Sorry about the previous cliff hanger, I have been attemptng to find enough time to get back on the internet, so here I am at 10 pm in Prague, too broke to go out so instead I am taking the time to go on the FREE internet at the hostel and finish writng about my epic time in Poland. And I might even catch you up on what has happened since then if you're lucky...or if the people breathing down my neck to get at the computer don't try and use physical violence.

We almost didn't make it to Auschwitz. The easiest way to get there from Krakow is to take an hour and a half bus that drops you off right outside the museum, so off we (the british guys, Nathan and Jack, and me) headed for the bus station. When we got there a lovely polish woman (that is sarcasm, just to let you know) informed us that there were no buses to Auschwitz that day. When I inquired as to whether the museum was open or not and if there was any other way to get there, she gave me her best "I dont actually care" stare and said "it is public holiday" (it was Easter Monday). We sat in the bus station extremely depressed for a few minutes while I flipped through my Eastern Europe Lonely Planet (thanks, dad!) looking for a solution. It seemed likely that Auschwitz would be closed. The Polish seemed to think the only thing you should do that day is throw water at each other. I knew I had to get there, if it wasn't going to be that day, I would stay an extra night in Krakow and go the next. BUT WAIT- the lonely planet seemed to know more than the Polish lady! It said that you could also take a train there! Luckily the train station was literally right next door, so we walked through and found another lovely Polish woman to talk to. I asled again whether she knew if Auschwitz was open...she didn't. As we were about to walk away, rejected once again, I spotted an internet terminal. We got online quickly and got the telephone number for the museum and dialled at least 8 times before getting the number correct. Finally we reached someone at the other end and....AUSCHWITZ WAS OPEN. Now we only had to hop on a train and be on our way! Too bad the next train didn't leave for 2 hours, and we only figured that out after a bit of language-barrier yelling from our Polish ticket lady.

Eventually, we boarded a train. The train took us through some real Communist looking areas for about an hour and a half before dropping us in Oswiecim (Auswchitz in polish). We then had to take a bus to the Museum. Luck actually was on our side at this point, we arrived ten minutes before the next tour started. The tours were set up really well. The tour leader had a microphone attached to his shirt and a radio transmitter. All the people in the tour had radios and head phones. We set the radios to a certain channel and could hear him speaking! I thought it was ingenious. And if this happens often on tours I am just showing my ignorance, but I have never seen it before. It allowed you to wander off from the group and still be able to hear him discussing things. We started right at the famous gate of Auschwitz, "work will set you free". The grounds have been kept as they had been found, except the insides of some of the buildings had been turned in exhibitions. The exhibitions started from the beginning, explaining that Auschwitz had first been made to hold Soviet POWs and then turned into a concentration camp. They went over figures of how many jews (1.1 million), poles, soviet POWs, and gypsies had been there, and how many were thought to have been killed (1 million). The several different exhibits went through how the jews were killed (the museum focused mainly on the jewish prisoners, seeing as they were the largest and most targeted group) in the gas chambers, how the Nazi's confiscated all their belongings, how the prisoners were punished and killed, and how the prisoners lived. At one point, there was a massive glass case (probably about twenty feet long and 7 feet wide) filled with human hair that the Nazi's had shaved from the prisoners and KEPT. There were other glass cases, even bigger, with shoes from little children, or combs or pots and pans or clothes. Another large one contained suitcases with prisoners names written on them. Our guide kept reiterating an important point: Behind each article there was one person, one person who probably didn't make it.

At Auschwitz there is the only crematorium that survived the bombings. It looks like a chimney coming out of a green hill. Here was where so many Jews were led to believe they would be taking a shower before heading to their new lodgings and a new life. We stood in the room where over 200 people could gased at once, and then saw the furnaces where their bodies were burnt. We saw pictures of children on their way to the chambers, skipping because they were excited to be clean after the long journey.

After Auschwitz we headed to Birkenau, or Auschwitz II. This contained the famous railway entrance, something that I have seen in so many films that it was like deja vu. Birkenau was ten times the size of Auschwitz and created purely for extermination. One half of it was taken up by brick buildings, while the other half was wooden. Our guide explained that the original buildings were brick, but it had been too expensive and time consuming to make them, and they needed so many more for the large number of "shipments" they had coming in, that horse sheds from germany were shipped over. Where 35 horses used to live, now over 200 people were housed. The wooden ones were too hard to maintain over the years, so all that was left of many of those was a chimney, but some had been reconstructed for the museum. We went into one of those, which turned out to be the bathrooms. It consisted of a long concrete rectangle with holes in the top (see photo). Prisoners had one minute a day, if they were lucky, to spend here. The guide also told us that it was at this point they would exchange goods in a sort of black market since the guards wouldnt go inside since they were afraid of diseases (of which they were plentiful). Afterwards, we walked down the infamous railway tracks to where the selection process between fit and unfit took place. At the end of the tracks, stood the remains of the crematoriums. The Germans had tried to dispose of as much evidence of their massacres as possible before leaving. There was also a memorial erected by the museum with plaques in different languages respecting those who lost their lives at the camps. The last was in English and was were I placed the my stones.

Visiting Auschwitz was an amazing experience. It was interesting to see how it affected the British guys i was with. I have been learning about the Holocaust since I was young, while so much of the information was new to them. I could see they had been stunned by the camps and the museum, I was stunned as well. I put up photos of the trip on facebook and one of the my friends actually thanked me for sharing them.

That night we caught an overnight train to Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic. I didn't really know what to expect of the town. All I knew was that it was a small town in southern Czech that several people have recommended to me. It ended up being a gorgeous little medival town, with a great castle and cobble stoned streets. We spent one night there and then caught a three hour bus to Prague, where we arrived last night. It took us FOREVER to find out hostel. We got dropped at a bus station totally opposite to where we thought we were going to stop, and then walked around for about 30-45 minutes. Now remember, I am carrying a 15 kg bag on my back. My shoulders were cramping by the time we actually found our hostel and I was not excited to find we have to hike up four flights of stairs to our dorm room. Today we explored the Castle (which is like a small town in itself!) and tomorrow I think I go to the Jewish Quarter.

I am now going to attempt to upload photos...there are a lot of them...fingers crossed!