Bite the Hair of the Dog that Bit You

"Showers are never mandatory"

Next on the list of travels is Poland. Pretty much all of us from the group went to Krakow this weekend with ESN. It was actually kind of nice for a change to not have to worry about planning out a trip. We took 2 buses to Poland and since it was an ESN trip, spent most of the time out at night and moving very very slow in the morning. Oh and I'll explain the shower thing later...

The trip started out with a bang. As all of us are getting ready in the morning I decide to go and make sure Claudia is awake (her and I hungout with the Italians the night before and she went out with them after the pre-game). I get to Claudia's room and she is fast asleep and her alarm is blaring. I shake her awake and tell her to get up. Right before we're all about ready to walk to the buses I go and check on Claudia again. She's still asleep! So I get her up, she throws a bunch of stuff in a backpack, and we run to the bus.

The group for the weekend

Claudia, Kane, and I were all on a different bus then the rest of the group, which was actually kind of nice. I've gotten so used to being around everyone in the group that I don't feel like I'm branching off enough meeting other people. Also Tamoi was on our bus and Steffi from the Lake Trip, so it was nice to hangout with them again. The bus ride to Poland was pretty uneventful, Claudia and I spent most of the trip sleeping. We actually forgot our passports, but luckily we were never checked going over the boarder... That would've been quite a story.

First on our weekend agenda was the Salt Mines. We were to tour the mines and finish with a dinner in the mines. Well we ended up only getting to eat dinner, because ESN is so damn slow! Honestly I was pretty salty about missing the tour (see what I did there?!), but I was so hungry that just eating dinner was good enough for us. Next on the agenda was getting to our hostel, getting ready, and going out on a pubcrawl. So we get to Krakow and of course the leaders on our bus don't know how to get to the hostel from where we were dropped off....

Kane, Claudia, Steffi, and I decide to start the night off, while the leaders are figuring out where to go. We break out the vodka and sprite and start taking some swigs, I mean we were in Poland after all. Finally we reach the hostel, throw our stuff in our room, fix ourselves and are herded downstairs to start the pubcrawl. This is when the night gets blurry. Up until this point on the trip I have been pretty good when going out, but for some reason Poland brought out the sloppy side of me.

The pub was a lot of fun; lots of dancing and there were TV screens all over the bar showing the dance floor... By the time we got back to the hostel all of us just passed out. The morning was kind of a struggle and Kane and I decided to just steal the pitchers of water from the downstairs kitchen area because we just really needed to re-hydrate. On the agenda for today was a tour of Auschwitz, tour of the old city part of Krakow, and a tram-party at night.

 
The tour of Auschwitz made the day very very indescribable. The Holocaust is something that all of us have learned about since the fourth grade. It was such a strange feeling to actually be walking around the camp and seeing the place where so many people were murdered. I have always found learning about WWII very interesting so this tour was very emotional for myself and I found it to be a very somber day.

We then spent the rest of the day touring around the city of Krakow, eating dinner with the group, and ultimately getting ready for the tram-party. The tram-party was honestly probably the highlight of the trip. About 100 college age international kids all party on a moving tram in Poland?! I mean who does stuff like this?! The tram-party was absolutely nuts. There was so many of us on the tram that falling over really wasn't a problem, the only problem was having bathroom breaks. But the last stop on the tram dropped us off at a pub and that was fun too. At the pub I ran into Steve who told me to come meet some of his friends. He drops me off with a bunch of British guys having a stag party in exchange for getting alcohol from them -_- such a Steve move.

Everyone was super tired the next morning and we packed our stuff up to head over to Zakopane and then go home. Zakopane was my favorite part of the trip. It was such a cute little Polish town that has a beautiful mountain range. It really reminded me of Door County with how quaint it was. The best part of stopping in Zakopane was the food we got for lunch. Finally we got some authentic Polish food and the best damn cheese I've ever had. Oh and to just explain the whole showers are never mandatory thing... For this weekend Therese never had enough time to shower and kind of looked like a bum for the trip. She even tried to go into a church with ripped tights on to get holy water for her grandma and aunt... Silly girlie, but with that being said showers rarely happen on these trips we've been going on

As we headed home on the bus I was happy to be having a week in Budapest for a change. After this weekend I definitely need a break from traveling for a bit. Next on the list is Ireland and I cannot tell you how excited I am for this trip!!! :) Until next time--- Szia!!