The Land of Sausage and Beer: Polished is NOT derived from the word Polish

Where to begin…hmm…this past weekend was insane in the membrane so I’ll just start from the beginning, bear with me…or just skip down to the juicy stuff. But since I’m writing this as I go I don’t actually know if there is any juicy stuff so stop being lazy and just read about my life, I mean you’re already here looking at it plus I’ve been told my life is kind of interesting….or just awkward, take your pick.

Friday~

We started the day with a tour of the Bundeskanzleramt, aka the Chancellor’s office. A tour of the German Chancellor’s office here is kind of equivalent of a tour of the White House back in the US so it was pretty cool to get to see it from the inside even though we had to be followed by 2 security officers to make sure none of us tried to, I don’t know, steal a microphone or chair or something bland. After the tour a couple of friends and I got to go to the U.S Embassy to interview my friends dad for a school project. Not going to lie but I felt pretty cool walking in since no one’s allowed in unless accompanied by an Embassy worker. Awesomeness.

the Bundeskanzleramt

that window at the top is the Chancellor's office

right outside the US Embassy (you're normally not allowed this close to it)

After making my friends dad 30 min late to his meeting with the Ambassador (oops!) I went home and had a little over an hour to clean up the pigpen I call my apartment and head on over to the train station so I could be on my merry way to Poland.

Little did I know the next 45ish hours of my life would be a whirlwind. So our (my friend Libby and I) commute to Krakow, Poland included 4 trains (yes 4). Once we got on our second train we noticed we were actually in Poland and then really quickly realized we don’t understand ANY Polish nor do we have any Polish currency with us... Not to mention Polish trains don’t announce what stop they’re approaching nor do the train stations have names so you’re pretty much stuck hoping you get off at the right stop because if you miss your stop or connection your pretty much screwed cause the train stations are in the middle of nowhere.

Then I believe it was train #4 of the night when we realized how sketchy Poland can be. It all started when we got on the train and tried to find open seats so we could actually sleep. While walking up and down the train we were being followed by some sketchy man who kept offering us his apartment to live in. Apparently in Poland “no thank you” gets translated into “yes please creeper, keep following us with your daughter”. What a sketchball.

Saturday~

We finally got into Krakow at 6:30 in the morning we realized the girl gave us the wrong return tickets back to Berlin. Great. So we spent like 2 hours walking around the train station trying to find the ticket booth (which, we failed at), then also tried to look for the place to buy bus tickets to Auschwitz (which we eventually found).

Now at this point of the story, we’re on our way to Auschwitz (about 1hr and 40min bus ride). I don’t really want to get into too much detail about Auschwitz (the largest concentration camp during the Holocaust) cause words can’t really explain what its really like walking around and actually seeing what they did to the Jewish people. I will say however that it was a very moving experience. Here are some pics:

Auschwitz

The Wall of Death-where they shot people in the back of the head

the crematorium

Arbet Macht Frei --"with hardwork comes freedom"...ya right

After Auschwitz we went back to Krakow. Once in Krakow we decided to walk around and guess what we ran into….yup the ticket office we were looking for to change tickets so instead of taking the train at 2:30am back to Berlin we got it changed to 10ish p.m. That way we didn’t have to wonder around Krakow in the middle of the night until our train came. Once that was settled we actually walked around Poland. We ran into some pretty awesome stuff. We saw a weird display of orange and white mannequins for some insurance promotion thingy, a weird satellite ball, some awesome squares where there was a flower market and a concert playing. As we continued strolling down the cute parks/streets that are Krakow we got some scrumptious gelato and found ourselves walking up some hill to a castle that overlooked the city and a river. After that it was starting to get dark so we made our way down the hill to find a place to eat dinner. We finally found a restaurant that served Georgian food that was pretty cheap and delicious. (Cool side info: I noticed the desserts they offered at the restaurant were Armenian, but I didn’t get any cause they’re the weird ones my dad always buys…).

the orange and white mannequins

in a satellite ball

the city of Krakow, so cute

some church

the view from the castle

After dinner we still had a few hours to kill so we went to the Boogie Café for some dessert and to use the rest of the Polish money we had to withdraw. After my apple pie and Libby’s ice cream with strawberry sauce we then went to a mall to window shop before heading back to the train to begin our 13 hour trek back to sweet ol’ Berlin! Thankfully we only had to change trains once on the way back AND we got to reserve seats so no more seat-hunting and sleep deprivation.

Don't get me wrong Krakow was an awesome city but since we didn't speak any Polish and didn't really have much time we weren't able to fully appreciate it. One day I may go back.

Sunday-

At about 4:30 in the morning on Sunday was when we had to change trains at Warsaw. Definitely not one of the better moments of our Polish adventure seeing that we were successfully being harassed by 3 Polish guys who kept taking pictures of us. Creepy? Um…yes. And let me tell you, Polish people have the worst haircuts I have ever seen and they smell bad.


the station we had our layover at 4:30 in...creepy

Once we finally got back to Berlin around 1pm we booked it to our apartment to shower Poland off of us and to get ready for the ballet. Yes, the ballet. How very cultured of me I know. Ya so a bunch of friends and me went to go see Swan Lake, which was pretty cool, weird to say but the male ballerinas were a lot better and more entertaining to watch then the girl ones. At intermission we left (bad I know) but it was also the 20^th celebration of Berlin’s Reunification and that is something you can’t miss. The Reichstag (government building) and Brandenburger Tor were all lit up and pretty. Plus to clear my conscience, it ended up being a good thing that we left the ballet early because apparently at intermission the orchestra went on strike and left so the ballet continued with just one guy playing the piano.