Krakow, Poland

What a fun train ride here.. we got Wi-Fi, cappuccinos, water.. all for free!  We could even charge our electronics if we wanted to!

We transfered to a different train in Ostrava, that was a pretty small city, but we had a 2 hour wait for our next train so we walked around a bit!  It was actually pretty cool there, I got a picture by a Christmas tree on the square.
Snow snow snow:)

The next train was to Katowice, a bigger station, not as sketchy as the one in Ostrava AND people were nice and a lot of them spoke English!  There was English on the signs too.. it was comforting. 

The final train to Krakow was a bit sketch.. kept slowing down and was really dark, and smelled.. incredibly bad!

When we finally got to Krakow we went to our host, Nil's flat (apartment). It was soo nice and warm and comfortable!

Our first day there, we literally just walked around all day!  We went all through the city center, Nil's flat is right on one of the main squares, which was awesome!  One the main square, there was a man singing opera, and a little girl across from him in a pink jacket in a stroller, singing along with him, it was ADORABLE!! WE watched them for awhile, then we walked to the Castle.  It was really cool and gave us a nice view. After, we went shopping for boots. Didn't find any. I found a cute hat and scarf!  ..but didn't get them.

We made dinner and just hung out tonight, and planned tomorrow out. We went to Auschwitz early in the morning. We decided to take the earlier bus, and basically we were running to it.. it had already started leaving, and we stopped it to make it on hah! It was a beautiful ride there.. the snow completely covered the trees.

It was a tough day though. We went to Auschwitz I first and then Auschwitz II, Birchenau. in Auschwitz I, all the buildings were still up, it was more of a museum. It was crazy going through it though.. very heavy. When we got to Berchenau, all I could think was Oh my God. It was huge. Only some buildings were still up and you could see the outlines of all the rest along with the brick chimneys that were once connected to the wood buildings that held 700 to 1000 people each. And there had to have been a couple hundred of them.. it was insanely big. Sickening.
It was a day of fighting back tears.

We slept on the bus ride back which was actually really helpful in getting our minds back to normal after all of that. We went to the shopping center again and both ended up finding boots!!  Which is good because mine must've been cheap or something because I got them about a month ago and they already had holes in the bottoms of them.

When we got back to Nil's, she had already started preparing the things to make... SUSHI!!  She taught us how tonight!!  It was soo cool learning how to make our own.. I felt soo accomplished after! It was awesome.  I can't wait to do it at home now...I should start making a list of all the things I've cooked/helped cook, so I don't forget them by the time I come home.

This was Liz and my last night together.. she was to leave in the morning:( it was a lot of fun travelling with her. It was soo nice to just have someone there and to share moments with, good and bad, and also.. to talk to. Haha I find that now I become very talkative around people who can understand me, because out here, they're few and far between lol.  We had fun together.. and I know we will reunite again.. whether it be back in the US or maybe travelling again!  Who knows!  I have a feeling life will bring us together somewhere again though.
I like travelling alone because it allows me to be completely me and to depend only on me, but it has helped me to really understand and appreciate having the people I do in my life:)

After saying goodbye to Liz, I spent the whole next day in an internet cafe, figuring out the best way to get to Lviv, Ukraine lol. And everyone was saying to take a train to Przemysl, then a minibus to the border, cross it on foot and then take another minibus to Lviv... I completely disagree.

Note to self - stick with direct trains when going through country borders.

Stay tuned, story to come.

Chao!

<3