Okay, I can't even explain to you how much stuff one person can do in just two weeks in Europe. It's crazy! After arriving back from spring break, classes started up again and we started to get back into a somewhat normal routine. (I mean how much can you really get into a normal routine 6,000 miles away from home.) Katie and I finally got our much anticipated, gigantic package from Mr. Colton Albrecht. (Thanks Colton!) It contained everything we had been needing and missing from the United States (mostly candy) except a tanning bed.
As you can see we hit the jackpot with the box. We got letters, my "sleeping shirt", pens, two containers of Tums, Snickers, Reese's, Twizzlers, four boxes of flavored water packets, Starbursts, two packages of gum, my favorite mix of Planters Nuts, pistachios, Peanut M&Ms, two boxes of Milkduds, and two notebooks (much needed, the notebooks over here are horrible).
Once again I want to thank Colton for his package. He's a lifesaver!
Also with my free time I've discovered Europe has NOT been good to my body. I've recently tried to get a quick run in each day. Below are some pictures of the gorgeous views I get when I run. I'm definitely going to miss these views when I go back to running in Kearney.
Then one night the girls (from left to right: Karen, Lisa, Me, Katie, Hayley, and Abby) and I decided to head out and get drinks at a place Dr. Clark suggested called The Osa Bar. They have very creative drinks there and some of them look pretty potent. After we had a few individual drink we all shared a "European fishbowl". It was amazing!
Then of course as you can guess if you give Americans and long straws like that you're going to start a spitball war. Katie and I dominated with me getting Abby square in the chin and Katie getting Lisa in the nose. I don't think I've ever laughed quite that much before. It was a great night. Thanks girls!
Look at that concentration.
Looks like I must have hit my target.
Another major event during this two week time for the Americans was hosting 'American Night' at Belmondo. To give you a little background information Belmondo is a club here in Olomouc that has a different country theme every Wednesday night. It is very popular with the international students and gives a lot of them an opportunity to showcase their countries. Upon arrival we heard about Belmondo and attendance has almost become a Wednesday night ritual. It's fun getting to go and see what the other international students put together to represent their countries. Then also as the host of the party you are to provide snacks and a drink that represents your country (paid for by the Belmondo club) and you give some type of mid-night surprise (usually a dance or song) as entertainment. Below is us working on our mid-night surprise dances.
Then, for our snacks and drinks we made mini hamburgers, hotdogs, and fries and then had jello shots for our drinks!
Below is the whole group all dressed and ready for the evening. We had all kinds of outfits, from Miss America (me) to typical sorority girls (Lisa and Katie) and from the best American superhero (Hayley) to GI Joe and GI Jane (Evan and Laura). Dr. Clark even got into and came as Hugh Hefner (below).
Mr. Hugh Hefner himself with Miss America.
Miss America and the best dang American superhero you've ever seen, alias name Hayley Herzog.
A picture of the group waiting for the tram. We have the Statue of Liberty (Thea), and indian (Abby), a sorority girl (Katie), GI Jane (Laura), American superhero (Hayley), a sorority girl (Lisa), and then me as Miss America.
The only bad part about having parties at Belmondo on Wednesday nights is having class at 8:30 am on Thursday morning. When I got to class I looked down and this is what I saw....
...pretty gross I know, but I did it for AMERICA!
Also while we've had these two weeks of basically just class, Dr. Clark and our other Czech professors organized multiple day field trips for us. They consisted of a visit to where Napoleon defeated the Russians near Olomouc, a tour and talk with the American owner of a Harley Davidson shop in Ostrava, Czech Republic, a May Day celebration is a smaller town in the Czech Republic, and town castle/palace tours near Olomouc.
Here is the girls and I waiting for the train to head to a May Day celebration.
This is Lisa and I by the wood craving guy at the May Day celebration. His work was amazing!
And this is us girls standing by the open window on the train back trying to get some air. There weren't enough seats so we had to stand for the whole hour train ride. We did get to see some beautiful scenery though!
Now on to Poland...
I almost think our four day field trip to Poland should be its own separate post but as long as I'm catching you all up I just decided to include it in this one. We left for Poland on a Thursday and arrived at our first stop (the salt mines) in about five hours. The salt mines were really cool. Who knew such a world could exist so far below us? Our tour guide showed us all around down to the third level (there were nine total levels). Things we got to see that really impressed me were the huge chapel, the big open area that had like a gift shop and other things, and then they even had a restaurant down there. It was very impressive. I even ate a pretty substantial piece of salt off the wall as a dare. It wasn't too bad but very very salty. Below is Caleb faking licking the salt on the wall. He doesn't even share drinks with people so there was no way he was going to actually lick a salty, rock wall. After the salt mines we got back on the bus and headed into Krakow, about another 45 minute bus ride.
The first night in Krakow Martin (one of our Czech professors) just showed us the town square, and we split into groups and explored around that area. A smaller group of us headed down a side street and ended up eating at a traditional Polish restaurant with a live three-piece Polish band and dancers as entertainment. Below is the amazing mushroom soup and crouton balls I got. Seriously it was some of the best soup I've ever had and I loved the little ball croutons.
The second day in Krakow we got up relatively early and headed to the palace and royal grounds of the Polish King. Sorry I don't really have any pictures, they were not allowed in the museums and stuff. It was pretty impressive though. We also toured an arms museum with a lot of ancient weapons and firing arms used by the Polish in battles.
Below is a picture of one of my favorite parts of the museum/castle. Dr. Clark translated it for us. In Latin it says, "If God is for us, who can ever stop us." I love that saying and would kind of like to do something with it on my wall in my room back in Kearney.
After that we spent the day exploring and of course shopping. Poland is known for Amber, so we did a lot of jewelry shopping. Then that night it happened to be Cinco de Mayo, so we decided we had to have margaritas to celebrate. Of course no one in Poland knows what Cinco de Mayo is but we walked the streets wishing people a happy Cinco de Mayo anyway.
Our margaritas.
Then our third day in Poland after church we headed to a pharmacy museum which actually was quite interesting. I'm usually not really into pharmacy but they definitely had some interesting stuff in there. Below is just one of the pictures I took, I thought it best represented the museum.
After the pharamacy museum we had the rest of the day to continue to explore the city. After Katie, Thea, Lisa and I traveled out of town to visit the Saint Faustina Shrine we headed back into town on a long tram that ended up dropping us off in the middle of a soccer mob. I don't know how much Americans know about European soccer....I mean 'futbol'... but it's crazy over here. A lot of the time huge fights will break out between the rivaling teams and some people can get seriously hurt. Anyway there was a huge soccer mob being escorted by more police than I think our president is protected by and more armored cars than I've ever even seen on the movies. Of course we loved it and continued to follow them through town to the town center.
Here are some of the police...
...and then some of the armored vans. No this was not all of them, just some.
There's only one thing that could grab my attention from this huge mob and it was this girl. Literally we were following the mob and when I saw her I stopped dead in my tracks. I know in the picture it looks like she is kind of sitting on that chain but that chain was actually far away from her. It was just the angle I took the photo at. I was just amazed. I know there's a trick to it but it was crazy!
On our final night then a couple other girls and I just headed to a restaurant right across the street from our hostel that served traditional Polish food again. The waiter ended up loving us and giving us like six free sip-shots of the cherry vodka they make at the restaurant. It was the best vodka I have ever tasted. You didn't even need anything else to drink, just the vodka.
He also brought us all an individual free appetizer. I think it was liver pate, if not it was good whatever it was.
Once again I got mushroom soup and if I thought my mushroom soup from a couple nights before couldn't get any better, I was wrong. It came in this great little bread bowl and I literally ate almost the entire bowl along with the soup.
Our last day of Poland wasn't the happiest of days as we toured the Auschwitz museum on our way home. Overall I liked it because it was very interesting, but on the other hand it was very depressing. To think people are actually capable of doing such harsh things to other human beings sickens me. Our tour guide described the camp best by saying it was a camp designed to slowly kill someone. Yes, a lot of the victims were sent straight to the gas chambers and killed upon arrival to Auschwitz, but the others got it way worse by having such tortuous things happen to them. Below is the gate into Auschwitz-Birkenau (the second camp establish). This is were the majority of victims lost their lives as most were taken straight off the train carts to the gas chambers.
This is the all barbwire fence that surrounded Birkenau. It rained the night before so that added to the depressive look of the place, but something tells me even on a sunny day it still would've been depressing.
This is the washroom area at Birkenau. There were 200 holes for toilets and because prisoners weren't given much time in the morning or in the evenings to shower and use these facilities it was imperative they use them quickly. Our tour guide also told us that if a woman had a baby in secret a lot of the time she would hide it in one of the holes because Nazi officers didn't like going in the washroom because they were afraid of diseases. So those babies were put in a hot or cold depending on the time of the year, dirty hole all day long until the mothers could get back and feed them for the night. Most of the babies died but some did end up surviving which shocked me.
These are the living quarter at Birkenau. The bunks look big but most were to hold six people. When i was looking at their size I thought to myself maybe 2-3 people could fit in them...but six?!!? I can't even imagine.
Then we traveled to Auschwitz the original camp and toured their living grounds and museum-type areas they have set up in the old living quarters. Below are some of the things they have on display.
Shoes of victims. This is just a single frame shot but the room with these shoes was very long and had glass window/walls on both sides with thousands, if not millions of shoes. It was one of the worst parts of the tour to experience and see.
These are the uniforms and shoes the prisoners were given to wear and work 11 hours days in.
This was another depressing part of the tour. It was a glass display box of some of the baby clothes and toys found among the victims confiscated belongings. Babies and their mothers were usually immediately taken to the gas chambers upon arrival to the concentration camps. Then if a woman had a baby and it was discovered she and her baby were usually shot.
This was a big pile of glasses also found in the confiscated belongings of the victims. It's crazy to think that a lot of the workers probably needed glasses but didn't get them because they were taken away from them. I'm practically blind and couldn't imagine going even a hour without contacts or glasses.
This was a large pit full of pot and pans again found in the confiscated belongings.
The firing wall outside the building they used as a prison/punishment building. Thousands of prisoners would be lined up along here and just shot at point blank range.
Our tour then concluded with a look at one of the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz. I can't even describe to you the feeling you get when you're standing in that room and you think of how many innocent men, women, children, grandmas, grandpas, moms, dads, etc. died in there. Looking back still I hate thinking about it. It's the most terrible place I think I've ever been.
Overall I'm very glad I got the opportunity to visit and tour Auschwitz and would highly recommend it for everyone to see sometime in their lives, but now that I've seen it I don't ever want to go back. Getting those thoughts and images out of my mind is practically impossible, so to go see it all again is something I don't think I could handle.
As you can see, I told you I did a lot of things in a short two week period. Everyday was an adventure though and I wouldn't trade any of it for the world. I'm looking forward to our upcoming trip to south Bohemia next week, so stay tuned on a new blog about those adventures!
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