Krakow!

Krakow is one of the coolest cities ever! Another Berlin-esque place, where there is lots of history but also lots of nightlife. Great combination.

It was great as soon as we arrived. We found our hostel, which had just recently opened and whose main goal was to give backpackers everything they want in one hostel (which is really uncommon, trust me). Since it was called Mundo, meaning world, every room in the hotel was themed after a country. We stayed in the India room and it had all these cool decorations - wicker furniture, wall hangings, rich paint tones, dark wood bunks - a giant leap from the sterile hostels we normally stay in. We had free internet, laundry, bike rentals, a home-cooked breakfast by the lady that owns the hostel - it was fantastic.

Bernard and I made our way out to this club called Prozzak, and had a great night. Seriously bringing back this drink I had involving vodka, Coke and grapefruit juice. For real. Try it. Met two Irish girls that introduced me to this drink involving apple juice and vodka, but in the end it tastes like apple pie. Dangerous. You Polaks know what I'm talking about. Zubrowska vodka, you will be the death of me. Also ran into a bunch of rowdy English boys in Krakow on a stag. Everyone in Great Britain takes off to a party city and host these unbelievable stags that last like a week. They know how to do it. Because of them, it's illegal to drink in public in Krakow (which for Europe is obscene!). They happened to be staying at the same hotel as the Irish girls, which was all pretty swank.

The next morning saw Bernard and I do a bike tour of Krakow to take in all the sights (look at us being touristy and not just killing our livers, what a novel concept). Probably one of the coolest groups of people we met since Munich (legendary). There was this one girl Yvonne, which was a crazy story. She said she was Canadian, then from Vancouver (cool), then said she went to SFU and THEN said she was in Kinesiology. How nuts is that?! I meet someone from my faculty in freakin' Poland. Yeah. Right. It gets even better, boys and girls! She is best friends with one of my good friends, and went to high school with my coworker of the last two years. WTF.

Also met an awesome guy named Jason, who served in Iraq for the American Army. Regardless of your stance on the war, etc. some of the stories he told me were unbelievable. We spent most of the bike tour just talking about random things - one of the coolest people I've ever met, definitely. He breaks every stereotype of an American soldier I've ever encountered (not to say they should exist, but you know). Made plans to meet up with most of our bike tour at another club later that night.

Ended up at Frantic, this really awesome club. It had a few rooms, but spun mostly hip-hop and R&B and techno. Great mix actually. Totally had the underground cave thing going for it, which is what a lot of places in Krakow are like. Met with Yvonne and Jason and a bunch of Aussies from the tour, and had a great time. The night ended with Yvonne and I going to the only open convenience store in Krakow near our hostel, and us buying bread, cheese and meat, and smoked salmon...? The pictures are there to prove it, but I still don't know what the hell we were thinking.

We ended our trip in Krakow with the only thing you should do while you're there - a tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau. There isn't much to say about these two places, except that it is definitely worth it to go. Not that it is expensive in the first place, but just trust me, don't do Krakow without doing A-B. Possibly one of the most depressing and frustrating things I've seen, but in an enlightening way. Kind of makes you wonder why such atrocities even occurred in this world, but that's a whole new ballgame. The grounds themselves are so well-preserved (what was left after the Nazi retreat, anyways) and so the atmosphere is heavy with history. On a lighter note, getting home was the biggest pain in the ass! The museum itself has a bus schedule and a map of where the buses leave for Krakow, and so we narrowly miss the last bus, and queue up for the next with a bunch of other people. Apparently queues don't really exist in Poland, as the next bus arrived, almost full, and people started climbing in the back doors, front doors, you name it. Half the people were standing all the way back to Krakow, which was almost 1.5 hours. Nutters. We finally got smart and found the origin of the bus route (we're genius) and so we were the ones sitting while the rest of the people clamored to get onto our bus. Sweet, sweet revenge.

A night train to Vienna and we were out of Eastern Europe for a bit.