Holy three updates batman!
Krakow
Krakow is an awesome little city, small enough that you can walk anywhere you want to go. Small enough that I stopped needing a map after day two, And It's just touristy enough that you don't notice it.
Went on a pub crawl the night I arrived, lots of vodka was had. Much of krakow's night life is situated in sub-basement levels of buildings that have stood for hundreds of years, which makes for really small bars in some cases
The next day, after a short recovery I went adventuring. I latch onto a free tour run by a pretty blonde woman. I'm sure she just does these tours herself, as she was living off the tips people gave her at the end of the tour. The tour ended up being very good, lasting about 3 hours and ending at the castle, so I gave her 30z, about $12AUD or so.
This castle looks exactly like what a castle should look like and was pretty cool. There was a couple of exhibitions there available to see but I was feeling pretty average so decided against it. I was going to come back but didn't get around to it.
The next day I went to Auschwitz on a tour. An hour and half outside of Krakow. Took a photo of the front gate of the death camp at Auschwitz I and that was it until we got to the living quarters at Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II. Some of it was so bad I noticed a couple of people would leave a room as soon as they found out what's inside and hide around a corner, the rooms full, floor to ceiling, with human hair, or kids shoes for example. Ive also found a new candidate for worst job ever, Auschwitz tour guide, any joy in our tour guides life died a long time ago..Went home and drank vodka shots at a pub crawl till I passed out.
Next day I decided to go to the Wieliczka Salt Mines, another tour put on by the same people that did the Auschwitz tour. This place was fucking awesome, the Polish have been running this mine for hundreds of years and with 3000 rooms it's basically an underground city, with cathedrals and all sorts of stuff. The tour starts with everybody going down 53 flights of steps and ends 130 meters below the surface. It's a cool 16 degrees and climate controlled to prevent methane build up, unlike the 40 degrees we had yesterday on the surface. The cathedral they have down here is still operational and people have weddings 130 meters below the surface. The tour ended with a cool elevator ride to the surface. This lift could fit 9 people at a time and was so compact you got to know your fellow tourists real well.
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