Got to Krakow, did a cycling tour – ratio of 30 cyclists to 1 guide. It wasn’t a case of “if” we lost the guide, it was “when”. So when we lost the guide, we sat in a square and I amused myself by learning turn-vaults underbars, which is a Polish alcoholic beverage consisting of 1 oz Polish vodka, ½ oz dry vermouth, 1 tsp triple sec and 1oz grapefruit juice shaken with broken ice and garnished with a slice of orange. An old hobo wandering through the bus station where we were sitting decided to try climbing the railings but in slow-motion, got stuck with 1 leg on one side and 1 leg on the other side and spent 10 minutes trying to figure out which direction his leg should go. He then started serenading the girls and we all got the heck out of there.

We cycled back along the river, into the old Jewish neighborhood, past the synagogue and parked in front of Schindler’s factory which is currently abandoned, boarded up and in the process of being turned into a museum. At some point we visited salt mines, ate lots of very salty meat and watched the Euro Cup in a Polish Square.

Another coach ride later and we arrived in Zakopane the mountainside resort area and the bastion of 1980s fashion. Polish men with waistbands up to their chests, blond mullets, white singlets exposing proud bared chests and pale muscular arms as a gun show for all and sundry to view.

The group split up – we did the forest walk that almost became a 2 day walk when we took the wrong fork up the mountain. Eventually we found the waterfall that was magical in the sense that when photographed, magically became bigger than what it looked like in real life. A few hours later I tried out tree-walking Polish style – a series of steel ropes, logs and flying foxes between trees. With the safety harness cutting off circulation to my legs and crotch, I worked out before getting on that falling off would take more energy to get back on and decided not to fall off (I didn’t). I did however provide a funny video clip when tree logs started not to swing my way and I started diving across the logs. Most of the soundtrack of the video clip has the sounds of my filmer laughing her ass off at me from the safety of the ground.

While we were traipsing through and above trees, the others had taken the ski lift to the top of the mountain and in true Australian style had to traverse across snow-filled valleys in their flip-flops thus reinforcing the legend of Hawaiianas as multi-terrain footwear for Australians.

There was one main entertainment street in Zakopane, a cacophony of flashing lights, postcards, kebabs and a 6 foot tall fibre-glass ice cream cone that all the girls insisted putting their tongues to. After dinner at a dark wooden lodge with Gothic fire place and thick slabs of over-salted steaks with potato on the side, we wandered about – eventually coming to a mechanized bronco bull across a fibre-glass timber bridge. Will leave that to your imagination..

Later,
Shi

Ah beautiful prague..the town for lovers, couples and newlyweds. Too bad I was none of that. So I held my own hand and strolled myself lovingly down to the Old Town Square, the Old Astronomical Clock, Charles Bridge and climbed solo to the top of Prague Castle.

It was probably the most romantic time I’ve spent with myself :p And Prague was really pretty.

Which in hindsight, being alone was good because I then spent the next 13 days on a coach with 26 Australians, 1 Canadian (with voice volume control problems), 1 Singaporean & 1 Nepalese, sharing 12-room dorms. Ah, the beautiful silence of earplugs and the ipod.

We headed off to Olomuoc (Poland), stopped at the Bone Church (us and a long queue of korean, german and scandinavian tourists), intimidated the locals with our numbers (insta-crowd) and got lost..again. There also happened to be in our Polish hotel, 60 Singaporean schoolkids who happened to be there for singing championships. They treated us to the most beautiful singing in the evening air. And the next morning, there were 30 Busabout tourists and 60 singaporean schoolkids at the hotel breakfast buffet. Being Malaysian, I am familiar with facing Singaporeans at the buffet table so I woke up 30 minutes earlier than everyone else :p Here’s a tip, when dealing with Singaporeans at a buffet table (or a sale, queue or registration for colleges) – duck, dodge, hide and evade! No, I’m not being racist, this typically Singaporean behaviour is defined as “kiasu”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiasu

Next stop – Auschwitz. Auschwitz (German concentration camp) was really powerful. They had exhibits of all the shoes, spectacles and suitcases collected and even the hair the Nazis harvested from the women to make sacks and clothing. We walked through the infamous shower chambers, the cells and the shooting wall. It was really powerful and it’s worth going there to remember what happenned. There is Auschwitz I & Auschwitz II (Birkenau) that is still empty now. We walked through the Death Gate and saw the railway line. Still makes me think now and I am really honoured to have been able to visit the place.

Photos of Auschwitz. I didn’t take any photos of the exhibits, inside the buildings or at the shooting wall out of respect. And the coach almost left me at auschwitz (long story) and the next day dropped us off on a parking lot next to a dumpster and told us it was a picnic spot. To be fair, there was a view of the mountains – behind the dumpster…if you stood on top of the cars. On your toes.

Then we spent 30 minutes driving through Slovakia…

Anyway that’s it for this email.. will send the rest later

Shi

]]> http://misstraveler.com/postcards/romance-buffet-tables-german-concentration-camps/feed/ 0