The night train

Took the night train from Kraków to budapest, and was it ever wonderful. Slept rather comfortably, met some lovely girls from China that were also going to budapest. Overall was just a very nice trip. And I think I’d prefer to sleep on a train rather than spend a whole day on one just to get into a city and go straight to bed. Even though that’s pretty much what has happened today as well. Silas was wiped out so he’s having a nap and I am watching tv. 

I was so fed up with things yesterday that after I checked out of my hostel, we walked to the train station and spent the day there waiting. I know, ‘why didn’t you go exploring’ well I was irritated and didn’t feel like I wanted to get lost trying to find something. Kraków Glowny station is connected to  the Kraków galleria… Or in other words, a gigantic shopping mall. So we wandered around there for a bit as well. I keep trying to find a light sweater with pockets to wear instead of my jacket because it’s so warm everywhere, but have had no luck. Oh well. Everyone wears their coats and has no issues, so it must be my warm blooded canadian climatization (yes, I made that up) that’s making me overhead. So use to the frigid cold and needing to produce body heat to keep warm, that I can’t turn it off. I mean holy bananas people. It’s 10 degrees Celsius out! This is shorts & t-shirt weather. Seriously! 

I do kinda feel bad that I didn’t do more exploring in Kraków, but I was just having such a hard time getting around and having only a short time there because of my full day trip left me less time to explore as well. Didn’t eat anything polish really either. Ordered pizza to the hostel after my day trip because I couldn’t dare walk another step. Had mcdonalds at the train station. Then tacos.

When you only have one full day to do things in a place, and that whole day is allotted to a tour of a specific place I found I was pretty much done after that. The real reason I even went to Kraków was for auchwitz, because it has always been a place I wanted to see in person. So the rest of the city was pretty much irrelevant anyways. 

Once silas gets up and going we will explore budapest a bit (not too much though as we have all day tomorrow as well!). Maybe grab some food, see a few sights nearby. Stop at a park. Who knows where we will end up. 

A major positive for budapest already? Real crosswalks. Everywhere. No stairs. No hills… Yet.

Again delayed. My apologies but wifi was scarce! 

A step back

Today was the day we had our auchwitz-Birkenau tour, and I was rather excited for it. That excitement dwindled as the morning progressed. First off, rather than a regular tour bus they brought a van. I don’t have a car seat for silas as I was expecting an actual bus to which babies do not require a seat of their own. 

Secondly, once on our way… It starts raining. And It keeps raining the ENTIRE TIME. 

Third, couldn’t take stroller or diaper bag. Therefore my back was killing me after hours of carrying silas as he couldn’t walk due to the muddy puddly mess that was the walkways at the camps. And I didn’t have any of silas’ snacks, drinks, nothing. 

Fourth, I couldn’t even finish the last hour at birkenau because my back hurt so bad, my child wasn’t letting me enjoy myself at all. And last but not least, the weather was completely impossible to do anything in. 

So, in summary… If you take your small children with you, you will want to shoot yourself in the face. 

But otherwise, it was a wonderful experience to visit. At one point we went into the only remaining gas chamber in auchwitz 1 and it was a truly surreal moment to imagine that I was standing in a room where hundreds of people were killed daily during the time auchwitz was first operational. After the chambers in auchwitz-Birkenau were built, the one in auchwitz wasn’t really used anymore if I did hear correctly. The ones in auchwitz-Birkenau were destroyed near the end of the war in an attempt to cover up the harsh reality of just how horrible this place really was. Absolutely sickening how horrible this place must have been for the people subjected to this horror. The first people in auchwitz were actually polish people from the surrounding areas and they were taken in an effort to cleanse the surrounding area (so they could not witness from the outside the atrocities taking place here) but they were also taken so their homes could be used for German guards. Living in the wrong place at the wrong time was the only reason they were subjected to the torture and starvation they endured. Lots of their pictures are on the walls in one of the barracks, as in the beginning they took a photograph of all the prisoners when they were taken into the camp. Most only lived a few short months if they were lucky. One I saw lived two whole years… I wish I could say that man was lucky, but that is far from the truth. 

Did you know that prisoners were given the job of carrying the bodies from the gas chambers to the crematoriums and then burning them?

Could you even imagine sorting through the bodies of men, women and children? Some still just babies? Possibly seeing someone you know, or even a family member? And ontop of that, after a couple months the workers were killed as to keep what they were doing from becoming public knowledge.

Aside from the obviously tragic history, it was amazing to be able to see the camps. It really makes you appreciate the life you have. And I learned a lot more than I expected! I can only imagine if we had participated in the birkenau part of the tour that Id know far more, but maybe that will be for a time when I am not with silas. Otherwise it’s just stressful. 

So in Kraków I have done pretty much nothing aside from walk to my hostel. I have come to the conclusion that this city, while very pedestrian friendly, is not however stroller/wheelchair friendly. Underpasses for walking are a splendid idea, but not when there are copious amounts of stairs on either side. Granted the main one by the station doesn’t have stairs, rather a large sloping walkway, the rest of the city is not that grand. Nor does it have the amount of space said grand underpass requires. 

I’m not sure Kraków will ever be a place to which I return as I haven’t had a pleasant time yet. But there’s still tomorrow… So fingers crossed. The castle is quite magnificent and the city is rather small so it makes getting around fairly quick (if you don’t have a stroller)

Next train I take is tomorrow already and it’s an overnight train. What are the chances things will go smoothly on that one. Not likely. That’s what. But oh well, that’s life. I am currently at stop 6 out of 11 so in theory I am over halfway done. God I know this is bad, but I can not wait to have this over. Definitely too big of a challenge. 

Oh and sorry for the delays in posting, I had this post and the last written up but was unable to publish them due to Internet connectivity issues.