A cold and rainy Poland.

A few weekends ago we embarked on our second group trip in a tour bus all to our own. On the way to Poland we stopped at a 13th century castle towering above the countryside Solvakia. We got a complete tour entirely in Slovakian where we were lead up and down the hundreds of stairs that connect this castles many floors.

After a meal consisting of some annonymous meat patties at a local resturant we arrived at our hostel and left the next morning for a day in Krakow. Our tour guide gave us a lovely walking tour of the city inspite of the drizzling rain.

We had the afternoon to explore the city on our own, so after spending some time in the market full of amber treatures, we took a walk through the old jewish district. It was pretty darn eerie walking through streets of this city where there are only a mere 100 of the previous 200,000 jews left that once recided here. Following the advice of our tour guide we wandering into St. Mary's Church which houses one of the largest altar piece of its kind in Europe before heading off to a delicious indian restaurant for dinner. The next day we piled in our tour bus and headed off to Auschwitz not quite knowing what to expect. It was so bizzare riding in our bus along the very same train tracks that led thousands of Jews directly to the gas chambers. Once we got there we were hearded into the crowds of tourists where we were given headphones and placed with a tour guide. We were then lead on a tour through barracks filled with haunting displays of the prisoners belongings. Next we were brought to Birkanau where the gas chambers were as well as barracks still in their original condition. Jordan at one point said how the word 'unbelievable' has gained a whole new meaning and I would have to agree. The horrific amount of deceit and suffering that occured here is literally unbelievable and walking around in there in the rain was incredibly surreal.