Krakow, Poland (from Berlin hauptbahnhof)

well i am sitting in Pizza Hut/Burger King in the train station in Berlin but will be writing u about Krakow.

well the 10 hour train wasnt so bad, we got to krakow around 8ish and then found our bus and walked to the station, i think that was the first time we didnt get lost finding out hostel or have to walk for hours on end! were getting good at this! we got to our hostel, which is really a university dorm they rent out in the summer, which was nice cuz we got our own room and a kitchen a really nice bathroom! lol! oh the things u take for granted back home! our hostel offered a tour for Auschwitz and we decided to take it so we didnt have to find it on our own.

the next morning the van picked us up at 1pm and we started our 1 and a half journey to Auschwitz 1. we got there and were put into tour groups, according to language, and began the tour, we entered throught the gates that all the prisoners would have entered apon arriveing, our guide translated the saying and it read ' work makes you free' we were also told that to welcome the prisoners the nazi would tell them that the only way out of the camp was through the chimney....
not exactly a freindly welcoming.
the camp itself had been left to its original state only the inside of some buildings had been re done to host the exibits. it was terribly disturbing, on exhibit was a glass wall the size of a box car on a train and on the other side was a room, filled to the top with human hair, which we were told was used in the making of blankets...... another exibit the same size hosted prostetic limbs that had been taken from these people, some were as small for a 5 year old.....another was full of glasses (eye wear) and another pots and dishes, they really thought that they were traveling to a new home.

we visited the jail cells they were put in while 'waiting' trials. they were a normal cell size, but were filled with so many ppl it was standing room only, there was a hole in a box in one corner used as a toilet and a window the size of my hand that was there only source of air, even the door was window free, which is why most ppl died waiting becuase of suffocation.

we also got to walk inside of the gas chambers and the crematorium.....there are no words to describe the feeling you get as you walk through a room that so many thought they were going for a shower but in reality they were spending the last moments of there lives.

after visiting Auschwitz 1 we were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz 2) (there were many different camps all close together) this camp was the one you see in most movies, it had the original train tracks and platform where the prisoners were brought and sorted through, sorted meaning, life and death, they were torn from there famlies and and if strong enough they went to live in baracks. there were so many baracks, each with 40 or more people living inside. they were forced to work for 11 hours each day.

it was terribly eerie to walk the tracks that so many people had walked in there last moments of life, i cant even begain to imagine how it must of felt....

our visit from that camp left most people silent and gratful for the life we live today, i know im more thankful for my country i live in and the times im in.

we ended our day with making some grilled cheese and going to bed early because our train left at 755 this morning back for Berlin. so that leaves me to now. we decided to spend the night in the station, no point in trying to find sumwhere to stay just to leave early tomorrow.
were off to Amsterdam tommorrow! and then on moday Paris!