nature called and I voyaged off to find a restroom. In typical Jess fashion though nothing in my life can occur without a drama and I found myself engaging in a lost in translation debacle with the Polish toilet attendant. One of the most infuriating things about Europe is that every single public toilet charges people to pee. This is an atrocity against I wish to take serious action: pissing is a basic human right people. Anyway, having just arrived in the country from Lithuania I did not have any Polish Zlotys (the local currency) handy but decided that I had to risk it to get the biscuit and thus I crawled underneath the swivel gate whilst the toilet woman (who had just finished mopping the floor and had momentarily entered another room to put her cleaning equipment away) had her back to me. Seeing as I am about as graceful as an elephant on a half dose of morphine my Lara Croft style entrance did not go unnoticed and the woman scurried back into the room, barricading the entrance to the toilets and screaming at me in Polish. Despite my begs and pleas for her to "help a sister out" and break the rules just this once, "woman to woman", she would not yield and I was forced to crawl back under the gate, bladder yet to be emptied. However, I do not take such injustices lying down and thought that I would leave her with an Australian cultural custom known as an "up yours" for all of her trouble; thus I proceeded to empty my water bottle all over her freshly mopped floor before strutting off in the hope that I would find a McDonalds to relieve myself in (I did eventually, thank you kindly for your concern).

Thankfully, my potty problem was not a pre-curser for the rest of my time in Warsaw. Though Robin and I struggled initially to find the hostel which was located in Far East Whoop-Whoop, we got there in the end. Arriving well towards midnight, the two of us were upgraded to a private room for the first night of our stay. We stayed at Globetrotter Hostel (http://www.globetrotterhostel.pl) and though I have no complaints about the facilities I did truthfully find the place a little dull. It seemed small and cramped and for the most part empty. However, for the traveller wanting to opt for a bit of a break from the party hostel life then it would probably be perfect. 

The Palace of Culture and Science, a 'gift' to Warsaw from the USSR, with building completed in 1955. 

And a glimpse of the 360 degree view from.

Being a budget traveller I always look for free walking tours when I am in a new city. The guides tend to be young students or ex-students who genuinely take a great deal of pride in the city in which they are showcasing. Henceforth, in Warsaw we took the 12pm walking tour of the captivating Old Town. When we arrived in Warsaw both of us were perplexed as to how the city still had an 'Old Town' as it had been virtually flattened during WW2. We were informed by our guide though that following the war the town was rebuilt almost from the ground up, replicating the original aesthetic and representing the resilience and dignity of the Polish nation, who refused to let such a devastating epoch completely eradicate a country with a history so much more valuable and diverse than the War. 

Some shots taken wandering through Old Town. 

During the tour we buddied up with an Aussie girl from Melbourne, also a solo traveller who approached me to acknowledge her appreciation of my Deathly Hallows tattoo. She was already bloody awesome (naturally, she is Australian after all) but the fact that she was also a Potterhead sealed the deal: she was officially cool enough to hang out with me. We chatted away about how much we mutually miss AFL and vegemite and then following the tour we set off for a Polish restaurant suggested to us by our guide, ordering some traditional Polish pierogies (if 'some' counts as fourteen split between Robin and I, following a bowl of soup each...). 

Pierogies... I think this picture says a thousand words along the lines of 'foodgasm'.

After lunch, we all decided to get our intellectual caps on and visit the museum dedicated to Frédéric Chopin, a renowned Polish composer and pianist whom I had most definitely heard of beforehand (note sarcasm). Chopin was a musical prodigy, writing and performing pieces from just eight years old. Ergo, I came away from that museum having learnt nothing much more than that I was a major child failure and that mum should have been a stage 'mom', forcing me prematurely into the life on stage for which I am inevitably destined. 

Little did we know that when we arrived that we actually happened to crash into Warsaw bang on the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi soldiers during WW2.  The Uprising originally was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the city from the east and the retreat of German forces. However, the Soviet Army failed to storm the city, facilitating the regrouping of the Germans who proceeded to demolish the city while defeating the Polish resistance, which fought for 63 days with little outside support. The Uprising was the largest single military effort taken by any European resistance movement during the World War and starkly embodies the spirit of the Poles, countrymen so dedicated to patriotism that they risked life and limb for the future of their beloved homeland. In memory of this devout display of statesmanship the entire city paused for a minute at 5pm (including all vehicles on the roads and pedestrians on the street); a heart-stopping moment for all present, regardless of nationality. 

A memorial dedicated to The Uprising. 

The next day we caught a bus from Warsaw to Krakow, a favourite city amongst tourists owing to it being a modern history gold mine. We stayed at a hostel called Elephant on the Moon (http://www.elephantonthemoon.com) which was slightly outside of the city, although once again we had a room to ourselves, a luxury of which I will never utter a complaint about. Krakow was a delightful city - I kind of regret that I rushed through it, but I suppose that just leaves me open to the possibility of visiting in the future.

Krakow's Market Square (unfortunately not the greatest image but I suppose it does give an idea of the antique architecture and urban layout).  

 Again, we went on a free walking tour, taking the Jewish District (Kazimierz) - where most of Krakow's Jewish population lived peacefully prior to the war and where they were subsequently forced to reside during the war, the ghetto. The Jewish tour took us to some sites where some of the most gruesome and brutal instances of human blood-spill in the twentieth century transpired. To me, one of the most poignant elements of the tour was the Ghetto Heroes Square, the scene of mass deportations and murder, which has now been turned into a memorial for the Jewish, with their absence from Poland being symbolised by a number of large empty chairs (one of many items that the Jewish may have carried with them when they were unexpectedly forced from the ghetto by Hitler's men). Our guide explained to us that the chairs were also left empty as an invitation to their Jewish kin to return back to Poland one day, a land that they once called home.

Again, I wish I snapped a better shot of the Ghetto Heroes Square, though sometimes on a tour you are quite rushed and also surrounded by other tourists - thus truly capturing the scene at its full potential can prove difficult.

Some street art found in the Jewish District, try and guess what it is trying to articulate.

The tour also (among many other fascinating sites) took us to a courtyard that was featured in the film 'Schindler's List', based upon the story of Oskar Schindler whom is credited with saving some 1200 Jews when he employed them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories. In the afternoon of that same day we actually visited the factory itself, which has now been turned into an extensive museum displaying life in Poland just prior to the outbreak and during the Second World War. That was another incredulous moment for me - standing under the roof of Oskar Schindler's Krakow factory is something that I never could have envisioned myself doing up until now. Though in school most of us are educated about the atrocities of the Nazi Regime we only learn these things through a textbook. Nothing else in the world can truly accentuate the diabolical nature of this time quite like standing at a sight so pivotal in the mind of the world in regards to such a notoriously evil and grotesque display of inhumanity.

The following day was a day that I will never, ever forget for as long as I live. For as long as I have been a history aficionado and a general student of life and the world I have vowed to visit Auschwitz Birkenau, concentration and extermination camps built by the Third Reich in order to facilitate the Final Solution. For this aspect of my trip I will not provide a history lesson nor will I describe what I was exposed to in great detail, for I simply cannot do such a place justice. Though the experience was bleak and overwhelming I am sincerely 'glad' (for complete lack of a better word) that I went. In visiting such a place which wholly and entirely embodies the most execrable and merciless capabilities of mankind I hope that I in some way paid my respects to the poor souls who perished there. 

I will include some photographs of the day, though not all (some things actually could not be photographed - for valid reason) as I do not feel comfortable exploiting such a grim subject matter for the purpose of a petty blog.

This was taken just outside the infamous 'work will set you free' gate at Auschwitz.

Inside the camp. 

Suitcases belonging to the victims. Other personal items on display included eye glasses, artificial limbs and possibly the must gruesome of all: human hair. 

One room (more like a hallway actually) was lined wall to wall with approximately 70,000 pairs of shoes. This statistic was made all the more harrowing when our guide informed us that this number infact represents just 1% of the actual figure of items which had belonged to the Jewish people. 

The train leading into Birkenau, many Jewish people did not live to see the end of the day upon arrival. 

The sleeping barracks at Birkenau. Each bunch slept 6 fully grown adults, forced to lie on hard wooden slats and share only two blankets. Should the day be raining (as when we visited), shown in the second image, or snowing during the winter there was little protection from the elements. The barracks were a fatal disease breeding ground.