poland, weezer and the wall, or whats left of it

we had one hellacious time getting to Krakow Poland. first off, it turned out that we couldn’t get to Krakow and back out to hamburg in time to see weezer unless we cut Prague a day short, which meant we lost our money we put down for the extra night in the hostel. so that blew, but what can you do..

so wee took an overnight train to Krakow. it was hot, loud and we got no sleep. not to mention just plain ghetto. it was not worth not having to pay for a hostel. the train we had to take has a horrible horrible reputation for theft. i guess the overnighters they gas the rooms and steal all your shit while your passed out. but we just heard stories and didn’t meet anyone with first hand experience, so we were kinda weary but meh whatever. so we just lock our door shut with one of our locks. but we had our window down the whole time so i wasn’t worried.

we finally got there around 7 am, found lockers and just threw all of our shit in em and took the next 2 hour train ride to see Auschwitz.

finally get there and just start wondering around our tour wasn’t till 11 and it was 9am. so we spent the next 2 hours just wandering around, gawking in awe. its so humbling and just sad. took some pretty neat pictures. then we had our tour. went inside a lot of the buildings. some of them were kept in the same conditions as when they were used, so that was a neat look inside how it used to be. the tour lasted about 5 hours. we went to Auschwitz 2 as they called it, i think it was called berkow? not sure on the spelling. but its the housing for all of the workers in the camp.

that whole 5 sentences doesn’t do it justice, but that’s all i got. there is so much i could write, but it’d take forever and i don’t feel like writing that much. just know it was an experience i highly recommend to anyone.

then back on the train and back on the night train. the second one wasn’t nearly as bad as the first. the first one was empty except for me Jared and Derek. the second one was packed. all 6 beds filled, but it was ok, everyone wanted to sleep and we actually got a decent nights sleep.

we got to Berlin around 7 am, then caught the next train to hamburg to see weezer play live. the show was fuckin amazing but ill get to that later. we met up with jay who got there 2 days prior to get the tickets. so we met up, walked around to get closer to the venue. while jay was doing his thing, Derek, Jared and i went to mc donalds down the street and enjoyed some great European cuisine.

finally got to the show, FUCKING ROCKED. one of the best concerts Ive been to. they sounded great and w were in Germany of all places. so that made it all better. the show was over, we all left, jay went back to his hostel to sleep and get to Amsterdam and us 3 went to Berlin to hang out for the next few days to wait for Allison to get here.

so we got to Berlin on the 6th. just got to our hostel and wondered around. our hostel is cool. we show up and the place is empty except for the woman checking us in. then she leaves and its us 3 in the pretty big place all to ourselves. so that was cool. plenty of stories to be told, maybe another time.

so it was time to get Allison. we showed up at the airport about 15 minutes after her plane landed and shes no where to be found. we searched for 20 minutes until i just said screw it and went back to the hostel. turns out she left, i gave her directions just in case i couldn’t make it for whatever reason. so long story short she gets lost, and is emailing me from some guys apartment. long story short, she is literally next door from us and we find her after an hour of emailing back and forth.

on the subways and trains you need to buy tickets, and if you don’t and you try and hop on and they catch you, you have to pay a 40 euro fine. so we were always told that our rail passes work, well we found out they don’t, so that blew. ha ha yup i got fucked and had to pay 40 euro fine along with Allison and Jared, so needless to say we hated Germany that day.

so tomorrow morning we head to Brussels for the day then to Amsterdam.. then finally come home on the 16th. i never thought id say this, but I’m ready to come home. I’ve had my fun, but 35 days is a long time and i miss the comforts of the good ol US of A. so with that I’m going to bed and ill write more when i can.