Krakow... Beautiful...

After getting on the wrong train, i.e. first class instead of second and express train instead of slow train there is casual gun pointing and fines to pay, the fine is 10PLN and I ask if they have change for a hundred. I continue my journey to Krakow in style.

Ahhh Krakow... Beautiful, I'd fully recommend it to anyone, great night life, beautiful sites, castles and of course Auschwitz is an hour and a half away.

The hostel has a BBQ every night so despite already having enough Polish sausages to possible overdose I decide to go along, plus they have a pub quiz following.

I drink with some Canadian chicks and we get slaughtered on the hostel bar's 10 shots of polish vodka for 30PLN ($12NZD).

The following day I meet up with some Scots and an American and we go to a lake which used to be a quarry. The women are unbelievable and insane cliff diving ensues. Pity I didn't take the camera that day.

In the evening we all have a few beers and play pool at the hostel, surprisingly I take everyone to school. A relatively quiet night because the next day we're going to Auschwitz.

Auschwitz is... well its un-be-fucken-leavable, you can literally feel the personal hell of the people that died there. Everything is presented so matter of fact, from the bullet holes of the firing squad to the scratching of the names on the wall.

Auschwitz II - Birkenau is completely different, the scale is much bigger the numbers are much bigger, its more of a production line of death and appears to be less personal. As far as the eye can see there are the chimneys of the huts that housed people while they waited to die. There are two separate ash piles with small signs. Its quite hard to comprehend "Here lie the ashes of approximately Six hundred thousand people".

Back at the hostel the next day I wandered in to a massive Catholic procession. It turns out that it is a national holiday today and I run in to some school kids that I met in Warsaw who are on a class trip, they are keen to chat and tell me whats going on.

I go to a resturant and have a big night out on the town with some Danes and Swedes. I have a paticulary "good time" with a curly haired Swedish blond called Elana. I take her to the lake the next day and we get caught in the rain on the way back.

Check out all the photos here: