Krakow, Poland - Feb break

4/22/07 - hey there all....HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!! not a big holiday or celebration here in romania....although we did celebrate with the 6-8 graders in our school this week....its was a fun part of the day outside where we planted flowers and made earth day chalk murals on the sidewalks of the school....the kids and adults seemed to really enjoy themselves...which was a great thing....last week was crazy busy here in bucharest with school and the president was just ousted...its anyone's guess what will happen next.....but i still haven't finished posting for my feb break...so here are some more shots from krakow....what a beautiful city....enjoy....

this first shot is of me on the train to krakow...it was after i have flown to prague and then warsaw....this ride was about three hours long....so of course i kept myself busy with some sudoku....just a warning if you have never played...it can be quite addictive...i thought i would be over it by now....but no....the train was fun although when we first got on we were in the wrong car and got yelled at by some porter guy who was helpping some american folks....i guess we were in their seats....it was too funny....but overall we made it to our cool apt for the four days we were in town....on with the show....

there are many awesome buildings in krakow...this is one of them....the collegium maius...one of the oldest buildings of learning in all of eastern europe...many a famous scientist studied here...including copernicus....they have a lot of amazing metal work, like the drain pipe you see aboe...i love the way the sky is the color of the eyes....made this shot pretty freaky....

krakow is also known for its churches....there are hundreds...we saw about 10 while we were there...and on a sunday no less...poland is VERY catholic....like 99% of its population is catholic...and of course the polish pope (the one who died recently) was considered to be "their" pope...i have a shot of him lower down in this entry....his picture is everywhere....the church above is franciscan...i really loved the stained glass window...very modern and great colors....

the picture above is of st. mary's church....wowowowowowow....it was stunning....the paintings and color and high ceilings were incredible....its a very old and beautiful church still in use today....and it is located in the central square of krakow...where lots of stuff happens both day and night....

i love this shot because it is of a church...of which there are many in the city and the tram....these are a great way to get around the city....very easy and very clean...we took one on the way back from the jewish sector the day we took a walking tour on that side of the river....

in the square where st mary's is there are a lot of artisans and different types of folks earning an interesting living....this guy let me try on his chain mail...it was really cold and quite heavy...i can't imagine how heavy the whole "knight in shining armour" must have been...insane....but he was a cool dude and it was fun trying on his stuff....

this shot is from the jewish quarter....i guess at one time there were thousands of jews living in poland and especially krakow...but after world war 2 there were only a few hundred who returned to this city....and to this day there are only that many that remain....very sad...

as we toured the jewish section of town, our tour guide, who was a film major, would show us shindler's list and point out where we were in the shot he was showing us...this alleyway was in the movie....this section is not where the ghetto was though....which is what it portrays in the film....where the ghetto was, now has nice buildings and a high rise or two....definitely was not useable when speilberg was there shooting his movie....although he did use the current jewish sector to film most places....

the one place that is still standing is schindler's factory....they are planning to turn it into a museum....but that hasn't happened yet....it was amazing to go to the jewish cultural center in krakow and read the stories of the poles who risked their lives and the lives of their families to get jews to safe places during the war....its good to see that people do try to help one another in very difficult times...and the stories were so moving.....

as i said above....krakow has some beautiful architecture...unlike warsaw...it wasn't completely destroyed in the war....although a lot of it was...but some of the older beauty still remains....as you can see from the courtyard shot above....i love this part of eastern europe and have now seen this style of buidling design in four different countries....the courtyards are off the street, usually through dark driveways and garages....but they are so amazing when you see them....i loved this one....

here are some polish musicians....i danced with the guy in the front for a verse or two....too cute....they stand on the street corners in the older parts of town, playing for tourists and earning a living....i loved their traditional dress and they were quite good musicians as well....

here's that picture of the pope....this window is actually refered to as the "pope's window"....this is where he addressed the polish folks of krakow when he came to town....there are candles across the street and under the window at all times, as well as flowers to remember him....the poles loved this pope and felt he was their own man in charge....

the shot above and the shot below are from wawel castle....this place is huge...we made it into the state rooms and the cathedral....which was stunning i might add....it is a huge complex up on a hill, for protection....along the river...it has a marvelous view and as you can see the day we were there it was perfect weather....this is shot of the castle and the cathedral....

this is a shot of jennifer and i in the courtyard of the castle with this super cool tree...it was climbing up the courtyard's walls and just begged us to take a picture....it reminds me of a shot i took in cambodia as well....although i am dressed warmer here :) jennifer and i had a great time visiting krakow, warsaw and prague and saw some amazing sights along the way....including this castle....

if you didn't know, krakow is known for its amber...here is a shot from one of the many stalls selling amber in the cloth hall...this was an indoor market with tons and tons of amber...plus, some jewish wooden dolls, chessboards and polish pottery...which is absolutely beautiful...but of course i didn't buy any....no room in the backpack for pottery that could get broken :)

this is the cloth hall market from the outside...it was a beautiful building in the old town square of krakow....here is a shot of it at dusk our first night in town....

as i said before the town square is where many people earn money...including this great bubble maker...he was just using some bubble fluid and a wand and got these HUGE and wonderful bubbles...both kids and adults had smiles on their faces watching this guy....reminded me a bit of the bubbles i made with science explorers :)

this last krakow shot is of the old barbican...or city wall and gate over what was once a moat...this is the way most traders and merchants entered the city....they keep it closed in the winter months so unfortunately we didn't make it into the building itself...but it was cool to look at from the outside....

overall....i really enjoyed krakow and i hope i get to go back...i would love to spend more time in birkenau, the old part of town and go to the salt mine outside of town...i have friends who were just there for april break and said it was outstanding....so i hope i make it back....yet again, another place i would like to return to....frustrating.....hope you are well and had a fun earth day...next time i will update with warsaw and then hopefully prague....i am only two months behind now :) gotta love it!!!!! thanks for stopping by :) have a good one!!!!

Krakow - Auschwitz & Birkenau

4/8/2007 - Jennifer and I hit two different countries over my April break - Poland and the Czech Republic....and i loved them both...for different reasons...yest again i am angry with the stupid dictator who ruined where i live...bucharest....the two countries we were in were under communist rule...but no dictator worked there...its quite upsetting, because in my opinion bucharest and romanians in general are still trying to get over his rule....they don't know how to make their places beautiful and better and i think they are still scared that someone will come and take it all away....its a hard place to be....and every time i leave it its harder to come back....ugh....but while in poland, krakow more specifically, we made the trip to auschwitz and birkenau....the major concentration camps in poland...where many jews died because of hitler's grand plan....below are the pictures from our visit to this very emotional place....

this is the entrance gate to auschwitz....to work is to be free....that is the sign above the gate in, and of course was quite sarcastically put there....auschwitz was one the first concentration camps, which grew too small for the nazis to really try and carry out their disgusting plan...when they realized it was too small they built birkenau...if a person ended up in auschwitz they knew they had a larger possibility of living compared to ending up in birkenau....

this is one of the many guard towers located around the perimeter of auschwitz....very few people tried to escape from here....the control was that great...when i was in dachau germany and saw the concentration camp there i had a hard time accepting that the germans who lived in the area had no idea what was being done inside the walls...here in poland, the polish were either forced to work along side the prisoners or were driven away...the nazis actually destroyed seven or more towns located around the concentration camps to use the building materials....the poles were treated a bit better, unless they were jewish of course, but not much better....

this cell was a solitary cell in building 11 of auschwitz...building eleven is where you were sent when you broke rules or tried to uprise against your leaders...this was generally a horrible place to end up and many folks were killed just outside the walls of this building....by shooting...they were tried in building eleven for whatever they had done, stepped out into the courtyard and were shot...the metal symbol is the current day accepted symbol for auschwitz...the day we were there a survivor was being interviewed in the gas chambers...in german, so i wasn't sure what he was saying...but i just can't imgine revisiting such a place of horror if you were there when it was truly in use....but i guess that is how the world learns from its mistakes....from people explaining the past horror....the question is...do we learn????

this shot is taken from the outside of the auschwitz camp...it shows how many lines of barbed wire there were and the lighted path where the guards walked daily...the building on the right is on the inside and where prisoners were kept in deplorable conditions and the building on the left is where the officers of the guard were stationed when not working....just a few meters away from the gas chambers....its just gross....

from auschwitz its a ten minute drive to birkenau....the death camp....this is where many people got off the train they were brought in and walked directly to the gas chambers....they had four industrial sized chambers where the smoke never stopped pouring from....people who were brought here and didn't go directly to death usually stayed in birkenau for a few weeks before they made the long walk to death....this is the entryway where the trains would come in from all over eastern europe...

within birkenau the thing that stuck me the most was the sheer size of the place...it was completely planned out and built for the destruction of people....just mind numbing...you see the buildings stretch on for so long....and sometimes the building is gone, but the chimney remains....you can still see some that have the insides in-tact....as you see below

this is the inside of a building where people were kept...anywhere from 200 to 500 people at once...and they would sometimes go to work in hard labor camps, but generally they would spend their time in these buildings doing nothing except waiting to die...its just horrible to imagine...

my final shot is one of the barbed wire and guard tower in the back ground...again, the sheer size of this horrible place was mind blowing to me...it was a gloomy day, which was the way it should have been...and there were many people there, but the level of respect was good to experience...it just boggles my mind how one group of people can do something like this to another group of people because they are different....but i guess i shouldn't be so suprised as it continues to this day in so many ways....anyway...if you have never been to a concentration camp and experienced the horror and the rememberance of a place such as this, you need to go...it is horrible and disgusting and necessary to see with your own eyes, so you know what it looks like and can stop things like this in the future....

Jennifer's visit to Romania

4/8/2007 - they there all!!! HAPPY EASTER!!!! wowowowow...bucharest is a great place to be on easter...no one is here driving around...i think they have all gone to their family's to hang out and celebrate....although last night trying to find a restaurant that was open was a bit of work...although a bunch of us tried a new spanish place....yummy!!!! today i am celebrating with friend's...we are having a mexican easter....hahahahaha....whatever that means....actually it means that corona actually made into town and we bought a bunch....should be fun as we have a beautiful day....and then tomorrow i head to italy....so i am trying to catch some things up...its my april break...and boy am i happy about it....on with the entry......below is a shot of a flower stall right around the corner from my place....the folks of bucharest LOVE flowers....i have seen everyone with flowers this weekend

in february of this year Jennifer, an ice friend stopped by on her trip around the world...she hung in romania for a week....and we went to poland and the czech republic...this entry is for romania....below are some pictures from our small road trip and exploration...

jennifer's first afternoon in town we walked around herestrau...the large park in the city with a lake (that they drain in the winter....who knows why!!!!) but around this lake they have this one set of statues to the founding members of the EU....but only their heads....the guy jennifer is standing with was from germany i think...i don't really remember....its weird...no shoulders...only their heads....good for a picture i guess :)

we also stopped in the "old school" style mall...where romanians used to shop before they had malls just like everywhere else in the world....this place is called the expo center...very strange manequins in the store windows....the building itself is a huge warehouse styled coverd place...its just an interesting step back in time, but don't buy CDs for burning there...they destroyed my burner in my computer....ugh....

the shot above is of an old orthodox style church located outside of Bran, where dracula's fake castle is located...it was cool to go check out this church, even if it was closed...had a nice conversation with a romanian woman who could speak english...and the pictures you see are painted directly on the walls...up in the north east corner of romania there are supposed to be many of these painted monasteries...hopefully i'll make it up there at some point

the two picture above were taken about the same time....they were on the road from bran to brasov...the guys working in the fields were funny...i yelled across the the road to see if it would okay to take their picture....they smiled and nodded and kept right on working....and then when we looked to our right we saw this shot of the transylvanian alps....just stunning....

from brasov we headed to sinaia....but the weather was horrible so we couldn't do much...we did have a tasty lunch at the serbian place in the hills...plus we stopped by the sinaia monastery...this is a shot of the monastery...we couldn't go in, but we could walk around the grounds...this monastery is still used by men becoming priests and is run by nuns...so we saw a few flowing black robes, but because it was raining so much no one wanted to stop and talk...

within the monastery complex there is a really old, smallish, orthodox church, which was also locked, but the picture above is of the picture painted on the walls of the church above the front door....very cool....okay....that is the extent of what jennifer visited with me....she also spent the week in bucharest exploring and getting readjusted to not being in africa....and then we were off to poland and the czech republic....on with that next :)