Etap Katowice

... was only minutes away from my hostel. The ride took me through the Polish countryside eventually leading to the town of Oświęcim, which in German is Auschwitz. This was a chance to get a glance at regular Polish life outside of the big city....quite quaint as you may expect. I was dropped off just outside of Auschwitz I, the first of the three camps that make up the Auschwitz system (The other two are Auschwitz II/Birkenau, which I did see, and Auschwitz ...

... about getting to Australia as there is only so long we have to validate the visa before it runs out, it would have been great to carry on eastwards and we feel confident the van would take us for as long as we wanted to go, but unfortunately travel by its nature means things have to change and we have to think about the journey ahead. We did consider leaving the van in Europe and flying straight to our next destination but it soon became clear flight costs were actually much higher across ...

... waiting and waiting and getting more and more tired.After many hours of wait at International Airport in Frankfurt I finally could get on the plane going to Warsaw - Poland.The plane was very old and looked like something from communistic junk yard not fitting at all the 21century.
I got the alley seat next to a woman,who started bragging about her real estate bargains in State of Florida.She would go on and on and wouldn't ...

After lunch and the excitement of the tour the day became silent and reflective as we rode our buses the hour drive to Auschwitz. We toured through the old buildings, walking in the footsteps of some many who were tortured and died there. Listening to our tour guide, I couldn't stop thinking about what a depressing job she had; thinking about the horrific events that took place in her country every day. But in ...

... share at this time. To see some of the images I have seen today, click on one of the two photos on the home page, to get to the photo gallery. There is just so much going through my mind on this experience to write about right now. Tonight will be a quiet night at the Hostel.

... are only about 300 Jews in the city. The area is a bit more dilapidated than I was expecting but there really aren't many people to keep it up I guess. The highlight of the Jewish district for me was the cemetary. It has graves from the 15-18th centuries that surprisingly survived the war. The wall around the cemetary has been built from broken tomb stones. It is quite something to see. Many of the stones are just stumps and the writing is worn off many of the ...

... i.e. clean). However the Poles must be large people, or more likely like to where large clothes, because the only jackets I could find (that I liked) where about two or three sizes to large. Megan was luckier, and found one quiet easily. I gave up in the end, and we went back to our hostel, dumped our bags, and went out for dinner. We found a great pub, just off the main square (the biggest medieval square in Europe), serving local delicious food.

... them on the tram with a stamping machine - and hold on to them. We got caught. The tram police decided to check for tickets at 7:45 on Sunday moring. They pulled us off the bus and proceeded to check our passports. They got a big kick out of my name. They figured I should speak Polish. They taught me "tata" which means 'dad' because I had told them that my father was Polish. They pocketed our 200 zolty fine ...

... able to find it! Needless to say, after about 40mins of driving around and asking ridiculous questions of the locals to try and locate a country, we finally managed to arrive safetly, about 7 hours after departure! We stayed in a small town called Tychy, which is about about an hour or so from Krakow. Our first day involved a trip to Aushwitz which was heartbreaking. It is still largely intact in terms of the bulidings which makes it harder to actually ...

... well. I'm sure if I was cold, if it was the springy bed or knowing that people were going to be coming into the dorm at anytime. I was still awake at 06:30 though. This gave me a few minutes on the Internet before heading off to get the bus to Auschwitz and to have the provide breakfast. I just managed to catch the 08:40 bus but it was a 90 minutes journey. It looked like you were meant to join a tour but quite a few people were walking around on there own. I ...