Vienna Waits for You

Vienna officially holds the title as one of my favorite cities. After a few tourist-filled days in Prague (although I loved it), Vienna felt so calm. One of my best friends spent a year there after grad school, and she sent me a whole list of things to see, do, and (mainly) eat. “The List” gave us a plan. I love hearing what to do in a certain place from people who have spent time there. Not only do they provide the “main sights,” but also the hidden ones that I may otherwise overlook or miss.

First, I have to give a shot out to our hostel. It was run by this twenty-something named Lily who was probably the sweetest person alive. She is from South Africa, and had a lot of fascinating stories about her home. A few years ago, she was supposed to spend a year in Berlin. She had a layover in Vienna on the way, went outside, looked around, and never went back! This demonstrates the magic of this city. Anyway, this “hostel” was a beautifully decorated apartment. We slept in a cool loft over the living room! I wish I had pictures that conveyed the incredible homey feeling. What a special place. One of the reasons I love traveling revolves around the people I’ve met. We knew Lily for two days, and yet she was helpful, welcoming, and made us feel so at home. I feel like on almost every trip we meet people like her. 

Thursday was our first full day in the city. We were walking around when we saw horses and carriages. Becky is a sucker for "alternative" forms of transportation, so we decided to hop on a carriage. Our guide had a top hat and was wonderful! He definitely made the experience more than worth it, as he drove us around for over an hour, pointing out all the sights. He had a story behind every one! We were glad that we started with this, because we were able to walk back to the places he showed us after, and knew what we were seeing. 

Then we went to the cathedral...

AND, per Ashley's suggestion, I sampled Sacher's famous chocolate torte cake. DELICIOUS.

One of the highlights for me was our visit to the opera house. We didn't have the chance to see an actual opera, but we did get an awesome tour! The opera house was actually virtually destroyed during World War II, so this is the rebuilt one. Our guide had a lot of cool stories to share. Almost every show is sold out for the entire year!

We spent the rest of the afternoon just walking the streets and gardens...my favorite part of traveling involves these relaxing moments. Not cramming stuff in, but just getting a taste of the city.

Town Hall

The next morning, we visited Schonbrunn Palace! I've seen quite a few palaces in the last two months, but they are all really unique. The royal family lived here until the monarchy was ended after World War I.

And you can't leave Vienna without a trip to the zoo on the palace grounds! This zoo is the oldest running zoo in the world!

Oh you know, just chilling with my water bottle...

These monkeys were my favorite!!

The gardens really contributed to the palace's beauty. Another one of my favorite moments was my climb up to the Gloriette, this beautiful building on top of the hill behind the palace. It overlooks Vienna, and on a beautiful sunny day, it felt like Heaven. 

I absolutely want to go back to this city. I loved everything about it. Hopefully, I can pay my next visit with my friend someday so I can keep tackling her list with her! 

We're in Disney!

...Or more specifically, Prague!

After an overnight train from Krakow, we arrived in Prague around noon (our train took four hours longer than expected due to some kind of accident somewhere). By the time we showered and got settled, we only had an hour or so before dinner to explore. My first impression of Prague: this place looks like Disney! I felt like I had walked straight into a fairy tale.

We started our exploration around the Charles Bridge. This bridge likes the Old Town and the rest of the city. It has these really cool statues along it that look down on you. Becky and I said that we definitely wouldn’t want to be walking the bridge alone at night in the Middle Ages. It has that amazing eeriness about it.

The bridge is lined with merchants who sell cool things. I didn’t buy anything, but we saw a man with a puppet and some neat artwork.

We also went to the Lennon Wall. Czech students were inspired by John Lennon in the 80s, in the midst of Communism. They rebelled by creating artwork and inspirational messages of peace on a wall in the city. The wall still stands as a testament to this time, and people still use it to spread love! It was a beautiful sight.

I tried goulash for dinner. It’s a traditional dish that resembles beef stew. I still think my mom’s is better, but this was still yummy!!

On Tuesday, we crammed in quite a lot. Starting with Prague Castle! This is a huge complex with a cathedral, palaces, and other awesome sights.

One of my favorites? Golden Lane! These teeny houses really accentuated the “fairy tale” vibe. I believe they housed palace workers at one point. Adorable!

Next stop was the Jewish quarter, with the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe (and one of the oldest in the world).

One of the most moving parts of this trip for me occurred in the Jewish quarter. There is an exhibit with a couple hundred drawings done by children. These children were living in the ghetto during World War II. A teacher in the ghetto realized that these children were struggling with intense feelings of anxiety, alienation, and grief for their past lives. She essentially had them draw out their feelings and memories. The heartbreaking part? Most of these kids did not survive. They actually had approximate dates of death under each picture for those who did not. Children’s artwork is so poignant. Art  portrays each child as an individual.

The teacher was eventually sent to a concentration camp (Auschwitz I believe) and killed. By chance, a briefcase of her students’ work was found, and these pictures are the ones in the museum. The fact that this inspiring mentor died makes the situation even more devastating to me. She really risked her life to give her students an emotional and creative outlet.

One picture really struck me. The child had drawn himself with a sad face while other children played around him. Jewish children were excluded from playgrounds, and this particular pictures was portraying his expulsion from his former school on the basis of his religious background. I’ll never forget his penciled frown. I am always deeply saddened at the thought of exclusion, so this struck a chord with me.  

We ended our day with come comic relief in the form of a ghost tour. Prague is one of the most “haunted” cities in Europe, and has so many interesting legends surrounding it. Our guide told us some of these stories, while in costume…

She held up a noose throughout the tour, which obviously garnered some strange looks from clueless passerby. We could not stop laughing.  A hilarious end to a great day!

Prague was a really quick stop, but I enjoyed every minute. Next up is one of my favorite cities (Vienna) and the Sound of Music tour! :) 

1.5 Million.

The story of my day in Auschwitz. Warning: I'm going to give a lot of extremely disturbing details that make me upset. They will probably upset you too.

To begin, I should probably explain why I decided to visit the camp. It actually wasn't really a decision. I've always wanted to. My dad was a World War II buff, and I take after him in that sense. However, this was always a facet of the war that I could never wrap my head around. I don't think anyone can. Sadly, persecution still happens today in many parts of the world. The Holocaust is one of the most disturbing reminders of evil. I knew the day would be hard. I knew that with my tendency to deeply empathize with people, (sometimes to a damaging degree), I would not have an easy time walking on the essential burial ground of 1.5 million people. Honestly, that day taught me more than a lifetime of education elsewhere.

We started off in Auschwitz I. This camp, sadly, was considered a "resort" amongst the prisoners. You actually WANTED to be in this camp. The barracks were not the stereotypical barracks that one pictures when one imagines a concentration camp. This camp was not so much the death camp as the work camp (although of course people still died here). The famous sign that greeted me:

"Work Makes You Free"...one of the more ironic statements made here

A picture a prisoner drew on the barrack wall 

Many of the barracks in Auschwitz I have been made into small museums with memorabilia from the camp. When I say memorabilia, I mean the prisoners' belongings, clothes, shoes, and hair.

Yes, hair. This was the first time I completely lost it. When prisoners entered the camp, their heads were shaved. If you were a woman, your hair was often braided first to keep it neat (the Nazis used a lot of the hair for supplies). I have seen pictures of the hair remains at Auschwitz before, but nothing could have ever prepared me for what I saw. This is not just a small container of hair. It is a glass case that spans the entire room, floor to ceiling. Filled with human hair. How many people had to die for all of that hair to be left? And, as our guide said, that's just the very tip of the iceberg. By the way, we didn't take pictures here out of respect for the victims.

The tears continued when I saw the display of baby clothes. These infants didn't get the chance to live at all. Their tiny shoes and onesies lined several cases.

I knew about the medical experiments conducted on prisoners, but I didn't know these prisoners included babies. The Nazis would starve certain babies to see how long they could live. I saw video footage of it. They were literally handling a deceased human infant the way I dissected a fetal pig in AP biology.

This got me thinking. How many unlimited potentials were crushed senselessly? How many brilliant minds and thoughts were silenced? One of these victims could have found a cure for cancer, the disease that has killed several of my closest loved ones. Nobel prize winners, scientists, doctors, teachers. God only knows the incredible things that these 1.5 million people could have done with their lives. It breaks my heart.

Outside, I saw the execution wall. This wall is at the end of a small courtyard. The barracks form the yard. The windows facing the courtyard were boarded. The guide said that this was to keep the prisoners inside from seeing people being shot against the wall (they could only hear the shots).

One boy shot against the wall was a twelve-year-old. He rolled an apple he had found towards a group of hungry men in an attempt to feed them. A guard saw him doing this, and threw him against the wall and shot him on the spot.

My little brother is also twelve. Joey is the most compassionate kid I know, and all I could think of was him. This is something he absolutely would have done in this situation. And to be killed for kindness? This little boy was someone's "Joey."

Auschwitz I also houses a gas chamber that the Nazis didn't have the chance to destroy before the Allies liberated the camp. I will never forget the feeling of being inside.

Next, we went to Auschwitz II-Birkeneau. This camp was the real "death camp." I was immediately struck by the sheer size of the place; it seemed to go on for miles. Hundreds of thousands of people lived here at any one moment.

Separation point-flick of the thumb for work or death

I noticed a lot of rubble. The Nazis did destroy these gas chambers. The chambers were built partially underground, because this accelerates the temperature inside more quickly. The Nazis relied on the prisoners' body heat to ignite the gas, so about 5,000 people could be squished into a little tiny room to be killed at one time.

Destroying the evidence

I learned quite a few disturbing concepts here. For one, the top bunk in the barracks was the most coveted. Why? Because when the prisoners had diarrhea and you were on the bottom bunk, you got hit with the human waste. Prisoners weren't allowed to use the bathroom after dark, so you had to go in the bunk. Most had diarrhea anyway from hunger. I think that was the least of their concerns though.

Starvation was obviously a major issue. We saw a before picture of a woman with her daughter about a month before she was deported to the camp. She was beautiful and had a full figure. Just a few months later, we saw a nude picture of her in the camp. Unrecognizable. She didn't have an ounce of fat on her, even in the chest. Everything sagged. Literally a walking skeleton. Months later. Most people, women in particular, did not last much longer than that.

At the end, we asked our amazing guide how it felt to live in the same town that houses Auschwitz. I found her response fascinating. She said she feels blessed to live amongst reminders of horror, because it gives her a certain perspective on life that really changes you. This experience certainly changed me. I've been praying for those who never got a chance to see the end of the war. The 1.5 million who never got their chance. It's easy to get lost in the numbers, but each number is a person. A life. They make me want to live mine with compassion and understanding. It is only through kindness that the world will somehow find some peace.

I'm Back in Black...Krakow!

Hi everyone! It is so weird to be writing again after 1.5 weeks. I feel like I’ve been gone forever! Anyway, I am safely back in Perugia (Mom can breathe a huge sigh of relief).

This week, I’ll write about a different part of the trip each day. Last Friday, we arrived in Krakow to begin the journey after an overnight stay in Rome’s Ciampino airport. Not totally sure I recommend airport sleeping. It was actually clean and I felt completely safe, but we barely slept (I wasn’t exactly expecting to though).  We didn’t have much choice in the matter; our flight departed at 6:30am, and there aren’t really any hotels around, so it wasn’t worth spending the night somewhere else when we would have barely slept anyway. Needless to say, Becky and I were a little tired when we arrived in Krakow. It was raining, but we settled into our hostel and set out to do some exploring.

Krakow is the first European city outside of Italy that I’ve visited. The differences were immediately apparent, particularly in the architecture. Some of the castles reminded me of buildings in Russia that I’ve seen pictures of (with the rounded tops). We went up to Wawal Castle and toured it.

I also quickly noticed statues around the city of one man. Can you guess who? Pope John Paul II! The residents of Krakow are intensely proud of his connection to the city (he was born just outside of it, and lived there for a long time). We actually walked by his old house there.

On Saturday evening, we went on a tour of the Krakow salt mines. These were CRAZY cool! Essentially, hundreds of years ago, miners mined down here. However, they didn’t just mine; it’s a whole underground city! Tunnels, underground lakes, and even a CATHEDRAL in the salt! I can really only show this through pictures:

Little carved gnome statues!

The cathedral in the salt! People can still get married down here if they want!

Salt alter/art

And the underground lake!

It was actually extremely difficult to get good pictures because of the lighting, and these shots don't even come close to what we were actually seeing. Everyone should go here if ever given the chance!

Mining was a very dangerous job. Our hilarious tour guide made jokes about how a man would fall down the mine, taking a few others down with him. Joking aside, these men were willing to do dangerous work because it made them very rich. A miner was pretty much set for life. I thought this was interesting, because usually in many cases, poorer men are the ones doing the jobs that are more likely to have them killed.

We climbed a total of 27 floors down the mine. To get back up, we took this cool high-speed lift! Being slightly neurotic, thoughts of the entire mine crashing down on us flitted around in my head. Other people must have had this concern as well, because right away the guide pointed out these fire alarm type devices on the ceiling of each room. He joked that if it goes off, we have three weeks to get out of the mine before it falls in! (Miners in the old days would have had no warning, other than hearing the cracking!)

On Sunday, we took a walking tour of Krakow’s Jewish quarter. This was the only day of our entire break that we were cold. We really lucked out with the weather. The highlight of that day was simply hearing the little stories. I am such a “story” person. Autobiographies are some of my favorite books to read. Krakow is brimming with these stories.  I really enjoyed seeing some of the filming locations for “Schiendler’s List.” Steven Spielberg filmed the movie in Krakow, and we passed a few of them. I have yet to see the movie (I’m a little nervous about how I would react) but for those of you who have, here is the staircase of the hiding scene when a young boy sees a woman there and then doesn’t give her away. Or something like that!

And some more pics from around Krakow:

Old Town Square

Communism mural...the small words on the head on the left say "Never Follow."

Also, during our tour, the guide showed us this seemingly insignificant alleyway. However, I quickly noticed that this was the only run-down place I had seen in the entire city. She explained that this alley is a “time capsule” for the people of Krakow. During Communism, the entire Jewish quarter was viewed as a dangerous place. I guess people wouldn’t even venture there. To think that most of the neighborhood (and much of Krakow in general) looked grey and depressing is overwhelming to me, especially after the beautiful city that I experienced. This is why I find history so fascinating. These changes happened in MY LIFETIME. World War II always seems so far away to me. But Communism isn’t.

After the tour, Becky and I went to the museum in Schindler’s old factory! This is actually where the Jews worked. The museum was hands-down the best I’ve ever seen. They actually built replicas of bunkers, homes, etc. within its rooms. I felt like I was actually in Krakow in the 1940s. The tragedies these people endured are just horrifying. I think I saw more pictures of hangings than I ever wished to.

"I suddenly realized that we were about to get walled in. I got so scared that I eventually bust into tears."
-A young Roman Polanski, aged 8, describing his first moments in the ghetto

Krakow was just amazing. The people were friendly, and I felt safer than I do in most American cities.  It’s incredible to me how well preserved the city is, despite several major wars.

That being said, our time in Poland also included a day trip to Auschwitz. We went on Saturday, before our evening salt mine tour. Auschwitz took several hours. The whole experience represented one of the most draining days I’ve ever experienced. It deserves its own entry, so stay tuned to hear about that next.