Auschwitz

Hey everyone,

This is a quick update. I went to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp today. I don't really know what to think of the place.

It seems like it is both shocking and underwhelming at the same time. Shocking because obviously everyone knows what went on there. To see the size of the place, and the living conditions, and to hear the number of people that passed through there is quite amazing, but I was expecting more of a shock.

The thing is, when you are there, it is really hard to picture it all. When someone tells you that 1.5 million people died here, that numebr is so large, you can't really picture that many dead people. There's a word I'm looking for for that case, when something is so large, you can't really picture it in any relevant ways. When you are there, you just see a bunch of buildings.

I really find that the movies are much more impressive/though evoking/powerful. You actually see the acts taking place and you actually see the quality of life. When you go into a real life gas chamber you are expecting something stunning, somehow. All it really is is a big, square, concrete room like a million basements I've seen before, except with two little holes in the top.

Anyways, I have to go, people want onto this PC. 50 members of a church choir just showed up at this hostel, and it's packed now.

Later.

Poland and pics

Hey all.

My quick last minute excursion to Poland has been quite cool. The town is quite pretty, with tons of cool architecture and stuff. Considering how much WWII shit went on here, it is amazing it escaped almost completely untouched.

I went on a bike tour here today, which was really great. The tour guide was American, so he was really easy to understand. He took us all over the tourist areas, but then also to remote areas, which were the real highlight, since we would have found the touristy stuff ourselves.

The most interesting was the Jewish ghettos. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the early 90's Steven Spielberg film Schindler's List. It is a movie about Mr. Schindler, a factory operator during the second World War. His employees were all Jewish slave labourers. However, when he discovered from his highup friends in the SS what was to be done with the Jews, he did everything he could to save them (if you were on the "list" you were safe). Anyways, many parts of the film were done here in Krakow.

The ghetto is where Jewish people were relocated to until the decision for the "Final Solution" was made. When the tram passed through here, a German soldier would board, to make sure no one passed food through the Windows. The walls around the area were built to resemble Orthodox Jewish gravestones, as a sadistic hint of what was to come. During the course of the war, over 250 000 Jews passed through the ghettos, with just over 1000 survivors. On the day of "liquidation," the Jews clever enough to realise what was going on hid. They hid everywhere they could. In pianos, cellers, floor boards, walls, everywhere. The Germans knew this, though, and after waiting about 15 hours to make the Jews think they had left, they went through the neighborhood killing anyone they found. Within the 1.5 city blocks we covered today, over 4000 people were executed. I am going to Auschwitz/Birkenau tomorrow. I'm not sure whether or not I should be excited about that or not...

Oh, and in an amazing stroke of luck, the Schindler Factory, the one used during the war, was open today. It is only open one week of the year! I got to sign the guestbook on the same desk the list was written! That was cool.

Otherwise, the day was cool. I found a switch blade! Finally! Unfortunately, in my haste (I was really excited), I never really checked it out. It has a little rust I will have to clean, and the flashlight doesn't work. Oh well, it switches! Combined with my other knife (not the star thing, that's my other other knife), I have perfected the art of quick drawing two large knives from my pocket, and having them both snap open in a moment. Let's see fake cops try to "inspect" my passport now! Hah!

Anyways, enjoy some Pics. To the Schoenhardts out there, see you soon, then you cna check out all of my shots. It will take a while though...

Later.

My lovely knives. The open one is a switch blade! After all my long searching, illegal weaponry is mine!



The area near my hostel here in Poland. Thought it would make a good desktop.



One of the large towers in the Krakow town center, the most beautiful and largest medieval town center in existance.



Kick ass church. I veered off of the bicycle tour to take this. Couldn't resist...



Main two towers in the main square. The left on is the trumpet watch tower. Legend has it, that during an attack several hundred years ago, a watchman was struck down by an arrow to the throat during the playing of his warning song. So now, every hour on the hour, a man comes to the window and plays a tune, which cuts off abruptly in the middle of a note.



The castle in Ceske Krumlov.



The menu in the medieval restaurant. They serve mead, and traditional medievel food. I had a dasiy soup! The food was delicious though.



This town rocks (still Krumlov, if you're wondering)



This is a Krumlov town diagram, to give you an idea of the layout. You can rent cheap inner tubes and do laps around the main loop in the river.



The medieval doors to out hostel.



Town again. I have so many shots like this!



The following pics were taken in a celler tour. Really, all this modern art was jsut filler, since a network of empty underground cellers would have been too boring to charge admission for. Cool stuff. And the pics really turned out, I though. Just wait till get back, and you see the full sized 5 megapixel ones. You can zoom WAY in.









Guess where...

Grammer and 1337 lesson from Czech Republic

jutta said...

"Awsome pictures thank you. You were sarcastic about the colloseum were you ? I wasn't sure but Marcel thought so???????? What the heck does 1337 pwened mean?????"

Why so many question marks???????

Some of those sentances aren't even questions!

I don't think anyone got the 1337 thing except maybe Tawnie. That's the idea.

1337 = LEET = elite = the elite of the internet. That's internet speak, usually only used sarcastically, never seriously, since it's usually little 12 year old kids that use it and think they are so amazing.

"pwned" comes from a common typo from "owned" (see you keyboard, you will understand). Owned is internet speak again. Marcels "pwned" Tawnie with his argument winning comment: "yeah, well, I have a car and you don't."

---------- END LESSONS ----------

The Czech Republic is stunning. Any trip to Europe ever should include this place. Forget France and Italy (except San Gimignano). Sure, they're cool and everything, but it's mostly just big cities, expensive museums, smog, and engine noise. The Czech republic is where it's at. Beautiful country side, amazing towns (Just wait until I upload some pics. Can't do it here.), cheap, friendly, quite, and fun.

Seriously, I am in Ceske Krumlov right now, and I can't get over this town. The whole thing is a prefect little medieval town. Hilly, narrow, cobblestone pathways between rows of buildings decorated with brown stained wooden beams. A looping river through the middle of town, bordered by cliff faces with castles on top; amazing views of red roofs and clocktowers; massive labarynths of underground cellers filled with amazing and affordable attractions like cool sculpture displays or torture wax museums. Hell, they even have corn on the cob stands!

Every building here is authenic. The hostel I am staying in is too. The front door is two ancient, heavy, dark-stained oak doors, which leads into an indoor bar with brick walls, lit by lanterns (electric), and a floor made of huge old florboards. The restaurant bult in goes out into the courtyard, which spills out into the streets again through an amazing archway with an even more impressive door. The restaurant's indoor sections have traditional arched brick fireplaces (like pizza ovens) and big sections of the wall have missing plaster where you can see the brick behind.

And things are so cheap here. You know you've found a good hostel when at night it is packed with not only guests, but people from other hostels, and even (this is the big sign of "goodness") locals coming here to drink. A beer costs 23 crowns. That's $1.15 Cdn, and the beers are big. We do the thing where we buy a round for the whole table (ends up costing you like 8 dollars) and then everyone does the same. By the end of the night you've have 6 giant beers, are quite drunk, and it cost about the same as a beer back home!

Beer here is very good, by the way. Yesterday I was in Ceske Budjevice, pronounced Budweis. There is also a town here called Plzen, pronounced Pils. Guess what comes from these two places. I'll give you some hints. I consume lots of them, they are better than the ones the make/sell at home, and they are liquids. First person to post the answers in the comments section gets my packet of airline peanuts from the flight home!

Later.

*Victorious Trumpets*

Haha, finally, the long awaited, 47 picture long PHOTO BLOG, complete with captions!

Woohoo.

To quote someone very 'magnificent': "and there was much rejoicing"

And I spent a whole $0.01 US per picture to have these batch uploaded rather than spending hours doing them one by one. Because I love you all THAAAAAAAAT much. All combined, you are worth 47 cents to me.

Enjoy!

(They are in reverse chronological order)

"Chain Bridge" in Budapest



Part of a free castle that belongs to a museum complex



Again, the castle



One of the main bridges here in Budapest. Marked on one end by a cool statue. See next pic.



The statue...



Another statue, from the top of the hill (same hill as last pic, but much further up)



Another bridge. I like bridges. They're perdy



This is the statue area as seen from below (on the white bridge)



This is the museum complex that contains the caslte. Last pic of Budapest. Next is Bucarest, Romania.



Would you change your money here? I'd be afraid of what happens when I hand over the money...



A neat church in Bucarest



The view of the large admin building from the Boulevard made by demolishing city. See previous blog entry for more info.



Same place, but now on the public address balcony from the admin building. HUGE street, immagine it full of buildings then plowed down...



One of the halls inside. It's hard to get a sense of the size in a pic.



Admin building again.



A beautiful town between Sofia, Bulgaria and Bucarest, Romania. Easter europe is covered in beautiful countryside like this. Wish I wasn't on a night train.



This little church in Sofia is preserved, but has been built around.



This building is probably important. I don't know what it does, but maybe I will decorate my house this way some day. Then people will take pictures of it and post them online.



Still Sofia. I'm sure this statue means something. Looks very communist... Don't know if it symbolises revolution, or was actually built during communist rule.



Domes



Church



Now we are on IOS!!! I <3 IOS!!!



This is a bed tent. Wooden frame, canvas top, two beds, bring your own sheet, E5.00 per night. Good deal.



Far Out camping village. Yay!



Same place. Yay!



My village of tents. Mine is in back, hidden from prying eyes.



Now in Athens. The front building IS NOT the acropolis. The one in the background is. Good shot though. I got the idea from a post card. The stupid guy in the blue shirt just had to walk around teh corner though.



This IS the acropolis. Very "under construction"-ey



These are the Irish guys I met on the way to Athens, and now just re-met in Budapest! The world is SOOOOOOOO small. From the left, Sarah-jane, PASCAL!!!!!!, Caroline, Paul, Andy.



Some other monument we never went to, but saw from high up.



Acropolis



Cool hill, I have many pictures of it. It is the breast of Athens.



Acropolis Now. (who got it?)



Ruins



More of them. Down with buildings.



This is now Naples. It is NOT ugly like many may tell you. Take a look. I have many more nice shots. This is a church, by the way



Shopping alley with cool plants



A nice "piazza"



Old 'Suvious



I wanted to go in, but they wanted money.



Now in ROME. This buildign is not really important. Michaelangelo built it, but it's not really famous. I missed most famous things in Rome. I was too busy getting lost on my scooter.



Somewhat blurry shot (looked better on cam) of St Peters in the Vatican. Sorry for the low res of this pic. I let the "Windows XP publishing Wizard" upload these, and it resized them dumbly.



Outside of the Vatican. Popeish



Another random building. Someone said something about games, I dunno. I figured I'd take a picture because I though it looked pretty cool, and I don't think anyone's ever seen it before.



Some hall when the sun broke... I mean set.



The area around the Coloseum (That's what they called that bulding, now I remember).



It's late I'm tired, and that took a LONG time. Must get up in 4.5 hours for train goodness. Can you tell my tiredness from my somewhat out-of-character captions? BYE!

Later!