night train!!!!!!!!!

so, after being some what undone by an entire day of bearing witness to the holocaust - more on that later - we were laying around mamas hostel too tired to do much of anything and thinking about how we a) wanted to watch the Euro Final (Germany v. Spain) in Prague (Prahe here) and b) were bummed about spending an entire Sunday on a train to do so. solution = night train!

Since said train departed in just a few hours and we didn't have tickets and were not packed - what followed was some serious rushing and a bit of chaos between ticket offices and hostel and train station. For those of you who know Julia, this is her least favorite way to travel, but she held up well, considering. We made it into our car (not a sleeper mind you, those are extra) which was a throwback to the fifties, made more complete by stale cigarette smoke and vinyl seats, an we shared this space (maybe 8 x 8 sq.) with a young polish couple who made out the whole time. Trying to ignore them, we played cards for a bit before attempting sleep slumped over our bags.

We arrived, finally at 6:45 am, and were promptly coerced by an accommodations agent onto a metro and then into a hostel. This was not our first choice, to be sure, but we were too tired to protest, and nothing, i mean nothing is open on Sunday in this town at this hour. not even a coffee shop.

So, were are in the (also smoky) lounge here at hostel Manhattan, waiting for our room to become available. we plan to sleep a bit and then venture out into stare maistro (old town). We are hoping to hook up with some friends of julias for the game. its nice to know that we have a whole five days here - there is so much to do and i could use a break from trains for a bit, especially since our next jaunt (to Slovenia) appears to be quite a freaking hassle.

Poland was great, by the way. We pretty much did the tourist thing the whole time, especially in Kracow - but that is how you roll when you just have a day or two. For the most part we walked (and walked and walked) checking out the architecture and meandering through boutiques and eating the occasional ice cream scoop or sipping the occasional 6 dollar latte. Poland has this really tragic history most of which is not visible on the surface, but once you know about it, its hard to forget.

I mentioned that Warsaw was leveled in WWII and its old town entirely reconstructed as it was, so it has this disneylandish feel - nothing is over 60 years old - though it looks very similar to the largely unscathed Kracow. But then you walk into one those reconstructed churches and the placard tells you that its original catacombs were being used as a hospital during the Warsaw uprising (read about that here) and which were collapsed in the bombing. The church built on top and its estimated that there are at least 1000 men, women, and children entombed beneath the marble floor you are standing on. There was a Jewish ghetto uprising as well - the results of which are equally tragic, but there is very little left of that ghetto, and very few Jewish people left tin the country at all, yet there are Jewish "districts" in every major city.



Then you have kracow, the tourist hotspot with its romantic old town square that is filled with poles and internationals alike and where you can watch break dancing crews perform for cash on one end and a small string orchestra do the same at another. There is also Wawal castle, which is enormous, and a whole bunch of JPII references, you can tour his former residence and home church if you so desire, they are still, i think mourning him - there are giant posters of him with candles and flowers all over the city. We did some really great eating here as well. I stole this pic off of wikipedia - we have not yet overcome the usb-camera issue.


The concentration camps are just a few hours drive from kracow and we spent the whole day yesterday touring them. I am going to hold of on that post. I am still processing that visit, and its just kind of hard to write about, without sounding either trite or just unaffected. Ill work on it.