On Saturday afternoon we took an adventure of a lifetime to Poland via multiple subways, train and a bus. Our destination was Kraków, Poland where we would then take another local bus for a 1.5 hour ride to the Auschwitz Concentration/Death Camp. Super Nel and I love history. And we especially enjoy learning about World War II. We tried to visit Auschwitz last time we came to Europe but it just didn't happen. We were really looking forward to this part of our honeymoon. We had help planning this part of our trip thanks to our friend Stela. She gave us tips and info about how to get to there because it's a process.
There was a chance that we weren't going to make it to Auschwitz. When I went to purchase the train tickets every train I looked into was over €80 (euro) for a one way ticket to Szczecin, Polan. We still had to pay for a round trip ticket to Kraków, Poland. I didn't think it would be worth it to make the trek out there for so much money and such little time. Then I found out that the first part of the trip could be done on a local German train. And the cost for that ticket was €12.5 per person-much better price. Below I list the steps we took in order to get to Auschwitz.
10 people with 1 backpack and one person with an additional roll luggage in one tiny elevator? No problem.
This first train would take us to Angermunde, Germany. 
After the train ride we would catch a bus that would take us to Szczecin. We had a 2 hour wait for our bus so once we knew where we would catch the bus we went into a little convenience store to eat some snacks and buy a beer...or two.
Amazing street art in Szczecin.
Once we arrived in Szczecin we had the task of buying our train tickets to Kraków. This was an Amazing Race kinda adventure. No one in our group speaks any Polish and even our Español wasn't going to help us. What did help us was charades (acting out what we need) and a trick a learned from Rick Steve's-draw pictures of what you need. I used both these techniques. I asked for 2 tickets to Kraków on the evening train with a couchette (a bed). I was able to convey this information pretty easily with charades and drawings but then the last was asking me something and I had no idea what it was. I tried my best to guess ("2 beds? Beds that lay flat?")-no luck. Then she took my idea and acted out blankets. She wanted to know if I wanted sheets and blankets. We did. We brought a sleep sack to keep anything from touching our skin but it's nice to have some extra layers so we said yes to the blankets and sheets. Then we had to purchase a return ticket-again more charades and drawing. Then when I was done (succes!) 8 other people had to do the same.
Once everyone had tickets we had to set off and look for food for dinner and possibly breakfast and lunch for the following day. After we arrive in Kraków we will have to race to the hotel, drop off our luggage and get on a bus to Auschwitz.
Poor Super Nel and Miss Delia. They are both sick and Super Nel was in horrible condition-but they are troopers.
After finding a small market where we bought fruit and water we found a small restaurant that had cold beer (for 5 zlotys!!) and ginormous pizzas. The employees were so kind to let us stay in their warm restaurant while we waited for the train.
Group shot before we catch the night train (can you spot the little superheroes)?
We found our train platform and when the train started to pull up people started to run towards the front of the train. We realized we would only have a matter of seconds before the train would take off again whether or not you're on the train. So we started running too!! Imagine 10 people with a big backpack on their back and a purse or small bag filled with water and food racing down a platform while one of us is also wheeling a luggage? We must have looked like a bunch of wild wildabeasts stampeding!
Luckily, we all made it on board and we were in the same wagon. However, when we saw the size of our cabin we were a little nervous. There were 6 beds in one teeny tiny cabin!!! It was impossible to move around in the room let alone get situated with all our bags. There was a lot of laughing and choice words that were yelled out as 6 of us (Super Nel, Darius, Freddy, Dana, Bree and I tried to get onto our beds. The rest of our group-Miss Delia, Rhianna, Mel and Ala were in the cabin next door. They luckily only had 4 people in their room.
We all thought it was a pretty fun experience and we're glad that if we had to do it, at least we were doing it together. We boarded the train at 8pm and would arrive in Kraków at 07:30am. It would really be 06:30 but it happened to be Daylighy Savings time and everything was moving forward an hour.
The majority of us fell asleep pretty fast and stayed that way until morning. I woke up around 4am and did some blog work then fell back to sleep. The next time I woke up it was because the conductor was waking us up and saying our stop was in 30 minutes.
If you think getting 10 people on a train and ready for bed in teeny tiny rooms is hard, imagine getting everything packed and ready to disembark in less than 30 minutes when everyone is still asleep! It was pure pandemonium with rushing and yelling and everyone trying to brush their teeth at the same time or shouts of "where are my shoes?!" At one point the train was slowing down and I thought we were almost there and Rhianna was still in the bathroom. We were shouting at her to hurry up and grab her bag. She was still in flip flops and pjs. She did end up having another 10 minutes to put shoes on.
When we arrived in Kraków (a miracle in itself) we set off to find our hotel.
We have no idea what this street art says but it looks like art about people with a special need. I really like the one with the dog holding the eye seeing assistance stick.
Read the next blog entry to find out our impressions of Auschwitz.
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