18th Birthday and Poland!

Written previously:

"I cannot believe we’ve arrived at this point so quickly! But yes, it’s true, I’m officially a legal adult now (according to U.S. legislation). You know how people always ask you if you feel any older on your birthday? Usually the answer is no, but for some reason this time I actually do feel much older. Maybe it’s because I’ve matured so much in the past month due to the fact that I moved to Europe…

Anyhow the birthday celebration was a lovely success! I received many sweet gifts of chocolates and cards from my new friends at NJC, including a legitimate Egyptian pouch with Egyptian coins inside from my friend Ali (who is from Egypt!!??) and well as a special gift from my Mom (who I miss a lot). After the school day I came home with five friends: Chloe, Adrienne, Brianna, Ellis and Jennie. My madame had an adorable celebration set up for me. we enjoyed some thin wafers and champagne in the living room before having a dinner of crêpes at her decorated dining table! She has this little crêpe machine that sits in the center of the table! I did the honors of pouring the batter into each little concave crêpe pan, and let me tell you we ate a lot of mini crêpes with ham, cheese and Ovomaltine that night.

Side note: I babysat for one of my teacher’s children and they were adorableeeeeee!!! Look at the little boy— 

The next day, I flew with some of my classmates and teachers to Poland! We’ve been staying at the Atrium hotel in Krakow for the past couple of days (it’s Sunday October 11th as I’m typing this). So much has happened on this trip, it’ll be hard to fit it all concisely into a blog post."

^I wrote that post about a week ago! Now, let me tell you about my Poland experience...

Day 1: We flew in, brought all of our stuff to the hotel, and took a walking tour of Krakow. We were introduced to the square, the Warsaw Castle, and a little pierogi stand (pierogi's would become a daily thing over the course of the trip). That night we had a Jewish-style dinner in the Jewish quarter!

one of the pierogi boys playing songs for us on his accordion while the other handed out samples

part of the central square

Copernicus — one of the students who attended the university in Krakow!

Little dancing men that come out when the clock strikes on the hour!

Inside one of the courtyards of the Warwick castle

Dinner in the Jewish quarter!

Day 2: My cold started to get awful on this day. Regardless, I still forced myself to toughen up and enjoy the trip! On this day, we did a walking tour of the famous Wieliczka salt mine! There was a beautiful chapel on the inside that had taken 68 years for three men to carve!! What I thought was really interesting was that almost the entire salt mine had been dug out by hand—they only used one explosion. And the mine is huge: 1,073 ft deep and 178 mi across. Another weird fact is that they kept horses down there to work the machinery. Horses would walk in a circle, pulling a wheel that drew salt out of the mine in buckets. Everything down in the mine was made of salt—walls, statues, everything! We even got to lick the walls to taste the rock salt and cauliflower salt. It was an interesting and weird tour, but I'm glad I went.

(not my photo) the beautiful salt mine chapel.

Day 3: Auschwitz. This was a very difficult day. I'm not sure that I can properly address it in a short blog post, but the gravity of what happened there affected me and all of my classmates. I know that my memories of that place will stay with me forever. It was honestly very difficult for me to process what went on at the Nazi concentration camps, because it's just so terrible that I cannot wrap my head around it. Some of my friends cried, but most were just silent and in awe. I'm very grateful that I got to visit such a place in my lifetime. I've learned about it so much, because it was such a horrific and important part of the history of the human race, and so I feel like now the history has become a lot more tangible to me.

"work makes you free"

the sign you see upon entering the camp. utterly depressing.

model of the gas chambers

"After the selection process on the railway platform those who were to be murdered in the has chambers were assured that they were going to take a shower. Fake shower heads were fixed to the ceiling of the gas chambers. Beaten and intimidated by SS dogs, 2,000 victims were crammed into the chamber, an area of approximately 210m^2. The chamber door was locked and the Zyklon B was poured in. The bodies were stripped of gold teeth and jewelry, their hair was cut off, then bodies were burnt in the crematorium. Victims' personal documents were destroyed."

Seeing the hair of thousands on victims in a room on display absolutely horrified me.

leftover used Zyklon B canisters from the gas chambers.

Some of the Jewish people's suitcases. There were hundreds in this one display. It's insane to think that the Jews had no idea they were going to a concentration camp. They had simply packed what they were told and didn't know what to expect.

An important message at the Birkenau site: "Forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz - Birkenau 1940-1945."

That evening, we felt it would be wrong to go out and party. We were too solemn. Instead, we decided to enjoy some Polish art at a museum in the town square. I really enjoyed this museum (it might've been my favorite part of the trip!) It was at this place that I decided I love art. I'm totally going to go to art museums at every place I travel to.

Brianna and me observing this beautiful painting! 

statue of Napoleon, done by Michalowski

also from the romanticism period: "Blue Hussars"

"Avignon" by Kwiatkowski

 "A Motif of Wittelsbach Square in Munich" by Aleksander Gierymski

"A Street in Paris" by Ludwik de Laveaux

Other things we did that I cannot remember which days we did them on:

Chloe and me in front of the museum in the central plaza at night! 

Ellis and Brianna playing Polish scrabble at a café in the back of Karmello chocolatier 

My thick European drinking chocolate from Karmello (apple cinnamon flavor) 

The remnants of the wall that blocked off the Jewish Getto from the rest of Poland

"Plac Bohaterow Getta square" a.k.a. the Ghetto Heroes Square

Polish donuts! Filled with cream 

A little soup bowl from dinner on one of the nights! 

Ellis and me at Pierogarnia - a delicious traditional pierogi place!

Some pictures from the "wartime in Poland" museum we visited, which is located inside of Schindler's actual factory in the Jewish quarter!

I forgot to take pics of my pierogis :( We ate them pretty much every night for dinner.

Day 4: Yes, that's right, there was a day four!!! Was there supposed to be a day four? NO! But what happened, you may ask? Our flight got cancelled because of a little bit of snow!! So we got to stay another night in an excellent hotel! Not so bad, except that I badly wanted to be back in Neuchatel so I could recover from my terrible cold. Oh well.

Selfie from my first snow of this school year :)

That concludes my thoughts on the Krakow trip! 

COMING SOON: My Berne weekend trip! Stay tuned!