Krakow

When I arrived in Krakow after a somewhat complicated bus ride, I was dead-set on having a quiet night of reading at the hostel.  Leave it to a bit of Krakow spirit and a lively group of Australians, one of whom was celebrating a birthday, to change those kinds of plans.  I had only been in Krakow a few hours when I found myself in the midst of a circle of my fellow hostellers, with the girl who had checked me in bringing everyone a round of drinks.  A couple of hours later, I was in a Krakow nightclub called Prozac (not even kidding), being instructed on how to salsa dance by an Argentinian.

Needless to say, it was a late night, and I must admit that I struggled to wake up for my eleven o’clock tour of the city.  But I soldiered on and spent the day visiting the Town Square, the Wawel Royal Castle, & the Jewish Quarter.  I also managed to squeeze in a lunch of pierogi, or Polish dumplings, which are ridiculously delicious and became the only thing I wanted to eat for the rest of my stay in Poland.  After such a full day, I stuck to my guns and stayed in that night, trying to prepare myself for the next day’s visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

The visit was a really difficult experience, but a really valuable one (more about that to come later…an experience like that definitely deserves an entire post).  It was a very strange, even guilt-inducing experience to spend a part of my time in Krakow at a bar, dancing with my fellow hostellers, and another part of my time making that haunting visit to Auschwitz.  But after thinking about it for a while, I decided that one of the many things we can learn from such a visit is that we would be insane to not appreciate and really live each day of freedom that we have.  If that involves having a good time with a group of people who come from all over the world, peacefully enjoying their company despite differences in nationality, age, and culture, then that’s all the better.

So, on that note, I spent my last night in Krakow dining and dancing with my hostel friends.  I was sad to leave the next day, not only ending my wonderful experiences in Krakow, but also my trip as a whole.  Fortunately, I was able to return to France with the happy knowledge that it had been a completely incredible trip.  On one hand, my thirteen days of travel flew by quickly.  On the other hand, I felt like I had been gone for weeks, judging by the amount of places I saw, the number of amazing people I got to know, and the bit of wisdom I think I gained.  If that doesn’t make for a perfect trip, I don’t know what does.