August 5

Today was moving day. No one was excited about it, but it had to be done. Our German friends had left us throughout the previous few days which made the transition a little easier. We woke up around 7:30 am to make sure we had ample time to get breakfast, finish cleaning up, and take our room key back by 8:30 am. We had to catch the train at 9:27 am to Prague which meant Ben and I needed to start walking around 8:45 am. Tiff decided she was going to take the bus, and with good reason. She had five bags she was toting around which would make any one and a half mile walk miserable. It was relatively hot during our walk and our bags were feeling especially heavy. One reason was that we hadn’t had to carry them for a week and we had gotten a little soft during our luxurious stay at Mark’s. The other reason was because of all the souvenirs we have acquired. My version of a souvenir was a beer mug and a couple shot glasses from the shops while Ben’s was all the condiments and toiletries that Mark had left behind for us.

Upon arrival at the train station, Tiff was no where to be found. I was actually just printing off the itinerary for a later departure time when she strolled in. We hopped on the train with an easy ten hour ride in front of us. This particular trip consisted of five trains and four changeovers. The last two trains were two and four hours respectively. Surprisingly, we never had more than a fifteen minute wait in between trains. Everything went relatively smoothly for the whole thing. The biggest shake up was when we had walked through a couple train cars and had only found seats for us all in the common area part of the train where people usually rode if they were only going to be on for a couple stops. After searching unsuccessfully for a better spot, I suggested that we go back. Ben told me to go back and sit by myself if I wanted to sit there so bad. Before he could even get the words out of his mouth I had already stepped off the train to head back. After one stop on that train, everybody in that part of the car got off and I had the whole thing to myself and a couple mountain bikes being stored there. I ended up laying across four seats and finishing my book and diving into another before the train had stopped.

Once we finally made it to Prague, we found it initially difficult to comprehend prices. Things were supposed to be cheaper here, but a Whopper costs 149.00 CZK. Apparently somewhere between 20.00 and 25.00 CZK is the equivalent of 1.00 Euro which is the roughly the equivalent of 0.70 USD. Needless to say, my mental math skills need to sharpen up throughout the next couple days. The same will be true in Poland (if we go), Denmark, Sweden, and Norway as each uses a different currency. I plan to bring a sampling of coins home from each country as a type of souvenir. I will say that it was pretty funny getting a bill from an ATM with a denomination of 1000.

After we got some money from the ATM we checked into our hostel and began to make ourselves at home. At this particular hostel, there are many free amenities you can get by leaving a small deposit for each. I now have a towel and a key to a locker the size of a prison cell. I can rest assured our stuff is locked up and have a towel to dry off with for the first time this trip. I’m actually going to take a shower right now. Since I worked up quite a lather today, I plan on making it a long one. After that, I’m going to bed after another long, exhausting day of train travel.

August 6

We slept in until about 8:30 am before hunger got the best of me and I got up to go check out the breakfast menu. Saw me get up and decided to join me. The night before, we had paid for the breakfast at a discounted price but were never informed of the menu among the formalities of check in, so we were interested to see what was on the docket. We were not thrilled to see that our best option of the three different menus was a roll, a slice of bread, a slice of processed “cheese”, and a small glass of orange juice. Needless to say, we didn’t sign up for breakfast for the following morning. Part of our accommodation at this hostel, though, was free, unlimited coffee; something that Ben and I planned to take full advantage of. Before we took off for the day, Ben had already had four cups while I had downed three.

We left the hostel with only about an hour before the clock struck noon. We had no major plans, but expected to explore the majority of the city during the day. Prague is supposedly known for its cheap prices, good beer, and culture (since it escaped all but a single bomb in World War Two according to a guy on the train). While we were still trying to adjust to a new currency, we were hesitant to start shucking out our coin. I had 300 CZK to make it through the day while the other two had much more apparently. We spent the majority of the day checking out many of the shops and food peddlers along the streets. We crossed the famous Charles Bridge and were impressed by the dozens of artists lined up ready to draw caricatures of anybody willing to spend 900 CZK. Ben and I enjoyed looking at the drawings of celebrities while we tried to guess which one each picture resembled. We also found ourselves sitting outside the shops while we waited for Tiff to find the right souvenir. We tried to convince her to think like a man and quit making so many informed decisions, but it didn’t work so well. Ben spent quite a lot of time and money in his search for the perfect souvenirs as well. Meanwhile, I just tagged along, not too interested in blowing money that I could easily use to feed myself. I ended up getting two hot dogs (one a footlong), an ice cream cone, and a dish from a Chinese restaurant. Unfortunately, the soy sauce came out too quickly and the sauce I generously applied to my spring roll thinking it was sweet and sour turned out to be fiercely spicy. Although the taste was nearly unbearable, I wasn’t about to let it go to waste. Ben and Tiff also got quite a laugh from the scene. I used a fistful of napkins to wipe the perspiration from my face and, at one point, used one to wipe my tongue in hopes of relief. I had no such luck. I had flashbacks of a certain hot wings story many of my friends and family might recall.

After I had recovered, we ended up having an extremely typical day, with the exception of one instance. We went to the town square and checked out the castle and the cathedrals just like in every other city across the face of Europe. When we finally had enough, we started to make our way back to the metro station to head back to our hostel. After we had asked at the main train station if our Eurail passes were valid for the metro and were assured they were, we had used them to get to the city center. However, once we tried to board to get back to the main train station, we were asked to show our tickets by a metro security guard. Once we showed our tickets, he went to his supervisor, then came back to inform us that they were not valid. On top of that, he told us that we each had to pay a 700 CZK (about 40 USD) fine for trying to board the subway illegitimately. We explained how little sense this made and told him that we didn’t have any cash anyway. He pointed us to an ATM and I pointed to the exit that we were going to walk out. We all just walked away, up the escalator toward the exit. I never even looked back, but when I got to the top Tiff and I noticed that the guy had rode up the escalator with Ben and was still trying to get us to pay this fine. At this point, I thought perhaps our good fortune of escaping the law with an act of ignorance had worn out. We again got into a pointless argument lasting a few more minutes before he finally realized we weren’t paying the fine. He then tried to get us to pay for a ticket to get onto the metro. We explained that we would just walk then as we turned our backs to walk out of the station. I never looked back to see if he was following us again, but when we got out of the station he was no longer in pursuit, so we managed to escape another stressful situation successfully. I can only imagine that the man fully intended on pocketing any money that we would be willing to fork over. He may have underestimated our hardened grittiness. Or could it be frugality?

The rest of the day was quite uneventful. We made it back to our hostel with no further confrontations. It was about 7:30 pm before we got settled back down in our beds. We each had a couple things to occupy our time until bed. Tomorrow looks like it will be filled with more traveling and sore shoulders.

August 7

(21:00) Tiff woke us up around 7:30 am; about five minutes before she needed to leave. Ben and I both got up to escort her to the train station which was about a half hour walk. Tiff had one gigantic rolling suitcase, a smaller rolling suitcase, a backpack, and a large purse. Ben pulled the big one and I the little one. We walked Tiff all the way onto the train and wished her luck, which it looked like she was going to need. I’m not sure how she planned on carrying all her bags during her transfer, let alone to and from an airport. She said that she had doubled her luggage since she has been in Europe which is why she had to buy the giant suitcase the night before. It will be interesting to see how she did.

After Ben and I walked back to the hostel, we had a few hours to blow before we had to be back at the train station to catch our train to Vienna. We spent the time drinking coffee, goofing around on the internet, and taking showers. Both of us had showered the night before, but since we had put the deposit down on our towels, we decided to get one more use out of them during our spare time. It didn’t take long after checkout, however, before we were long past the point of perspiration. The train ride didn’t allow for much comfort either. The seats were relatively small and there was no air conditioning, so the only cool air came through the open windows. Every time we stopped I would break out in a sweat just sitting in my seat. Despite this fact, the four and a half hour ride really wasn’t that bad. I guess I have just come to accept air conditioning as a luxury on these trains. I was able to make it through a hundred pages or so in my book and we were in Vienna before we knew it.

In Vienna, we really had no clue what there was to see. We immediately grabbed a map and started heading toward what looked like the city’s center. Along the walk there was a multitude of different statues and historical buildings that we forced ourselves to take pictures of for if no other reason than just to prove we were there. We walked over a mile to the main parts of the city before deciding that we had had enough already. It was a nice city, but it was just a city as we saw it. There were at least two times during our walk when I was talking and I forgot which city we were actually in. I even forgot what country we were in at one point. I guess there comes a point when culture shock turns into cultural indifference. We walked back to the train station to find out when the next train left to the border station of the Czech Republic and Poland. If all goes well, we should be getting to Auschwitz in the morning. However, right now it seems like a big “if”. Since the farther east we have been going the less informed we have been, we aren’t really sure if the train we plan on taking will get us to our destination. We were told that we were all set, but another sign told us that we needed a reservation. Since we have already traveled to the other main station where there is no longer an information booth available, it looks like we are going to find out the hard way. We figure that the worst thing that could happen is that we get kicked off the train somewhere closer to our desired stop and will be forced to find a place to sleep there until we can escape. This could get interesting, but hopefully not.

(24:00) Well it got interesting as it always seems to do. Due to the fact that the night entailed no sleep other than a fifteen minute snooze, I’m just going to include the following events as part of the next day.

August 8

(14:00) We ended up meeting some people at the train platform that seemed to be in the same situation as us. In fact, each of the three people we encountered were all going to a different destination but weren’t sure if the train was the correct one. One of the people we talked to decided that she was heading the same direction we wanted to go and we invited her to join us. We ended up getting on the train with the intention to get off at the stop before Poland to sort out our situation from there. Our friend, a Canadian girl, was trying to get to Krakow, which was just on the other side of Poland’s border. Somewhere along our ride of dire uncertainty, Ben and I decided that we would ride as far as they let us or to Krakow depending on whichever would come first. We struggled to find a seat for the longest time before a train worker saw us standing in the walkway between cars and directed us to a few open seats. We sat there for a couple hours until a couple came and claimed the seats as their reservation. We all ended up moving to another cabin where there were three more open seats. There we stayed for the remainder of the trip; a trip that we never imagined would take as long as it did. The first problem started at a stop somewhere in the Czech Republic. Our train had remained stationary at the stop for forty-five minutes before finally resuming our progress. However, at this time (about 1:30 am) the train was delayed so far behind schedule that we didn’t know when we would need to start looking for our stop which we were supposed to arrive at around 2:00 am. I guess we all thought the other would look out for it or that we had more time than we thought, but we all managed to fall asleep. When I woke up, I had no clue where we were, let alone what country we were in. Our Eurail pass isn’t supposed to be applicable in Poland, so we figured once we were near crossing the border they would come check tickets and make us exit at the stop before the Poland border. If not, it looked like we would be heading to Poland after all, somewhere I have been excited to visit since my History of Poland class last year. Well we ended up getting our tickets checked at least three times after crossing the border, so it looked like it wasn’t going to be a problem. However, by the time we figured out where we were, we were told that the next stop was Warsaw, a mere seven hours past our original destination. Our arrival time would be around 9:00 am. We decided to try to go back to sleep and accept our fate. I was kind of excited because I had been disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to visit Warsaw due to the anticipated extra cost. Ben ended up sleeping for a couple hours, but my train sleeping skills failed me. I ended up entertaining myself by watching Ben smash his head on his chest every five minutes when his head fell off the head rest each time he fell deep enough into his sleep. After waking he had no recollection.

After we finally arrived in Warsaw, we admittedly had no idea what we planned on doing. Ben and I basically assumed we would walk around for a couple hours before heading back to Krakow for the night. This was a problem for Michelle (our Canadian friend) because she didn’t have unlimited train travel as we did. She decided she would just buy a separate ticket to accompany us in Krakow. With that being understood, we went out to explore. The first thing we wanted to do was take a nap. Carrying forty pounds on my back with a tally of fifteen minutes of sleep for the night wasn’t something I was excited about doing, although I didn’t feel as bad as I could have under the circumstances. We found a park somewhere near the train station with an extra long bench that could accommodate both of our long sets of legs. Meanwhile, Michelle decided she would walk back to the train station in search of a map while we watched her bags. I had just began to drift into the state of mind somewhere between deep thought and sleep when I was awakened by loud Polish speaking above my head. I opened my eyes to see two police officers hovering above me. I explained my deficiency in Polish and they struggled to tell me in English that there was no sleeping allowed in the park. They were nice enough about the situation, but who ever heard of a law about sleeping. It made me wonder how many pages of legal documentation it would take to fully clarify the transgression of “sleep” under United States’ legislation. I was still in the midst of laughing off another encounter with the police when I saw Michelle marching back toward us, map in hand. We immediately began to plan our walk around the city based on the map. We ended up seeing all the usuals as far as cities went. Two things that did stick out, however, was the eternal flame above the guarded monument of the Unnamed Soldier (apparently dedicated to all unnamed soldiers of World War Two) and the statue of Joseph Pilsudski, who I remember studying in History of Poland. Once this two and a half hour excursion had come to an end, we looked for the first train back to Krakow. We ended up getting on a train leaving Warsaw at 1:05 pm that was set to arrive in Krakow in 4:00 pm. When we got on the train, we had no idea where we were supposed to sit or if we were even supposed to be on the train at all. Shortly after had boarded, we had already been walking around looking for seats after being kicked out of two reserved seats when we were asked to show our tickets. The man looked at my ticket and told me to follow him to the workers’ cabin. I thought for sure we had broken some rule, but he struggled to tell me what exactly we had done wrong. He seemed like he was trying to help me even though I wasn’t sure what he was saying. He mentioned something about having to pay for a reservation; a price that was fairly reasonable, before just telling us to walk to the train car in the back of the train. We weren’t sure what we were headed to, but when we got there, we were pleasantly surprised. We ended up sitting in what seemed like a first class cabin with a television (Polish of course), personal controlled air conditioning, and a plug in for my computer. This was the nicest train we had ridden on in a while, one that we still believe we really weren’t supposed to be on. Who would have imagined that this train would come in Poland.

(20:00) Well I managed to fall asleep for a little while on this train, but it never fails that the train worker always comes to check tickets shortly after I fall asleep. He woke me up and then informed me that we indeed had to pay for the reservation fee. The price for both was 37.00 PLZ but we told him that we only had 30.00 PLZ which was partially true, and then we told him that we didn’t have Euros or credit cards to pay with, which were not at all true. We just didn’t trust him to take our credit cards or convert our Euros to our favor. Needless to say, he ended up scribbling the total from 37.00 PLZ to 30.00 PLZ (about 10.00 USD).

We got to Krakow on time and we went to the information booth to figure out our options for Auschwitz and about a place to stay. We ended up getting a nice hostel and booked our guided tour of Auschwitz for the morning. I am surprised more than anyone that we are actually paying for a guided tour, but it was almost the same cost to take the bus and walk around without a tour. It was more than we wanted to pay to see it, but this is something that I have imagined seeing for many years. I am more excited for the morning than I thought I could every be. This should be an extremely sobering experience.

Our hostel is a little expensive, but only because we didn’t book it in advance. However, we will be getting our money’s worth since they have free breakfast, free internet, free coffee and milk, and free laundry. Not to mention the twelve hours that I plan on sleeping tonight. It is shortly after 8:00 pm and I can barely keep my eyes open due to lack of sleep. The tour bus is picking us up sometime between 8:30 am and 9:00 am. so we will need to be up and ready to make sure we don’t miss our bus.