Dovolená v Polsku

(hah, I feel so fancy with a Czech title for my blogpost :D )

Sooo, I was in Poland from last Wednesday to Sunday (Jan 24-28) :) It was sooo beautiful :)) We spent five days there (okay, a little bit less, but still) and honestly, it turned out much better than I had expected. We stayed in Krakow and went to Auschwitz for one day. Actually, that was the main reason why I wanted to go; it's still five hours to Krakow, but it's closer than if you go there from Germany, obviously. And Krakow is not far away from Auschwitz. So before I had everything booked, I didn't really know what there was to see in Krakow, but I'm so happy I went; it really is a beautiful city. The Unesco made it the city of literature this year, and it really deserves this title. There are so many bookshops there, it's like heaven on Earth. I spent so mch money on books there. Every time I buy more I tell myself I need to stop...but it makes me happy, so I guess it's okay. As I wrote in one of my previous blog posts, one of my resolutions for 2018 is to read more, and so far that has worked out pretty well, I'm on my fourth book this year ("Der Steppenwolf" - "Pompeji" - "Conclave" - and now "Eichmann in Jerusalem - Ein Bericht von der Banalität des Bösen"). I think I bought about 9 books there.

a music shop/cafe

yayy this was like being inside Christmas decoration

street art

in town

boooooks

the bookshop cafe

directions

this is nice

this place was opposite our hostel yayayaya

Anyway, what else? There are so many cafes, and s many bakeries. You see a food place like every ten metres (at least it felt like that). There was a beautiful bookshop that also had a cafe inside. I could have spent hours in there.

Oskar Schindler's desk

We also went to some museums, like the factory of Oskar Schindler and the Gestapo museum. It was very impressive. The factory museum is huge. There were tree floors, and we were in there for about 2.5 hours, and I still didn't have time to look at everything as closely as I wanted to. I guess if you really want to see everything in a museum, you have to spend about 4.5 hours there. At the end of that, I couldn't help thinking of our upcoming visit to Auschwitz - what you could see in that museum wasn't nice to see and read, and that was just reading about it, and not actually seeing it, if you know what I mean. And that impression was correct, of course. On Saturday we went to Auschwitz, and it was terrifying. I'm very happy I went because it is something everyone should see, but nevertheless, I tink that was the most frightening, depressive and unhappy place I have ever been to. I can't really put it into words. The whole atmosphere is so horrible - everything is brown and grey, it all looks the same, there is no life in this place, there are no birds, it is terribly cold, and if you then read about what happened there and see the belongings of the immates and the gas chamber, it just makes you sick. I was unable to talk the whole time. Like being paralysed inside. Is that too dramatic? Probably not for a place like this, if there even is anything that can be compared to that. I mean, all this maybe means a bit more to me than to others because I had an intensive history class, and because you can't avoid hearing about it in Germany, which is very good, and because this is what I want to study. But it really was terrifying.

Anyway. Back to some happier experiences. We also went to a really nice concert in a church (they played some of te classics; some of "The four seasons" by Vivaldi, "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" by Mozart, the "Canon" by Pachebel, etc), and we also went to a Harry Potter themed cafe. There was also a pancake place right opposite our hostel, and in the evenings we read and talked a lot. So I had a very relaxing and beautiful and interesting holiday. and I will definitely come back. Soon, hopefully. This Saturday I'm going to Berlin!! I'm so excited about that. It's gonna be strange being back in Germany. But I bet we'll have a great time:))

Have a good night,
Viola