Polonia Hotel Raciborz

Alright! Here's post #2 for the night :) I wanted to write about my day yesterday. It was so incredibly fun and full of energy! I laughed and laughed all day long.

Yesterday (Friday) was a Vattanfall show day which means that we have all morning for rehearsal, and then the afternoon and night are filled with lunch, getting ready, a couple of sporadic performances, random workshops and other activities, dinner, and then our hour-long show.

Phew!

FFirst ...

Hello to all from Zabrze, Poland. Today was my last full day in Poland and I am spending like I have on the last day in every city and country: uploading pictures onto my computer and Facebook, chatting with friends, hanging out with the host family, blogging, and... packing!

I have definitely become a pro at living out of a suitcase :)

I have quite a bit to write about and, as we leave for Kolding, Denmark tomorrow for the next week and I'm ...

... we were told to. Beside a tennis/netball court. It was a huge, tightly packed camping ground, capacity 650 people. After unpacking we went off to investigate and found we were surrounded by four bars....that played loud music. Last night we discovered there are camping grounds and camping grounds!

... a few nights sleep in before Karola and Rob drove me to Katowice the following morning. Unfortunately, my holiday was over as my next stop was to be Opole, where I would begin working as an English Teacher at International House. I'd certainly had a great time with my Hospitality Club hosts in Warsaw, Krakow and Belk, and was glad that I'd made such good friends so close to my new home. Also, I'd seen enough of Poland to know I'd enjoy living there for eight months.

... of what happened there is incomprehensible. We spent 2 hours in Auschwitz before catching a bus to Birkenau. Our Guide was able to give us some more of the context than if we had walked around the camps alone. We returned back to Krakow just before 5 and had a lie down to recover. As tonight was our only chance to go out in ...

... of the most overwhelming displays was that of human hair behind glass, 4,400 pounds of it. There was a sample of the cloth that was made from the hair to make Nazi uniforms. The many other displays of the plunder that was accumulated affected you deep inside, especially when you realized that this was just a mere fraction of it because much of it was burned by the Nazis in hopes to destroy evidence of the genocide. The gas chambers and crematoriums at Auschwitz II ...

... everyone's forehead. She served out the traditional Czech Christmas dinner: thick and delicious fish soup; followed by potato salad mixed with pickles; and carp, battered or fried, sometimes with bacon and cheese. The father, Jirka, proudly let me know he'd caught the carp. We also sampled two sweet, syrupy homemade liquors made from cherries or alternatively with eggs. Mmm, mmm. I like Czech Christmas dinners. We opened presents around the Christmas tree that hadn ...

... or "worthwhiligator," and you would be angry. So, I'm going to be blunt: absolutely nothing exciting happens in this story. You'd find more excitement if you laid face-down on the ground and watched dirt. Counting the hairs on your head would be more worthwhile. Rice-cakes are more flavorful. I hitchhiked two weekends ago through the Czech Republic to a tiny border booth. And then I was in Poland. And, how was the scenery? Were there twenty-stories-tall mountain ...

... trip through Eastern Europe. And I'd planned this amazing 32-day trip through all Poland. So I went out with a beehive of ideas inside, in that state of drunkness or fever in which you walk fully determined but without any ideas of what to do. The only thing I knew was I wanted to write a letter. Jarmila's apartment (she's the Czech teacher from Colombia), has her flat 3 blocks away, so I went there and wrote it. I was in a state I don't ...

I was amazed that on Wednesday morning I was fit to cycle. No ill effects from the previous night at all. I was on the road by 11am making for Kutna Hora. The Australian brothers, Matt and Damien had mentioned being there and the "Bone Church" It sounded interesting, was in the right direction and a comfortable distance, so it was an easy decision to make Kutna Hora my destination for the night. Thanks to Wolf at reception I had an easy route worked out to leave the city. It ...