Poland and the Czech Republic

Day 1 – Krakow, Poland – September 20

It took 11 hours, but we survived the night train and arrived at 6:30 AM.  We even managed exit with all or our belongings in our possession. We didn’t sleep too much, rolling around in our bunks, and poor Ryan was too tall and couldn’t lay flat. We stepped out into the comparatively frigid 45-degree air; looks like we’re going to be cold our last month in Europe, as we really only brought summer clothes. Being so early in the morning, there weren’t any lines to the ticket counter, so we booked our overnight train to Prague a few days from now and paid the extra 20 for a private two-person couch. We couldn’t drop our bags off at the hostel until 8, so we needed to kill some time.

Too tired to sort out the public transportation we walked 15 minutes to what Elizabeth thought was a café. Instead we found a dingy bar filled with smoke and people drinking beer, looking like they’ve been up all night.  There was one guy drinking espresso though, so I guess it can call itself a café. Ryan found us a proper café called Lajkonik, a chain equivalent to a Panera. We drank coffee and ate pastries until we could drop our bags off. Check-in wasn’t officially until 2 PM, but at least we were able to leave our backpacks.

The downside to being flexible and going where the wind takes us, is that we aren’t able to plan in advance for tourist attractions and tickets.  We were worried about being able to visit the Oskar Schindler Factory, now turned into a museum, and Auschwitz.  Ryan suggested we hop on the tram, it was almost 9 AM when the factory museum would open, and see if we could get tickets there. Luckily since we got there right as they opened, we were able to buy tickets and see the museum before it got too crowded.  Prior to walking inside though, we had to help a local woman assist to an elderly American woman who had apparently fainted.  The Polish woman yelled at us from down the street to come help her, then she had us call 112 on Elizabeth’s phone to get an ambulance.  The woman began regaining her wits, she appeared to just be dehydrated, and a man in a van pulled up, ostensibly her tour driver, and began helping as well.  We left her in their capable hands and walked through the museum doors.  

The museum covers the German occupation of Poland and walks you through the years prior to the invasion, during the invasion, life under Nazi occupation, and then touched on Soviet rule.  We walked through three floors of exhibits and learned so much about the timing of WWII and how horrifically Poland was abused for so many years. We talked about how much different the focus of teaching WWII history is in America, and how it didn’t basically didn’t cover any of the details we were learning in this museum. The middle of the museum preserved Oskar Schindler’s office and described how he was able to save so many Jews. We spent probably 2 hours reading about the atrocities Nazis committed, not only to the Jews, but to ordinary Polish civilians.

Next it was time to eat lunch, and Ryan led us to Galicja Po Kolei so we could get traditional polish food. We split a carafe of house red wine, surprisingly good, and ate boiled, mixed pierogis and a pork chop covered in mushroom gravy with potato cakes. We learned that Poland is the leading exporter of mushrooms and were happy to find them in a bunch of dishes. We were unpleasantly surprised to find out that Polish people love dill and they put it in everything. After we finished eating, the waitress brought us a shot on the house of their coffee vodka – which Ryan loved.

After lunch we headed to the Eagle Pharmacy. This pharmacy was the only non-Jewish business allowed to remain in the relocated Jewish ghetto. The pharmacist here would help smuggle messages to the outside world. The pharmacy is now an interactive museum where you open drawers and cabinets to see old pharmacy tools and answer telephones to hear accounts of people living in the ghetto. Both museums were fairly small but very well done and worth the visit.  

Finally, it was time to check in, so we headed back to our hostel and moved our bags into our bunk bed storage. We were still in our train pajamas so decided to shower and put on warmer clothes before setting out to explore the town. We found an open market selling beer, souvenirs, and food. We lamented how these sorts of marketplaces seemed to be nonexistent in the States.  Probably something to do with liquor laws.  We wandered over to the Cloth Hall, an old building that has a lot of shops and the square is surrounded by restaurants. The square is gorgeous and the cathedral, St. Mary’s Basilica, stands out in the middle.

We were feeling thirsty so we headed to a bar to drink with the other locals and stag parties for cheap. Each beer was roughly a dollar for a half liter so we spent a lot of time here! We couldn’t help ourselves and found some Indian food for dinner at India Masala. This restaurant was bang on good curry. Some of the best we’ve ever had!  Or maybe we were just drunk.  There’s no way to know. We may have accidently gorged ourselves on bread, curry, and more beer but it was worth it. We headed back to our hostel a little early from barely sleeping the night before and were reminded how unpleasant it is to sleep with 6 other people.

Day 2 – Krakow, Poland – September 21

We got up the next morning and went for a walk around the green belt that surrounds the old city. It’s approximately 2.5 miles long and is just one giant circle of a park. We next headed to an indoor rock-climbing gym on the far end of town called Avatar. On the way we stopped in a bakery near the tram stop to get fresh doughnuts and coffee.  Perfect climbing fuel.  Ryan got a sprinkle and Elizabeth got a coconut cream filled. We spent at least 2 hours climbing and being annoyed at the number of kid’s birthday parties that were running around.  The gym was actually really neat as it had a regular weight lifting, gymnastic area (including a foam pit to jump into), and a punch of great routes.  After getting a good workout in we headed back towards the city.

For a late lunch we walked down to the Jewish Quarter for an early dinner at a restaurant called Starka. Unfortunately, they are doing major construction on all the roads in this section so it wasn’t very pretty to look at.  We enjoyed an appetizer of more Russian pierogis, this time also getting dates wrapped in bacon. For the entrée we split simmered beef cheeks in a mushroom sauce on vegetables. Ryan enjoyed more Hungarian beer and Elizabeth some local wine. After we walked around the old town with all the other tourists looking for a place to have drinks. We decided to go back to the smoky 24-hour bar we walked into our first day at 6:30 am and were happy to find the doors open and a quiet crowd. We drank a few more beers before heading towards home.  There was a McDonalds right next to our house that had been haunting Ryan for days, so, with our wills weakened by booze, we broke down and headed inside. We got fries and burgers, Elizabeth’s covered in mushrooms, and the worst chocolate shake in our entire lives. We popped into a grocery store to get some snacks for the next morning. They had new Doritos flavors and we got Taco (7/10), Nacho (8/10), and Sweet Corn (8.5/10). We walked the block to our house and went to bed; we had an early morning start to tour Auschwitz-Birkenau the next morning.

Day 3 – Auschwitz-Birkenau – September 22

We had managed to find a last-minute English-speaking tour the day before and a van arrived outside our hostel at 5:50 am to pick us up. We proceeded to pick up 6 other passengers, all older Brits or Australian/New Zealanders, and crammed in for the hour-long drive to Auschwitz-Birkenau. We arrived just after 7 and our tour began at 7:30. It was quite chilly and a heavy fog had settled over the camp and surrounding fields. We spent those 30 minutes reading some of the plaques outside of the concentration camps. They were interviews done primarily in 2017 and 2018 of survivors living in New York, they are now 80-100 years old.

Finally, we were able to go through the metal detectors and get our audio guide headsets for the tour. We were combined with a few other small tours into a big group of about 30 people, led by a blonde Polish woman. We all wore headphones so we could hear her as she spoke into a microphone.  Auschwitz was actually made up of three camps: Auschwitz I (the main camp), Auschwitz II-Birkenau (the primary extermination/concentration camp), and Auschwitz III-Monowitz (the nearby rubber plant). The purpose of Auschwitz when first built was only as a detention center, it was not intended to for the mass murder of Jews.  That is not to say that a number of Polish prisoners were not murdered and tortured during this initial period, simply that the numbers of those exterminated paled in comparison to the violence to follow.  The main camp, Auschwitz I, was a repurposed military barracks used as an administration center and housing for the Polish prisoners.  The first gassing took place in 1941.

We walked through many of the old brick-built barracks. Our tour guide was careful to tell us that although the conditions in Auschwitz I were horrible, those in Auschwitz II-Birkenau were even worse because most of the barracks were made out of wood and situated in a swamp.  Going on a cold morning added a layer of realism to the experience.  Still not in the heart of winter while we were there, we got a glimpse of the brutal Polish winters that the prisoners would have to endure with little insulation and less clothing.  There are rows of barracks and several of them have been fully converted into museums displaying the history of all three camps.  The first one we walked through had pictures of life in the camp. The second showed living conditions. At first, they slept on the floor on hay, but that was too unsanitary so the Nazis eventually gave them bunk beds stacked three high. The bunks were smaller than twin beds and three people would share one bed. They had limited bathrooms and toilets. Another barrack showed left belongings. When the prisoners arrived, they were stripped of all of their personal belongings, which were then sorted and the best of them sent back to Germany. To give some idea of the number of prisoners sent to die at the camps, there were huge piles of shoes, hair brushes, pots and pans. It was horrible seeing the piles of children’s shoes.

Another horrific thing we learned was that they could sell women’s hair in Germany to be used in different fabric and weaving. They had a room full of women’s braids and ponytails that they’d removed before sending them to the gas chambers. When the camp was finally liberated, the Allies found large stockpiles of human hair being prepared for shipment, it doesn’t even include the hair they’d already sent away or the hair that was too short.

Next we went into the prison and hospital. This is where the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele did experiments on twins. We also learned about the horrible experiments they did to Jewish women to see how best to sterilize them. Next to the hospital was the prison. We walked in the basement and saw the different torture rooms the Nazi’s used on prisoners. There was a starvation room and a suffocation room where they only had a window the size of a postcard and they would stuff people in there to suffocate. It was in this prison basement that they first tried and succeeded using cyanide to kill a group of prisoners and paved the way for the gas chambers. In the upper floors they had pictures of different prisoners that were brought to Auschwitz. Under their picture you could see their date of birth, the date they arrived and the day they died. It was chilling to see dates that were less than a month.

We then walked over to a replica gas chamber. A week before Auschwitz was liberated, the Nazis blew up the gas chambers and tried to destroy all evidence of the atrocities. We went to the replica to learn about their architecture and function. They were built underground where Jews were ushered into a changing area to undress and were told they were going to shower after the long cattle car train ride to the camp. People were often given bars of soap or towels so they wouldn’t panic. They were crammed into a smaller room that looked like a shower then kicked and pushed in until no one else could fit; usually 700 to 2000 people were forced in at a time. Then they locked the door and dropped in cyanide pellets known as Zyklon-B from holes cut into the roof. In order for the pellets to vaporize they needed to get the ambient temperature above 28 degrees Celsius; this was achieved by using body heat and the natural insulation from being underground. After 20 minutes everyone inside was dead. A side door opened to reveal a crematorium; teams of Jews then had to search the dead bodies for jewelry and burn the bodies in the incinerators. The gas chamber in Auschwitz I was only temporarily used until larger ones were created in Auschwitz II.

The tour was roughly an hour and a half long.  Our description detailed above doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of what we learned there. We left Auschwitz I and drove 5 minutes to get to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Auschwitz II is where you see the historic photos of cattle cars arriving and humans being sorted into groups.  They were sorted into male and female groups, then sorted into whether they were fit to work, or simply fit to be sent to the gas chambers.  Those that were deemed fit to work were not being excluded form a death sentence, the Nazis were merely trying to wring the last bit of usefulness they could out of these poor souls.  Those deemed fit to work were intended to be worked to death by malnourishment and forced labor coupled with horrid sleeping conditions and inadequate clothing.  We were able to stand on the train tracks and see one of the cattle cars that was used to bring people in.

We walked to the that was built along the two destroyed gas chambers and in every language of the slaughtered people a plaque read “For ever 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 in Europe.” We ended by going into some of the wooden barracks and seeing the even colder and worse conditions that people suffered in.

It was an emotionally exhausting morning, trying to grasp how something like this could happen in the world. It was a powerful reminder of the evil men are capable of.  We strongly recommend that everyone pay a visit to the camps.  We were dropped back off at our hostel around 1 pm.

We decided to go to a craft beer bar/restaurant called House of Beer to have a couple pints and eat hot wings and French fries. The wings are not crispy like in the states, we think they boiled the chicken. The sauce was called Louisiana-style but it tasted more like a Cajun had described hot sauce to the chef, but never gave him an actual taste of it.  After some beers we walked over to Wodka, a vodka bar to get a tasting of their different flavors. We ordered a flight of six and tried to get another, so we could sample more flavors, but the bartender recommended against it.  We settled for just two extra.  After taking our first sips, we were so happy we hadn’t ordered 12; they were basically full proof shots.  We tasted raspberry, blackberry, apricot, honey, pear, chocolate, orange, and black currant. We took our time sipping liquor and occasionally chasing with water, but when we left an hour later, we were feeling pretty tipsy.

We wandered over to a 24-hour pierogi shop, needing to sop up some of our vodka and split mixed boiled pierogis and cold mushroom soup.  It was counter service, and as we were looking at the menu several old ladies kept cutting us in line.  We then wandered through the park and shared an apple cinnamon doughnut and phoned home to catch up with some of Ryan’s family members.  We stopped in a bar where a lone British man was watching the Liverpool vs. Chelsea soccer game.  The volume of outrage and excitement this man exhibited was frightening.  A group of older British people wandered in after a few minutes and promptly turned around after hearing his shouting.  One of the older women just said “Nope, nope, nope.  We’re going somewhere else.”  I’m sure she wasn’t thrilled about traveling halfway across Europe just to find a hooligan screaming at the TV.  She can get that at home.  Finally, after a long day it was time for bed.

Day 4 – Krakow, Poland – September 23

We packed up our stuff and threw it in the luggage storage before grabbing breakfast at a café called Gossip. We shared fluffy pancakes and each ate a fantastic panini to carb up for our long day of outdoor rock climbing. We met our guide, Damian, at a bus stop outside of the old town and he drove us to the Crags, about 40 minutes away. Damian was very funny and had just returned from vacation, so his English was rusty at the beginning. He is a full-time climbing instructor and Ryan looked envious as he told us about his schedule and job.

We arrived at the park and hiked in about a half mile to get to the exposed limestone cliffs. Damian started us on some easy routes where he made us do a climbing exercise of clipping the back of our shoes together using a quick draw, a small rope with two carabiners on each end, so we’d be forced to take small steps and work on our technical skills. The weather was in the 60s and wonderful while we climbed in the sun.

Next we moved to a tall spire with a chimney climb. You climb up one rock face then enter the “chimney” section, which is like climbing up the inside of a chimney using your back against one wall to push you up. You come out of the chimney on the spire and have to reach across to the next spire over open air to finish the climb. It was a fun climb and Ryan and I had to belay each other so Damian was giving us plenty of belaying tips.

Next it was time to learn to lead climb. All the climbing we’ve done so far has been top rope, where the rope is already at the top and someone holds it at the bottom. Lead climbing is when you put the rope into anchor points along the route. So if you fall, you fall down to your last anchor point. Elizabeth was a little apprehensive. We spent an hour learning how to clip and how to tie off at the top. Once you reach the top you have to attach yourself to the anchor then do a series of steps to untie your harness, feed it through the bolt on the top, and retie it to your harness so your partner can lower you down. Finally, it was time to lead and we did about 3 routes clipping ourselves in and making it to the top.

At this point it was about 4 pm and we’d been climbing for about 5 hours. Tired, we hiked a little further to do one last long climb, using almost all of the rope. The limestone was full of cobwebs but we both made it to the top without getting any bites or scrapes. He drove us back to the train station and said to contact him with any further climbing questions. We’d recommend him to anyone traveling in this area.

Day 5 – Prague, Czech Republic – September 24

We arrived in Prague around 7:30 am after getting a free mini breakfast of tea and bread with jams. We found the metro and headed to our hostel to drop off our bags near the old city. We found a nice café called Cafe Ebel to eat croissants and tea/coffee while we watched the city wake up and the shops open. Ryan woke up with his throat hurting so we went to a pharmacy where a nice lady helped us get some medicine for him.

We wandered around the old town popping in shops, walking along the river and the old town square. Around lunch time we found a restaurant called Kotleta where we got carrot and French onion soups and shared pork cheek with rice. Elizabeth drank her first Czech pilsner while Ryan stayed strong, just sipping tea to heal.  At noon we checked in and spent some time lounging in our beds getting caught up on planning and resting poor Ryan’s throat. We have a lot of alcohol to drink over the next week and we need him in tip top shape.

We wandered out for an early dinner walking across town to a pizzeria called Pizza Nuova. We figured it’d been long enough since leaving Naples, so we should get some Neapolitan pizza again. It wasn’t quite as good as Italy, but it was pretty damn close.  We sat outside in the chilly breeze as dark clouds rolled in. We shared a pizza and pasta (margherita and bucatini all’amatriciana) and drank our herbal teas under the blankets provided by the restaurant.

After eating, we wandered more around the city popping in shops and looking for another chimney cake for Ryan. They are originally from Hungary but popular here too. Prague is a gorgeous city and the world knows it; there are tourists everywhere. Finally, we found a cake, a little disappointing compared to Hungary, but still really good.  Then we headed to bed.

Day 6 – Prague, Czech Republic – September 25

We woke up and Ryan was feeling much better. We wandered around the old town square before going to brunch at a restaurant called Venue.  It had a modern vibe and excellent service.  Elizabeth ate chocolate oatmeal and a fancy coffee with a simple syrup-like sweetener served in these cute little bottles, while Ryan got chicken and waffles. He reports the waffle was dry but the chicken was perfectly cooked.  It came with a spicy chili sauce and side salad; not quite what he expected to be getting.  We went back to the same pharmacy to pick up some decongestion medicine before heading to a bar.

We settled on a brewery called Pivovar Staré Město for our first drink. We were the only ones in there and got a dark and light lager.  The owner/worker was very kind and taught us a few words in Czech. Ryan really liked the feeling of the place with its cozy, brick-lined walls and sleek large brew tanks behind the bar.  Great spot to spend a couple hours. When we needed a snack, we ordered the in-house pickled cheese. It was surprisingly delicious and served with bread.

Next we went to the Prague Beer Museum. They had over 30 beers on tap and a bunch of different flights. Elizabeth got the flight called “flavors” and consisted of ciders, fruit beer, etc. Ryan got the mix number one flight which consisted of several breweries’ trademark brews. We drank our beer and ate stale pretzels with the other tourists enjoying the beer artwork on the walls.

We’d worked up quite an appetite and settled for an early dinner at a traditional Czech restaurant called Krčma. The setting was really great, we walked down a flight of stairs from the sidewalk into an underground, candle-lit space with only a few small windows lining the wall to watch ankles walking by on the street above.  We stayed in the front, but the restaurant appeared to open into a labyrinth of rooms behind the bar.  Ryan got goulash and a hot mead, while Elizabeth had schnitzel and a mixed beer of dark and light lager.  After dinner, we decided to call it an early night; we have a lot of drinking in the days ahead and Ryan wasn’t feeling great.

Day 7 – Prague, Czech Republic – September 26

We woke up and headed across the river at 9 AM to the Prague castle area. After looking for a spot to eat breakfast we found a small café called Café Designum to have a light breakfast. Ryan had a piece of apple strudel and Elizabeth got chai pudding – her favorite from when she visited France.

We spent about an hour there then headed over to the castle. Much to Elizabeth’s dismay, the security lines were already super long so we decided to come back the next day earlier, though we did enjoy some wonderful views of the city.

We headed back down the hill towards the John Lennon wall. During communist times people would spray paint their grievances with the government here. Apparently, it started out with inspiring quotes from Lennon and the Beatles. Today there is new graffiti over the old, with calls to free Hong Kong and not so nice things to about Donald Trump.

We left the wall and walked along the river Vltava towards the Letna Park. Up along the edge of the river, overlooking the city is the Zahradní restaurace Letenský zámeček, a large beer garden and restaurant. We were there right as they opened at 11 am and claimed our picnic table with the best view. We spent a few hours grabbing beers from the kiosk, avoiding the falling buckeyes from the trees above, and enjoying the views. Eventually, getting hungry, we left the garden and popped on the tram to find some lunch in a different part of the city.

We settled on a burger joint called the Street Burger. Elizabeth got a quattro formaggi burger and Ryan the chili burger.  Both were good and cooked a perfect medium-rare.  It seems Ryan had passed his bug along; Elizabeth was starting to feel a tickle in her throat – thanks a lot.  So, we chugged some tea hoping to stop the sickness from spreading.

We wandered around the city for a while longer, window shopping and looking at all the artisan blown glass before taking another afternoon hostel break. Eventually we got hungry again and decided to investigate the Vietnamese scene. Apparently, there is a large Vietnamese population living in Prague and are well known for their Pho dishes. We settled on a place called Bistro Pho Viet Nam, the entrance was through a small convenience store so we’d knew it’d be good. We each got a Pho, hot soup, and some egg rolls. They had delicious mixed berry cider and Ryan got a regular beer. The whole meal cost us less than $15. We went home and fell asleep. We’ve been staying in a 7-person mixed room but the beds are comfortable and all of our “roommates” were great about coming and going quietly.

Day 8 – Prague, Czech Republic – September 27

We got up around 7 to arrive at the Prague Castle early. We were lazy this time and took the tram up the large hill. We arrived around 8:50 and joined the short line for the ticket office that opened at 9. We selected the circuit B ticket which granted us access to the Cathedral, old castle, Basilica, and golden row. We didn’t really know what any of this meant but knew we wanted to see in the gothic cathedral.

As we got to the ticket counter right as it opened, it wasn’t too crowded when we made our way inside St. Vitus Cathedral. The stained glass here is some of the most beautiful stained glass we’ve ever seen. We were able to wander all through the church, built in 1344, and enjoy the architecture. The downside were the loud and huge tour groups who needed to take a selfie in front of everything and pushed their way around.

Next we went to the old castle. A lot was being renovated but you could see the architecture and the throne room from the 1500’s. Again, we were up against large annoying tours and scurried through the area quickly. Next we went into the Basilica. Parts of this church date back to 900 and served as a cemetery for royalty. The Basilica is pretty small but they have a diagram to show when the mason work was done. It was interesting to think, while they were restoring parts of it, that they’ve been restoring it throughout history and we are restoring a restoration.

Our final stop was called Golden Row. We didn’t know until we arrived that it was just a street of gift shops. We popped around a few stops before leaving the castle and walking back down the road and across the river to find brunch. They say to give the castle at least 3 hours to see everything, we were in and out in an hour. It felt very crowded and this is now low tourist season, I can’t imagine what it would look like in the summer.

We went to brunch at a restaurant called Coffee & Waffles.  We made it just in time grabbing a number and waiting five minutes. We were seated right out front on the sidewalk. The line kept growing and a bunch of hungry and hungover people watched us eat our breakfasts. They had everything you could dream of, both sweet and savory, on waffles. The waffles were well cooked too, crisp on the outside soft on the inside. Ryan got an eggs benedict waffle with avocado and Elizabeth got a waffle with Dijon mustard – so much cheese, brussels sprouts, and bacon. We wandered around Prague enjoying the architecture, even stopping by the oldest astrological clock on our way home, built in 1410.

We headed back to the hostel to change into our climbing clothes and hit the gym. It was a 30-minute subway/bus ride to make it to Climbing Center SmichOff.  It was so cheap. For 3 hours we climbed with rented shoes, harness, rope, and belay device for $13 total. Now that we are able to lead climb, clip in as you go, we rented a rope and had access to a lot more routes. Elizabeth still gets pretty nervous being in charge of Ryan as he climbs, if he falls, he’d pull her off the ground a fair bit. But we managed without any problems. We spent some time in the bouldering room, going before we exhausted ourselves so we could try harder in the lower climbs.

Exhausted we trained back, stopping at the train station to make reservations for our 4-hour train the next day from Prague to Berlin. Thank goodness we did because the train looked full and if you don’t have a reservation you can still ride with your Eurail but you have to stand. On the walk back to our hostel we found a small outdoor beer, food and craft area. We drank beer and wine while snacking on fresh potato chips, like you’d find in a state fair, and a chimney cake with Nutella on the inside. It was so good.

We showered back at the hostel then found a sports store so Ryan could buy some expensive, but he says necessary, climbing equipment.  It’s an assisted belay device, meaning that if the climber falls, it locks up on its own.  Much safer.  We found a bar next door to grab a few beers and snacked on some pretzels that were on the table. We didn’t find out until paying our bill that the pretzels, already on the table, weren’t free. The principal was upsetting, but once we did the conversion and realized it was only going to cost a dollar, we realized we couldn’t really be too upset. But still who puts stuff on the table with no label if it’s not free?!

We forgot it was a Friday night and hadn’t made any dinner reservations. We tried a few Italian places but were turned away. Two doors down from our hostel was a fancy Chinese restaurant, full of Chinese tourists, so we gave it a try. We got beer, kung pao chicken, spicy garlic pork, and rice. The pork was super spicy and the kung pao was made with cucumber not zucchini, an interesting flavor we don’t need to have again. After stuffing ourselves we went back to the hostel and decided to check out the hostel bar. It’s located in the attic space and looked really cool with rope lights all over the low hanging rafters. We grabbed our $2 beers, excited to chill for a while. Unfortunately, the “bartender” and his friends began chain-smoking in the enclosed attic and we couldn’t stay after our beers. I’m excited to return to America just to get away from all the smokers dominating the outside, and apparently inside of places. We packed our bags and went to sleep ready to head to Germany the next day.

Day 9 – Prague, Czech Republic – September 28

We left the hostel at 9:30 to make our 10:30 train to Berlin. We had an over-priced, microwave breakfast at the station before the train arrived. Luckily, we made reservations the day before, because the train was an overfilled disaster. Apparently, they were having technical issues so the electronic numbers on the train cars didn’t match the printed number in the windows. We were lucky and found our car right away and kicked some German teens out of our reserved seats. A small family from Czech joined our car with two small adorable boys and we watched the frustration play out, outside our doors. People were not happy their seats were taken and the hallway was so full people were having trouble moving by. After about 45 minutes everything was sorted out. We were next to the bar car so we spent the 4 hours to Germany drinking beer and wine and relaxing.

Things we’ve learned in Poland and the Czech Republic:

1. Prague is cool, but not worth fighting the other tourists.
2. Auschwitz-Birkenau is something everyone should see to honor the memory of those who were lost.