Krakow!

We took a night train from Prague to Krakow. The hostel we had in Krakow was amazing! A huge room, and actually a really nice bathroom. Probably the nicest bathroom any hostel has had. They were also really nice to us, and even set out breakfast an hour early because we had to leave before they usually serve it.
The public transportation to leave the actual city of Krakow into the suburbs was pretty funny, it was basically just a 15-passenger van. We took one of those to Auschwitz.
Auschwitz was incredibly moving and hard to describe on a blog. There were exhibits of hair and glasses and shoes, and everything the Nazis took from the people coming into the concentration camps. There was an intact gas chamber and crematorium. it was crazy.
we toured around there, and then to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. This is the one that most pictures show. There are the train tracks coming through the middle, and the 'gate of death.' The men's barracks were old horse barns that they had shipped from germany because they ran out of wood. it was a very moving thing. the guide also showed us where the 'hospital' was.. and that is where Dr. Mengele did some of this experiments. They didn't have anything about him though.. that would have been interesting.
It is hard to really say much else.. it was really moving.
After that, we took a different van to a suburb of Krakow where there is the famous salt mine. This was really amazing. The last english tour had left, so we had to take one in Polish. It was only Cara and I and the guide, who knew about 5 words in English.. so that was a funny experience. The salt mine was really cool though.. there were insane carvings in there.
There was an army of gnomes carved out of the salt that was one of my favorites. Also, there was a huge chapel complete with a salt carving of the last supper, and several sacred heart salt sculptures. It was really awesome.

We only had one day in Krakow, which really wasn't enough.. it would have been good to have one more day to see the center of the city, which we never actually got to. oh well, next is Berlin!