Trip ramblings
I could ramble on for 400 years about my trip, so I'll try not to go overboard with the details. The pictures were slowing down the page like crazy, so if you wanna see any, I put some in a PowerPoint (lol) here: http://www.mediafire.com/?zwzydnyi3nz
Left at about 9am with my aunt and uncle and headed for London (2 hrs) where their son goes to university. After he packed, we drove another 2 hours to Toronto, hung around the airport, then boarded the plane. 8.5 hours later we landed in Vienna, Austria. Drove through Austria and into Slovakia. And yet another 2 hours later were in Trenčín, Slovakia where my cousin teaches English.
We went to her *tiny* apartment (which apparently would have housed up to 9 people during Communism) and ordered pizza. This was our first experience with the language barrier: she asked for pizza just with cheese and we literally had bread and cheese. No sauce lol. There's really not much to do there, especially as a tourist. The hockey player Marion Gaborik built a hockey arena which he gave to the city for people to train at or play. You can go upstairs to the bar/restaurant and watch. We got to meet Julia, who owns a restaurant my cousin frequents. She was very nice and always talked to me in German (lots of people there can speak (or speak some) German). There's a really nice, really old castle there, too. We never actually got to go into it, but we walked up as far as we could and climb up near a wall. There's a museum in the hotel next to it where you can see where the Romans carved into the cliff it sits on. Very cool. We also sat in during her class one day. The students were doing really well.
The second day we went to Trenčianske Teplice, not far from the city. It's a small little town where we went for lunch with my cousin's bosses, another teacher and another teacher, his wife and daughter. I had a delicious lunch and this equally good hazelnut wafer thing for dessert. It's a pretty little town; I think most people go there for the spa(s?) it has. They had a sulfur pool where you could swim outside lol.
We spent two days in Poland in the middle of the week and it was fucking. amazing. I want to go back this instant. We drove through Slovakia and a bit through the Czech Republic (yikes, it was cruddy!) and then finally to Poland. It was about 4 hours. We first went to Oświęcim, which was a little tough to get to. The GPS took us through these tiny roads instead of a highway. The GPS was so funny trying to say street names; she'd turn a 5 letter name into like a sentence. My aunt and uncle would laugh everytime and my cousin Kyle got mad (my cousin Brodie couldn't get time off to come. The GPS did this later in Slovakia and Brodie started laughing and my aunt was like, "No! Don't laugh! Kyle doesn't like that! lol). Polish people shovel their roofs. Just a fact.
All we did there was go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. Being the huge history nerd I am and being really interested in WWII, I wanted to see them. We ended up taking a tour not to miss anything and they said it was extra busy that day. It starts with a 15 min video and then you follow a guide through Auschwitz and then bus over to Birkenau. It's weird having see them, but I didn't get emotional or anything. I mean, it's not something any of us can even begin to imagine. The standing cells got to me a little bit (not sure why those and not like the gas chambers, or something), but I think if it was less busy and you could really take your time to go through, rather than spend like 5 seconds looking at everything, it would probably get to you. They take you through the blocks the Auschwitz and you can see where the prisoners slept and through-ish a gas chamber and a re-constructed crematorium area. You can also see all the hair, suitcases, baby clothes, shoes, etc that they kept. Most a Birkenau had to be rebuilt and a lot was closed because of the snow, but the latrines in one of the barracks were real and there was the collapsed gas chambers and you could walk along the railroad tracks and up into the watchtower. It was quite an experience.
The majority of the two days we were in Kraków. The city is gorgeous and has a ton of old buildings, churches and castles because it wasn't bombed during WWII. They have an amazing mall there, which reminded me of being in New York. We went up to Wawel Castle, which acted as a home for the Nazi Hans Frank during the war. There's an amazing view of the city from there. We saw some amazing old churches, including one that is almost 1000 years old. We could not find any good pierogies though. I thought I was going come back like 500 pounds from all the pierogies I was going to eat, but they all had cottage cheese in them. My grandma's are way better. We just did a lot of walking around the city, hanging out in restaurants and the like, but it was so much fun.
Back in Slovakia we went to Levoča. Everyone warned us about the gypsies (or Roma, wtvr) and they certainly were there, but they didn't do anything lol. It was basically a ghost town by 6 o'clock. We were the only people on the streets. We only stayed there one night, thankfully. There's an old wooden altar in one of the churches there, but they're restoring it, so there was scaffolding around it and you could basrely see it. We also went to Uloža where my uncle's great, great grandfather (or something) is from (my aunt and uncle aren't actually related, just friends of the family). That was an experience just trying to get there. It's a secluded village on a hill. People live in these crummy little houses and we had to go through the cemetery looking for graves with their last names lol. There was a freaking UPS truck driving though there! Crazy stuff. We went to Závada, another small town where we did basically the same thing.
Then we had to leave; we said goodbye to Brodie and headed back to Austria. The GPS didn't recognize Vienna Airport as a location (we even tried Wien Airport and Wien Flughafen). We got there okay though, hung around for a bit and then flew to Frankfurt, Germany. Everyone says how terrible the airport is there, partially because they don't bother putting gate numbers up and the signs are pretty bad/confusing. When the plane landed, we had to be bused to the terminal areas. That was something new. From there, we flew back to Toronto. I slept and watched a few movies; didn't seem as long this time. Landed and drove to London and then back to Windsor.
Yes, that is all.
Left at about 9am with my aunt and uncle and headed for London (2 hrs) where their son goes to university. After he packed, we drove another 2 hours to Toronto, hung around the airport, then boarded the plane. 8.5 hours later we landed in Vienna, Austria. Drove through Austria and into Slovakia. And yet another 2 hours later were in Trenčín, Slovakia where my cousin teaches English.
We went to her *tiny* apartment (which apparently would have housed up to 9 people during Communism) and ordered pizza. This was our first experience with the language barrier: she asked for pizza just with cheese and we literally had bread and cheese. No sauce lol. There's really not much to do there, especially as a tourist. The hockey player Marion Gaborik built a hockey arena which he gave to the city for people to train at or play. You can go upstairs to the bar/restaurant and watch. We got to meet Julia, who owns a restaurant my cousin frequents. She was very nice and always talked to me in German (lots of people there can speak (or speak some) German). There's a really nice, really old castle there, too. We never actually got to go into it, but we walked up as far as we could and climb up near a wall. There's a museum in the hotel next to it where you can see where the Romans carved into the cliff it sits on. Very cool. We also sat in during her class one day. The students were doing really well.
The second day we went to Trenčianske Teplice, not far from the city. It's a small little town where we went for lunch with my cousin's bosses, another teacher and another teacher, his wife and daughter. I had a delicious lunch and this equally good hazelnut wafer thing for dessert. It's a pretty little town; I think most people go there for the spa(s?) it has. They had a sulfur pool where you could swim outside lol.
We spent two days in Poland in the middle of the week and it was fucking. amazing. I want to go back this instant. We drove through Slovakia and a bit through the Czech Republic (yikes, it was cruddy!) and then finally to Poland. It was about 4 hours. We first went to Oświęcim, which was a little tough to get to. The GPS took us through these tiny roads instead of a highway. The GPS was so funny trying to say street names; she'd turn a 5 letter name into like a sentence. My aunt and uncle would laugh everytime and my cousin Kyle got mad (my cousin Brodie couldn't get time off to come. The GPS did this later in Slovakia and Brodie started laughing and my aunt was like, "No! Don't laugh! Kyle doesn't like that! lol). Polish people shovel their roofs. Just a fact.
All we did there was go to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. Being the huge history nerd I am and being really interested in WWII, I wanted to see them. We ended up taking a tour not to miss anything and they said it was extra busy that day. It starts with a 15 min video and then you follow a guide through Auschwitz and then bus over to Birkenau. It's weird having see them, but I didn't get emotional or anything. I mean, it's not something any of us can even begin to imagine. The standing cells got to me a little bit (not sure why those and not like the gas chambers, or something), but I think if it was less busy and you could really take your time to go through, rather than spend like 5 seconds looking at everything, it would probably get to you. They take you through the blocks the Auschwitz and you can see where the prisoners slept and through-ish a gas chamber and a re-constructed crematorium area. You can also see all the hair, suitcases, baby clothes, shoes, etc that they kept. Most a Birkenau had to be rebuilt and a lot was closed because of the snow, but the latrines in one of the barracks were real and there was the collapsed gas chambers and you could walk along the railroad tracks and up into the watchtower. It was quite an experience.
The majority of the two days we were in Kraków. The city is gorgeous and has a ton of old buildings, churches and castles because it wasn't bombed during WWII. They have an amazing mall there, which reminded me of being in New York. We went up to Wawel Castle, which acted as a home for the Nazi Hans Frank during the war. There's an amazing view of the city from there. We saw some amazing old churches, including one that is almost 1000 years old. We could not find any good pierogies though. I thought I was going come back like 500 pounds from all the pierogies I was going to eat, but they all had cottage cheese in them. My grandma's are way better. We just did a lot of walking around the city, hanging out in restaurants and the like, but it was so much fun.
Back in Slovakia we went to Levoča. Everyone warned us about the gypsies (or Roma, wtvr) and they certainly were there, but they didn't do anything lol. It was basically a ghost town by 6 o'clock. We were the only people on the streets. We only stayed there one night, thankfully. There's an old wooden altar in one of the churches there, but they're restoring it, so there was scaffolding around it and you could basrely see it. We also went to Uloža where my uncle's great, great grandfather (or something) is from (my aunt and uncle aren't actually related, just friends of the family). That was an experience just trying to get there. It's a secluded village on a hill. People live in these crummy little houses and we had to go through the cemetery looking for graves with their last names lol. There was a freaking UPS truck driving though there! Crazy stuff. We went to Závada, another small town where we did basically the same thing.
Then we had to leave; we said goodbye to Brodie and headed back to Austria. The GPS didn't recognize Vienna Airport as a location (we even tried Wien Airport and Wien Flughafen). We got there okay though, hung around for a bit and then flew to Frankfurt, Germany. Everyone says how terrible the airport is there, partially because they don't bother putting gate numbers up and the signs are pretty bad/confusing. When the plane landed, we had to be bused to the terminal areas. That was something new. From there, we flew back to Toronto. I slept and watched a few movies; didn't seem as long this time. Landed and drove to London and then back to Windsor.
Yes, that is all.