Sep 2008

The visit to Auschwitz can only be described as chilling. Those that have been there know what I mean. I had seen pictures of what happened at concentration camps so I know how cruel the Nazis were, but what surprised me was how much effort they took to track every thing that was done to each person when they intended to kill all of them anyway. Even the smallest punishments were documented. The other thing that shows how sick the Nazis were was how much thought was put into designing a place to make the process of killing people as efficient as possible. The 2nd, and bigger, of the compounds around Auschwitz is a HUGE complex with the infamous railroad tracks leading right into it so they can send the people directly to the gas chamber. The insanity of the Nazis in thinking that they can actually exterminate a race and to actually build a place specifically for that purpose!

There were many disturbing and shocking exhibits, and the one that I think is most disturbing is the one where there is a window running the length of the room, and on the other side of the window you see the floor piled with human hair that was shaved off of the dead people after they've been gassed. There's even an example of how the Nazis use the human hair to weave into textile which were then used to make various things (sacks, carpet, etc.). Just writing about it is giving me goose bumps. Sadly there were many similar rooms each filled with articles taken from the Jews that were killed: glasses, shoes, suitcases, etc.

Photos were not allowed inside the buildings. In any case, being there made enough of an impression that I don't need pictures to remind me of it (and truthfully, I'm not sure I want pictures to remind me of it). I did take a picture of the front gate just for this blog. The words above the gate says “work brings freedom”. How ironic... and sick.

Based on a few things we heard, we decided to skip Warsaw and head straight to Krakow, the ancient capital of Poland. The overnight bus ride from Vilnius to Krakow was our longest yet – 12 hours! While it's still Eurolines, the bus was just slightly inferior to the ones running between the Baltic countries. And forget wi-fi. Instead, we got to watch Flight Plan in Russian (by the way, one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time).

We found an apartment rental site and got a studio apartment for around $85 per night – a lot cheaper than staying in hotels and also a lot less than what we were paying in Croatia and Montenegro but so much nicer. Our studio (Apartment Violet) was nicely decorated and had all the modern amenities, including a dishwasher and a washing machine! It's nice when you're on the road to have a place that feels more like a home. And the washing machine came in handy as we were in need of doing laundry. After this place we're sold on the apartment rental concept. We only wish we had found out about this earlier.

Enough of the mundane details. After a short nap we headed out to check out old town. You'd think after 3 old towns in a row we'd get tired of them, but Krakow is different yet again. Krakow was spared during the two World Wars so much of the old buildings remain. It is very touristy, but the main market square is huge so it's a lot of fun just to people watch.

There was a cultural celebration in the main square with folk dancing, etc. At one point I thought the performance was over as the dancers walked off the stage. One of the men came towards me and extended his hand, and I took it thinking he wanted to shake hands with me. It turned out the danders were pulling people out of the audience to be their dance partners, so I got dragged on stage to dance in front of the crowd! I didn't do too poorly... my sandals only slipped off once.

And what's a festival without traditional food. Here are some vendors selling traditional Polish food. Yummm!

(Josh this picture is for you)

Before WWII, Krakow had one of the largest Jewish neighborhoods, so we walked around the old Jewish neighborhood, Kazimierz. It's now developing into a trendy part of town with bars and restaurants and outdoor concerts, etc. There is also a ghetto across the river where the Jews were forced to move to from Kazimierz, Padgorze. When the Germans came, they built a wall around a section of Padgorze and forced all the Jews to live within that area. Today only a small part of the wall remains, an there is also a memorial in one of the squares, but it's definitely off the tourist route and there were only a few signs pointing out the sights. Schindler's factory (as in the movie Schindler's list) is a short distance from this area and the Jews that worked there and were saved by Schindler live in Padgorze. We didn't have map of the neighborhood, so it took us a while to find the wall and the factory. It's still a working factory, but you can't see much because there's a lot of construction around it as they were renovating the museum.

Continuing on this communist theme that we've picked up unintentionally (and also because we were a bit tired of old towns and wanted to see something different), we headed to another part of Krakow called Nova Huta (aka Nowa Huta). Nova Huta was built during the communist era by the Soviets as a model of Social Realist upban planning. In other words, it was supposed to be THE model communist community - a “perfectly” planned community where even the number of schools and other services (post office, markets, etc) were calculated exactly to match the population. It's a great example of how Soviet communism may sound good in theory but is so impractical: this community was built for workers, so they also built a steel factory for the workers to have a place to work, except that there are no iron ore, the raw material needed to make steel anywhere near Krakow.

The buildings are so blocky and blah that it was a bit depressing to walk through. I have no pictures to show because I didn't even feel like taking pictures. There is one church that was interesting – in defiance to the communists, this church was built to look like Noah's Arc fell on top of the Communist designed church (use your imagination).

Sadly, the uniform, block buildings remind me of some planned developments today I've seen in various countries... and those were not planned by the communists!

We stayed in Krakow for a total of 5 days, including a day trip to Auschwitz. In hind sight 4 days would have been perfect, but we made use of the extra time by taking it easy. Besides, we were really loving having a nice, homey place to go back to at night.

I know I'm really behind on my blog, but after 2 months I'm getting a little lazy. Some days when it's a choice between taking a nap and writing the blog, well... Here's the post on Vilnius. The rest of the Eastern European trip, Krakow and Berlin, should be up by the end of this week.

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The old town of Vilnius has yet another feel from the other two cities. It's a little bigger than the other 2, and also the most cosmopolitan of the three. The main town square is like the Beverly Hills or Madison Avenue of the city with quite a few brand name shops like Salvatore Ferragamo, just housed in old buildings surrounded by lots of cathedrals and churches.

A lot of activities happen at main square. One afternoon there was a concert to show support for Georgia. The banner on the right in the picture reads "Georgia and Lithuania - Friends Always Stand Together"

Another afternoon people were gathered in front of the big TV screen that's been set up for the Olympics to watch and cheer for the Lithuanian athelets.

An interesting thing about Vilnius is the special beer snack section on the menu. The best one is the fried bread sticks - rye bread sticks rubbed with garlic and salt and then deep fried. Garlicky, salty, and deep fried. Need I say more? It is sooo good with beer. Another local favorite is sliced smoked pig ear and pig snout?! For some it''s even better than the bread sticks. We tried it, of course, but I personally think the Chinese version is more flavorful.

For the past month or so, we were really good about not shopping too much. For some reason we found a lot of things to buy in Vilnius. Here's a picture of me sporting my new hat:

Just across the river from old town is an area called Uzupis, known for its bohemian vibe. It's been compared to Montmartre in Paris, but I think it feels more like Berkeley, San Francisco.

People living there declared itself an independent republic with its own quirky 41 point constitution. Some articles in the constitution include:

1. 3 Everyone has the right to die, but this is not an obligation


2. 6 Everyone has the right to love


3. 12 a dog has the right to be a dog


4. 14 sometimes everyone has the right to be unaware of their duties


5. 24 Everyone has the right to understand nothing


6. 29 No one can share what they do not possess

We found a restaurant in Uzupis with a nice outdoor deck (restaurant Torres) by the river with a view of church spires of old town to enjoy our last night in Vilnius.

Neither one of us have been on as many long distance bus rides as we have on this trip, and the ones in Croatian and Montenegro were not the most comfortable. Therefore, when we found out there are no trains linking Tallinn to Riga we were not looking forward to yet another bus ride (little did we know how many more we had ahead us). The Eurolines bus turned out to be quite clean and comfortable (for a bus). The coolest part about the bus ride, though, was the free wi-fi, allowing us to check emails as we drove through the Estonian and Latvian countryside! It also gave me a chance to get caught up on my blogs. As advanced as we think we are in the US, we are pretty behind when it comes to technology.

There was a slight confusion in the name of our hotel when we first arrived (Grand Palace, Garden Palace – an easy mistake). After lugging our bags through cobblestoned streets for half an hour (have I mentioned that they may look nice, but they are not good for wheeled bags nor my feet), we arrived at the Grand Palace, a 4-star hotel. The lobby reminded me of the nice hotels I got to stay at during my Dannon days. Of course the Grand Palace turned out to be the wrong hotel, and the right one, the Garden Palace, is on the other side of old town. The guy at the front desk was super nice and drove us there – apparently this mix-up happens quite often. While it was not 4-stars, our hotel room was still nice so it wasn't that much of a let down.

Whereas Tallinn had a chill vibe, Riga's old town was more like a party town. It has the winding roads and the pretty town squares (here's one of them):

but Riga also has the reputation of being a big party town. It's popular with stag and hen parties (bachelor and bachelorette parties for us Americans) and you can stay out till the wee hours if you so choose. I'm sure some of it is because we were there over a weekend, and the Riga Festival was happening at the same time, but overall parts of it remind me a little of Key West or Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

One of the highlights of the Riga Festival was the “Formula 2 On Water World Cup Latvia Grand Prix”. I never even knew there's a Formula 2 but it was pretty cool to watch.

Here's a picture of the boats jostling for position right after the race started:

Two boats overturned during the race which added to the excitement.

We also tried to see this “Hot Air Balloon Shining” event, thinking it would be cool to see all these hot air balloons floating over the city at night, but after waiting for an hour it turned out they never had any intention of flying the balloons. They just fired up the balloons on the ground and since the balloons were spread out throughout the city you only see 1 or 2 at a time, so it wasn't all that spectacular. Here's what it looked like so you can decide for yourself (think seeing this go on and off for 50 minutes and nothing else):

For a change of scenery from old town, we checked out a “newer” section of Riga known for its Art Nouveau buildings (Riga has the world's largest collection of Art Nouveau buildings). It's a style of architecture in the early 1900's known for the eclectic and decorative facades.

Here's a close up of the detail from another building:

Anyone who goes to Riga should definitely make time for the Museum of Occupation. It offers a more complete picture of what the Baltic countries went through since WWI (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania all suffered similar fates). Whereas the other museums we went to focused more on the cruelty of the Germans and the Soviets, this exhibit provided a better overview of the events happening during that time. It's eye opening for someone who is not a history buff like me. We saw the secret pact between Germany and Russia on how they would split up the area from Poland all the way up to the Baltics. Lucky Poland got divided into 2 parts. Can you imagine? The fate of your country being decided by foreigners without you knowing or having any say in it?! It also showed how the Soviets bullied their way to fake an election in order to install a puppet government who then turned around and “asked” for Latvia to be admitted to the USSR. We think that this is all behind us, but given the situation between Georgia and Russia you do sometimes wonder.

Two days were short and sweet and perfect for Riga, and on Sunday we got on yet another bus headed for Vilnius, Lithuania.