Rain in Croatia

I just finished a weekend relaxing in the sun on the beaches of Croatia! ...I wish! Unfortunately nearly all of the girls on my study abroad program decided to go to Croatia the one weekend that it was below 60 degrees and raining the entire time. We booked the trip in February so how were we supposed to know? It was a great weekend in a beautiful country, don't get me wrong, but as my friend Brooke put it, we are going back to Prague a little whiter than expected.

We came to Croatia through Bus2Alps, company that organizes group trips to places all over Europe. With one set fee we paid for a bus to take us on the 14 hour ride to Croatia and housing in a new hostel (we think it may still be in the process of being finished) that was really modern and even had escalators. Our bus left Wednesday night (don't worry, I don't have Thursday or Friday classes in Prague so I'm no skipper) and as I was packing on Wednesday I hoped and hoped that the weather forecast would be wrong, so I packed a bathing suit and mostly shorts for the weekend. Luckily I always overpack way too much so I brought jeans, leggings, and my light winter jacket as well.


We arrived in Croatia at 9am Thursday morning and left for white water rafting two hours later. I was extremely well rested considering I got my entire nights sleep on a bus. I was VERY nervous about white water rafting from one too many horror stories I had heard in the past, including Thursday morning when Brooke told us that she almost died white water rafting in Australia. So when we found out that these would be some of the weakest rapids there are, I was extremely relieved while everyone else wished we would be going on more of an adventure. I had a lot of fun white water rafting! Thursday was probably the warmest day of the trip and even at one point our guide helped us go under a tiny waterfall to cool off. However by the end the sun had gone away and we were all exhausted. Our guide could tell, and asked a motorboat to tow our raft to the restaurant for lunch where I ordered the fish. I found out that if you order fish in Croatia they literally give you a fish: skin, eyes, bones, tail and all. I've never accidentally eaten so many fish bones in my life but it was pretty good! After coming home and taking a much needed nap, we are dinner inside the ruins of the Dalmatian Palace. I ordered grilled escargot and will probably stick to fried escargot from now on. I didn't take a picture but it also looked like it had been pulled straight from the ocean.

Friday we went on an "island hopping cruise" with Bus2Alps. I added the quotations because we actually ended up only going to one island because we left late. Despise the fact that we only went to one island and it was pretty cold for a beach day, I loved laying on the pebble beach. A few of my more adventurous friends actually decided to swim but I really don't know how they did it! That night Bus2Alps took us on a bar crawl and we were able to experience the night life of Croatia and meet some of the other people on the trip!

Rosie and I on the island hopping boat!

Saturday was a pretty rainy day but we still got a lot out of it! I ate a delicious chicken wrap that the tour guide recommended and went to the the markets from there and got a few little souvenirs. Later in the day we went to a different pebble beach that was beautiful and had a ton of snails!

So many snails!!!

On the way home from Split on Sunday, we stopped at the national park in Krka. It was absolutely beautiful. The entire park was filled with waterfalls big and small, and I kept thinking of how amazing it would be if I could come in the summer and swim there. Also kept thinking about how scary it would be to fall in the water and to get swept away by the waterfalls...

The National Park in Krka

The rest of the trip was spent playing pictionary and hangman with Emily and watching the Hunger Games to try to make the second 14 hour bus ride a little bit shorter. Hopefully one day I'll make it back to Croatia on a beautiful summer day!

Exploring My Roots in Poland

The Great Barbican of Krakow

 Earlier in the semester AIFS took us on another trip, this time to Krakow, Poland. Since I have roots that trace back to Poland, I was really excited about this trip. The town where my ancestors lived was about 5 hours away from Krakow, but I am so glad that I had the opportunity to go see such a unexpectedly beautiful city! Our first day there the weather was absolutely perfect, and Z led us on walking tours in the morning and afternoon through the city. I had watched Schindler's List in the week leading up to the trip, and when we were walking through the Jewish quarter, Z pointed out a few things that were in the movie which was crazy to see in person. I'm happy I watched Schindler's List when I did. I had never seen it before, and it really helped prepare me for the things I would see on Sunday in Auschwitz.

While in Krakow, I tried a bunch of different Polish food, and the most interesting was the pierogi, which are a type of Polish/Ukrainian dumpling.We went to an outdoor market in Krakow, and the pierogis can't get more authentic than that!

The Center of Krakow

On the way back from Krakow, we went to the concentration camp Auschwitz. It was very fitting that the weather that day was especially gloomy, contrasting with the beautiful weather we had seen the day before in Krakow. Seeing Auschwitz was an overwhelming experience, and it was definitely very different than I had imagined. I wasn't sure what I had expected to see, but I was amazed that Auschwitz was in the same condition that it had been during World War II. Some of the buildings had been turned in to museums, which showed things ranging from pictures of individual prisoners to piles and piles of personal belongings that had been confiscated when people arrived at the camp, like glasses, crutches and prosthetics, shaving supplies, and suitcases. Before being deported to Auschwitz, the people were told to pack suitcases with their most precious belongings and to label their suitcases clearly. Once arriving to Auschwitz they were never given their belongings back, and they were sorted in an area of the camp called Canada.

A memorial: an urn of human ashes

These cans held enough gas to kill over 800 people in gas chambers

Glasses left behind at Auschwitz

Piles of suitcases that were never retrieved 

Inside the gas chambers

Inside the crematorium

"Forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity where the nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women, and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz - Birkenau 1940 - 1945"

A memorial in the place that gas chambers once stood

Remains at Birkenau

The most overwhelming moment for me was seeing a room filled with human hair. When women arrived to Auschwitz, they were forced to cut off all of their hair which was then to be used to make textiles. I had only expected to see a small pile of hair, just enough to demonstrate that the women's hair had been cut. Instead I was overwhelmed* by a seemingly endless room piled high with the hair of women and girls who most likely never made it out of Auschwitz. Each time I took a step further into the room, the pile of hair seemed even greater. I thought about how large the pile was, and how a body and a life were behind each head of hair. It was only a small sample of all of the hair that had been cut at Auschwitz because most had been used to make textiles, but it helped me put things into perspective.

Other than our group, the visitors to Auschwitz that day were mostly Israelis wearing Israeli flags. This was pretty amazing to see. It was as if their flags were sending a message to Auschwitz, saying "you couldn't stop the Jewish people."

*I know I keep saying overwhelming, but I really can't think of any other words to describe my feelings and emotions while visiting Auschwitz.