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...