Life from here

Wow. I cannot believe its already been 4 months since Zach and I returned home from our crazy adventuring in Europe. Still seems so surreal that it happened. Since then life has been busy. We basically got back to Concordia, unpacked and dived head first into studying and homework again. It didn't feel right for a while after getting to do exciting things everyday, but we made do. On Sunday Zach graduated and I'm now a senior. Time sure does fly. I've been having a hard time putting my feelings into words because everything is happening so quickly. This summer I'll be a marketing intern for a company called Japs-Olson in St.Louis Park. They are flying me out to New York for a marketing workshop so that should be a blast! Zach will be at home in Cold Spring working at the ball park and golf course along with playing for the Cold Spring Amateur Baseball Team. Although we will be apart for the summer and the following year, while I finish out my senior year, I can think back to all of the memories we have made together from our first time meeting my freshman year at the Halloween dance all the way to this Sunday sitting and watching him cross the stage to receive his diploma. We have been through a lot together and I couldn't have asked for a better person do go through it with. Life is so unpredictable and I'm so happy that it is. If you would have asked me 5 years ago how I thought my life would be right now, I would have been way off.

Although change is sometimes uncomfortable, it always is worth it in the end. The memories that Zach and I have made in Europe and throughout our entire relationship have molded our relationship into what it is in this moment. Pure happiness.

So thanks for coming on this adventure with us! Until next time :)

With love,

Rachel

Auschwitz-Birkenau Tour

- Zach

It's January 13th and I'm finally finishing up our blog with our final stop on our trip through Europe... Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. You can understand my reasoning for delaying this as much as possible... It was a stop that we both knew we were going to do because it something I knew I wanted to do when we booked our flights in August. So we booked our flight home out of Warsaw because of it, but we still weren't really sure whether or not to be excited about it or not. I've always enjoyed learning about WWII history, and I think part of the reason that I enjoy it is that it baffles me that things like this happen. And I know people online (as well as our tour guide) make a comparison to slavery in the U.S., there is no comparison to what the Nazis did to millions of people in a matter of about 4 years. So all in all, I think I was excited for the tour because it was something that I knew I wanted to do if I had the chance, and after I suggested it to Rachel and gave her my reasoning for it I think she felt the same.

When I returned home (I realize I'm jumping way ahead), my friend Lindsay who was in Ireland with me sent me a text specifically about the Auschwitz tour. At the time, I was struggling to figure out how I would describe it. She made it easy for me.

Unreal is probably the perfect word to describe the tour, and probably my only proper usage of the word. Other words I threw around in my head were depressing, unbelievable, historical, amazing, surreal, eye-opening, flat out crazy, humbling, discomforting. The list goes on. It's funny too because the night before the tour, we stayed at a 'hostel-in-progress' in Krakow with a guy we met on the Couchsurfing website. Our bed was a cot and they didn't give us any blankets or pillows or anything. And I'm pretty sure a window was open. In Poland.... on January 2nd... We were cold. We didn't complain very long about it the next day after seeing some of the conditions the camp was run under though. We were allowed to tour a barracks that was initially intended as a stable for about 25 horses in which they'd each have their own stall. Well, it was eventually turned into a barracks where one horse stall housed between 15 and 21 people. What? Yeah. Another side note, these barracks had no toilets in them, prisoners were only allowed to use the one bathroom in the camp twice a day at designated times. Another interesting side note, the plumbing system at Auschwitz was the highest quality plumbing system in Europe at that time in history. Again, what? This was to prevent disease spreading to the camp officers mainly, but just baffling.

Our tour was a two part tour. The Auschwitz and Birkenau camps are two separate camps located about a km from each other. There is also a third camp that was constructed, but there is nothing left there after the Nazis destroyed as much as possible when the Russians started liberating other camps in Poland. The first part of the tour was the original Auschwitz portion, and was mainly indoors. This part was more of a museum-type tour. One of the buildings housed belongings collected from prisoners. This was the definition of unreal. I've never seen so many shoes, combs, toothbrushes, clothing, even hair that was shaved off of the prisoners upon their arrival. The belongings are in big glass cases and are literally just unbelievable. There is a window of suitcases that have people's names on them as well as their birthday, we noticed that some of the suitcases' birthdays were in the 1940's, which would have made those individuals about 70 years old today.

The second part of the tour was the Birkenau camp, which was essentially the death camp. This tour was entirely outdoors besides the brief walk through of the barracks. Like I said previously, the Nazis began destroying as much evidence of the camps as possible upon news of camps being liberated. So the camp consisted of a few surviving barracks, and dozens of brick chimneys that remained after the rest of the barracks burned down. So most of it was just rows of chimneys. Very eerie. It was very uncomfortable seeing pictures of prisoners lined up for the gas chambers standing exactly where we were.

We entered the camp along the railroad tracks which literally ran right through the entrance of the camp, which is the reason that they choose Poland in the first place. Rail system was already in place and trains came to Poland from all over the place, making the transport of the Jews easy. They built the camp around the tracks so that immediately after arrival they would get the people off the train and separate the ones who could work and the one who could not and take those not strong enough straight to the chamber. Our tour guide explained that at least 8 trains a day would arrive at the camp allowing the Nazis to kill hundreds every day. Just horrendous.

Nothing about life in the camp was cheerful. The prisoners got to use the bathroom twice a day in a room complete with a large slab of concrete containing rows of about 30 hollowed out holes for them to sit on and go. No toilet paper. No privacy. Nothing.

We were told that the prisoners debated running or not because trying to escape meant putting friends and family in danger. If one ran three others were killed because of it.

Walking throughout the camp on a cold January day made everything settle in, as much as it could anyways. We grow up learning about the Holocaust in grade school, but I don't think we ever realize just how real it was. Being at Auschwitz was a wake up call to what millions of Jewish and others went through during the Holocaust.

We had the same tour guide throughout both portions of the tour, and she was wonderful. She definitely didn't beat around the bush. And how can you for a subject like this? She was very blunt, and didn't downplay any of the atrocities that occurred during this terrible period in history. 1.1 million people were murdered in this camp from 1941-1945... 1.1 Million. Just hearing that is baffling, and seeing thousands of pairs of shoes really puts something like that into perspective.

- Zach

Prague!

So we got to Prague on Friday night and this time getting to our hostel involved some steep inclines which we were not at all happy about. But, once again, thanks to Zach and his navigation skills we got to Prague One Hostel safe and sound. We liked the style of the place right away. It was a lot smaller than the Wombats Hostel in Vienna but it had much more of a homey type feel. No WiFi was available in the rooms to promote more interaction between travelers in the common rooms! Pretty cool idea. When we opened the door to our room Zach and I were both shocked at how nice of a place it was. Couch and kitchen in one section and the bedroom and patio in another, in addition to a bathroom and shower of course! Sweeet! We could for sure get use to this.

We didn’t have much energy from the train ride, but the hostel staff told us that they were making FREE dinner for anyone who signed up that night so I mean of course we were all in for FREE dinner and did that instead of going to find something on our own. One of the guys ended up making a soup with beef, vegetables and some spices that gave it a nice kick. Super yummy! That way we also got to meet some other travelers right off the bat!

We did find a cocktail bar, Anna’s Bananas, down the street that we stopped at after dinner though. They had soooo many cocktail choices! I got a mojito and a Bahama mama which was like coconut, fruit juice and rum. I don’t remember what Zach had but I know he liked them!! So we chatted and enjoyed our drinks before heading back to hit the sack.

The next day we got up bright and early, which has been my job for the both of us I might add, and we headed to the city center to explore. We loved the city right away. Cobblestone streets, colorful buildings that made me feel like I was in a doll house, and lots and lots of Christmas spirit even though it had already passed. The Christmas market there, for me, was one of my favorites!  With a HUGE and colorful tree in the middle of the town square with music, lights and of course a ton of little stands selling anything you could think of! Also in the town square is the famous astronomical clock! Which was made in 1410, making it the third oldest astronomical clock in the world! On the hour every hour a window opens at the top of the clock and what is called the “Walk of the apostles” takes place where small statues of the apostles rotate through the window for everyone to see! It was pretty cool and was very popular going off the huge crowd of people that waited to see it every hour.

We next headed to the Charles Bridge! Which is the most important connection between Prague Castle and the city's Old Town. It’s a huge bridge with people selling artwork, jewelry, and other crafty handmade things! Along the bridge there are a bunch of statues as well. It was very medieval feeling! Zach actually ended up finding a guy who drew some really impressive pictures of Prague right there along the bridge! So we ended up talking to him for a while and went back the next day to buy it! Zach has gotten a painting or drawing from almost every country he’s been to! It’s such an amazing collection that he has started! For lunch we went to a recommended place walled Koala! Zach had a kangaroo steak with a dark cherry beer and I just had chicken haha. But Zach liked the Kangaroo steak a lot!

That night we had a free dinner again of shepards pie at the hostel and then went down to the hostel bar in the basement to have a few drinks and meet people! The hostel’s bar was literally just a cement basement with a built in bar, hanging Christmas lights and some chairs and stuff. It reminded us both of a house party at college haha. Perfect! We chatted with a few people and had some drinks then we all went out to a techno club! Zach and I danced our butts off! (so happy I found someone who likes to dance almost as much as me) Techno music is kind of hard to dance to though because it’s like the same beat for every song. The tempo changes a bit but it like all sounds the same haha so by like 2:30am we were zoned out and decided to hike back to the hostel. On our way home we walked past KFC….yes. So Zach got some special box meal with a burger, wings and chicken strips and I just got strips! Along with that we got the dipper box which comes with three different sauces. There was a white sauce which we thought was probably mayo but I tasted in and holy crap it was our good old friend RANCH!!! Neither one of us had found any since we’ve been abroad so you can imagine how excited we were. Damn did that KFC taste good!

Sunday we did some more exploring and went to St. Vitus Cathedral, which is the burial place of the former Czech kings and a home of the Czech Crown Jewels. It’s gothic architecture again which we both have really grown to love while being here in Europe! Just really cool and intense looking.

We also hiked the stairs to a viewpoint overlooking the city, which I think has been totally worth doing in every city! They all look so different from so high up.

On Monday we went to Berlin for the day which I’ll do a separate post for.

Tuesday was New Year’s Eve! Zach and I had originally planned to go and see a few more things during the day but that plan changed real quick. We went out to breakfast at a BAGEL place in the city and decided that we really had zero motivation to do anything at all so we settled for heading back to the hostel to watch Harry Potter all day before getting ready for the night! It ended up being a great and relaxing day J

The hostel had planned a New Year’s event for the evening for anyone who wanted to that was staying at the hostel! For 50 euro they made us dinner, we had 3 hours of free drinks at the bar, they took us to a firework show and then to a club! Sad to say that I didn’t make it past the 3 hours of free drinks…  Ill back up a bit though. So dinner was wonderful! Salad, pasta, Shepard’s pie, mashed potatoes and some kind of lasagna! We were stuffed! Next came the 3 hours of free drinks… so I started with vodka Fanta which was 80% vodka thanks to the bartender who went a little overboard. Anyways we were having a really fun time talking to this girl Leesha who we had met. She is traveling for a year around Europe and asia!! NUTS! We also met some girls from Argentina!! So of course I chatted with them in Spanish for a while! But yea we were all laughing planning a dance off between me and Leesha for that night at the club and whatever else. So I finished my drink and then decided to order another one. My bad luck because it was the same bartender so I got another 80% vodka 20% fanta drink which put me right on my ass. I was in bed before midnight and I’m still really disappointed about it :/ Mostly because Zach was feeling fine and he had to miss out on everything because he was being a good boyfriend and stayed with me instead of going out for the rest of the festivities… ugh! I guess it happens though.. Nothing I can do about it now.

Anyways you can guess how I was feeling the next morning… like crap. I had a hung over day full of headaches and stomachaches… Luckily we didn’t have anything planned that day besides a long train ride to Warsaw Poland, our last destination before heading home.We are basically just going to Poland to see the Auschwitz concentration camp. It’s unfortunate that it’s our last stop but we both are really interested in seeing it and learning more about it after talking about it all throughout grade school and what not.

Hope everyone had a great New Years! Can’t believe we are almost done traveling. AH!

Rachel J