Prague & Krakow!

        Ah! The past two weeks have been crazy busy!  It's so hard to remember all the details of my trips last week but I will try my very best :)  My friends Sarah, Marlee, Katie and I left on the 31st early in the morning to go to Prague and Krakow!  It was a verrry long day of traveling but everything went extremely smoothly on the way there.  We took a taxi to the bus station, a bus to Malaga, flew from Malaga to London, flew from London to Prague, took a bus to the metro, and then the metro to our hostel!  Our hostel was AMAZING!  I'm kind of bummed that my first hostel experience was so great because now nothing is going to be as good! haha We had our own room and it was adorable.  It felt like we were staying in a cabin.  We had bunk beds and there was a loft with two more beds.  We ate a late dinner at a kebab place across the street and passed out when we got there!  The next day we decided to explore ourselves.  After asking people on the street (who hardly spoke English) we found the castle!  We bought tickets to be able to go into each of the different parts of it.  The Cathedral was gorgeous.  It had breath-taking stained glass windows all around with the brightest colors.  Then we got lunch and wandered to St. Charles Bridge!  There is the most beautiful view of  the city from it.  It was verrry cold when we were there (little did we know it would be ten times worse once we got to Poland!) so we bought these reeeeally ugly hats that made us look like the biggest tourists but they kept us so warm!  Random people would point and look at them or make comments and laugh. hahaha It was really funny!  Then we went to a show at the Black Light Theatre there that was called Aspects of Alice.  It was supposed to be based off of Alice and Wonderland but it ended up being the STRANGEST thing I have ever seen.  It was literally indescribable it was so weird.  They were really talented and used cool props and it was mostly all glow in the dark things, but the story was soo confusing because there was no speaking.  Definitely a new experience for all of us! haha The next day we bought a tour that was pretty much all day long.  It was even colder than the first day so it was a little shorter than normal and we made stops for hot chocolate :)  Our tour guide showed us the Jewish neighborhood, St. Charles Bridge, the Castle, and we went on a boat ride underneath the bridge which was so beautiful!  We also saw the John Lenon wall there which was pretty much a whole wall of murals and graffiti.  It was so cool!  I will post a picture of it :) That night we went out to dinner and then had to pack up to head to Poland!  We took an overnight train to Krakow that was 11 hours long.  Besides feeling nauseous from riding backwards for that long it was a lot of fun!  We got a sleeper room so there were four beds in one room.  We got to know the man who was in charge of our car pretty well, as we were extremely needy travelers. hahaha The poor guy. The train stopped in the middle of the night and wasn't moving.  We started to worry that something was wrong with it.  I then fell asleep and when I woke up we were still stopped and it had been two hours of sitting there!  Marlee then went up to ask him what was wrong and he responded in his extremely thick accent..."three. zero. seven. three hours. seven minute. stop. looooooong stop. everything okay" hahaha It was definitely an ongoing joke the rest of the trip!

        We arrived to Krakow very early in the morning so we dropped our bags off at our hostel, which was extremely nice also!  We ended up having that room to ourselves also because nobody else showed up.  We started to walk around and explore the city but it was too cold to stay outside for a long period of time.  Our feet and hands were going numb so we had to keep going in shops to warm up, but that almost made it worse!  We didn't know it at the time but it was actually the coldest day they had there in fifty years!!  I even asked Pat on the phone what are symptoms of frostbite because we were in so much pain! haha We then found a legging shop and bought multiple pairs of leggings and wool socks that helped a lot!  Then we went on a free walking tour of the city and that afternoon explored to the Jewish ghetto.  There, we stood on the square where they would kill the "useless" Jews during the Holocaust, the ones who could not work because they were either crippled, sick, etc.  A man in the little shop next to that told us that Oskar Schindler's factory was only 400 meters away so we walked there and went in it!  It was such a neat experience to actually be there.  It felt so surreal and was extremely sad, but I knew that the following day would be even harder.  We woke up on Saturday and began our 11 hour tour of Auschwitz concentration camp and Wieliczka salt mine. We first got a tour of Auschwitz 1.  There we went into different barracks.  Some of them have been left untouched, such as the rooms we saw with the different cells, such as standing cells and starvation cells.  Some of the barracks contained lots of pictures, quotes, and belongings of the victims.  I was in such shock that I was actually standing there that it didn't really hit me.  It hit me the most when we saw their belongings. We walked into a room and saw thousands of tons of human hair in a case and I lost it.  In the same building we saw thousands of shoes, eye glasses, clothes and much more.  We also saw little children's clothes and their toys.  There were also hundreds of suitcases with each persons name and year they were born written on the outside.  Our tour guide pointed out a little boy named Peter's suitcase who was just three years old when he entered the camp.  In Auschwitz 1 we also saw the ovens and the empty cans of gas they used in the chambers.  We then drove to Auschwitz-Birkenau which is 25 times bigger than Auschwitz 1.  We were able to walk up to the top of the famous German watch tower which straddles the railroad tracks where everyone entered.  We then walked through that camp where they sorted the Jews based on who could work and who couldn't.  There we also saw what remained of the original crematoriums and the barracks there as well.  The whole tour was extremely surreal and like our tour guide told us many times, it is impossible for us to even try to imagine what it was like to live there.  It was definitely a place that made me appreciate everything even more in my life.  We had been complaining during the trip we were freezing when we had seven layers of clothing on and food in our stomachs, and to think that they had to live there with one shirt.  I feel so extremely fortunate that I had the opportunity to see Auschwitz in real life.  I've learned about the Holocaust my entire life and have visited many Holocaust museums, but actually standing where they all suffered was a completely different experience that I will never ever forget.  After that tour was done, we went to the Wieliczka salt mines.  They had been recommended to us but I had no idea what to expect of them.  We took hundreds of steps down below ground and were about 150 meters below ground level.  There were many carvings and sculptures and Chapels below the ground and we even licked the salty walls there! The whole thing was extremely pretty and I'm really glad we went!  That night, we explored more and packed up to head home!  We began our journey back to Spain at 6am and didn't get home until almost midnight!  There was a lot of snow in London and as they do not know how to react to snow there, we had a 2 1/2 hour delay and almost missed our connecting flight!  After an amazing week of traveling and broadening my horizons even more, it felt SO amazing to be back in warm Granada.  It's crazy how it used to be out of our comfort zone here, but after traveling to other countries, I realized that Granada is my comfort zone now :)  It feels so amazing to be back in the Spanish sun and living with my host family again!  Leaving here for just a week made me realize how much I am in love with this city! :) 

       Monday was the first day of our semester!  I am taking grammar, traditional music, oral & written production, Spanish literature in the 20th century, and Civilization and Culture of Hispanoamerica.  Some of my classes seem pretty easy and some seem quite overwhelming.  As I have already learned in the month I have been in Spain, it just takes some time to be able to understand each person's accent.  Some of my professors talk a mile a minute but it will definitely be good practice!  That is all I have for now! Still missing everyone from home a lot but I am loving this beautiful city :)  Love and miss you all :)