Krakow, Poland

So that Friday night in Berlin we worked some shit out at the internet cafe and then painted the town red, white and blue. We really just went to the Wombat's Hostel bar but that's a pretty damn good bar and it was also the Wombat's bar in Munich that I had such a wild time at. We got a couple of beers at the internet cafe because it was a joint cafe/grocery store. The bar was on the 7th floor which was the top floor and it had a great view of the TV Tower which is in Alexanderplatz. We got some drinks up there, I played a vicious game of ping pong with a Danish man (I also whooped Mariel with ease but grace) and we talked to this Irish woman after we had had a few and just could barely make out what she was saying. She had a heavy southern ireland accent and she was just chatting away. that night Mariel woke up to our Asian room,ate from brazil (????????????) ass naked at 4 in the morning in our room. Later on he was on standing on my bed right next to her face on the top bunk because he was "trying to look at her clock to get the time". I slept right through this of course.

We woke up and got a good breakfast at the hostel for 3.50 Euro and jacked a bunch of sandwich stuff so that lunch was free later. We walked by the TV Tower, this market where I bought a German beer glass with a lid, this awesome park called Tiergarden with amazing fall leaves. We walked up this monument which is symbolic for all of Berlin, went to Hitler's former bunker. they had a Holocaust memorial that had sloping hills with different sized pillars to represent the uncertainty and confusion for jewish people during that time and afterwords. We saw where the Berling wall first came down, the government building (where I almost got in trouble because I had my knife on me when i entered and it's technically illegal to be carrying around in public in Germany). There was a political march that just didn't quite seem right hearing everyone yelling in gemran for a political cause and then the book burning memorial on our way back to our hostel. We did a lot of stuff. Then we painted the town red, white and blue again that night. We met our new roommate who Mariel decided to name "Jafar" because he had crazy/wild black hair and didn't speak much English. We got a drink and then mariel quickly made friends with some Jews from Israel. they though she was a JAP (Jewish Americna Princess) at first but then they realized that she was hard core. We drank with them for a while and then I made some friends with these 2 Aussies and we just had a little party going in the Wombat's again. The Asian/Brazialian guy was there and he was acting a little wierd to Mariel again. I think he had a big old crush on her but she wasn't even slightly interested. That night "Jafar" gave Mariel quite the scare so she slept with her knife open. Silly goose. I slept through another fiasco where he got up and looked out the window for a while and then our other rommate Alex stumbled in at 6:30 am to pack and leave. I slept like a baby.

That Sunday we walked down to the East Gallery which looked like an awesome museum but ended being a long as pasture of the Berlin wall with lots of graffiti art and tagging on it. Mariel and I wrote our names on it but also wrote our pretend German names on it (Hans and Gitl). She was a little upset because she had to go to the bathroom so we had to walk the to a restaurant instead of the bathroom at the museum which I had promised. Whoopsiedaisy. We then walked through what looked like the middle eastern neighborhood of Berlin. All of Berlin is incredibly international so it was awesome to see these different communities of people around the world. We had Thai food the first night for dinner and Japanese the second night. After a stop for our free lunch again thanksd to Wombat's we walked to the German Jewish Historical Museum. We talked about life and relationships and what we plan to do after we're done with our time in Europe. The Jewish museum was a very impressive museum. It started with some Holocaust victims personal items that were found with a brief description. An artisitc architect from Poland designed it and he had some interesting things throughout. He designed the building with empty rooms that were all concected in certain points to represent but couldn't be reached to represent the absence of Jews in certain parts of German culture throughout its history. The museum really wasn't just about the Holocaust. It covered everything from the 1200's on and while it covered the Holocaust didn't put any extra focus on it. Mariel already knew most of the history but I learned a lot of facts tha gave me a better understanding of Jewish culture in Germany and really a lot of Europe as well. We walked back by Checkpoint Charlie (which was the American part of the Berlin Wall) but that was kind of a joke as far as being informative and interesting so we barely spent any time there and went back to our hostel. We took a night train to Krakow and just had a little giggle fest the probably annoyed our neighbors but made Mariel just go crazy with laughter.

We got to Krakow that morning and dropped our stuff of once we found our hostel. The conversion rate in Poland is quite in our favor so we went and got a huge but delicious lunch for about 2 hours in the Jewish neighborhood of Krakow. We had perogi (which I kept caling paella accidently even though they are 2 completely different things) which is a Polish dish and awesome. It's a potato dumpling filled with eather meat, vegetables, cheese, dessert, or whatever combo you want. I had the the double cheese one and Mariel had the cabbage and mushroom one. We split a dessert platter of them which also rocked and we washed it all down with some good Polish beer. We ventured into a synagogue which looked to be orhtodox and Mariel explained some of the interest aspects of this synagogue to me. We went into the cemetary and I was required to where a kippa (yamaka-esque) because all men are. We left and took a little break, refresher. We took care of trains, cooked some food and went out to the Jewish area again to get a drink at this pretty damn cool jazz club. there was dead rat right on the street that we and the people next to us watched people get freaked out when they saw it and a middle aged guy accidently step right on without even noticing. Yeah Krakow!

Today Mariel and I got up and had some free breakfast like usual. But we went out and saw the sights today. We went to the Wawel castle which is the main tourist attraction and housed Polish royalty for centuries. They had a lot of interesting archaelogy and apparently a dragons lair which is how Krakow got it's reputation. We wanted a good old lunch again so we went to the Jewish quarter and just ended up at the same restaurant. This time we got different types of perogi and had a vodka apple drink which is supposed to be very Polish. I also sipped on a shot of good Polish vodka. We walked up to the Old Town after that which was surrounded by a wall because it used to be the barrier to outside forces. They had some absolutely beautiful chuches and a gorgeous center sqaure. A market with some very tempting things for sale. We stopped for a bit and got a beer and some beet soup (Mariel's new favorite dish) and on the way back to the hostel we saw an accordian band which rocked. Mariel also loved them and I was considering buying their CD. After a souvenir vodka stop we got some food for tommorow and came back and had some dinner. We would have gone out tonight but we're getting up early tomorrow to go to Auschwitz and Mariel has some family ties there so it will be a serious day all around. Then off to Prague and sleep that night and we are going to paint Prague red, white and blue the whole fucking time! So that's that. Mariel and I have just been cracking goofy jokes that really would probably make people question our sanity if they could understand us. Some of it is mildy offensive, some of it is incredibly offensive and some it makes no sense because we are just saying obscure phrases or making wierd noises. We have named ourselves Hans and Gitl and we talk with silly German accents. We also say "Oh Deary Me" like Mrs. Doubtfire. These are just some of our little shenanigans. So that's Krakow.