Poland in detail

I've taken the liberty of deleting my original brief post about my time here in Poland since I'm now in a position to give a more detailed update as to what is going on. No photos as yet - that will have to wait until I am back in London on the 16th.

Greg, Christian and myself flew out from Gatwick airport on last Friday, the 31st, via Poland's "finest" airline Centralwings. The flight was cheap, as was the beer. 2 quid bought you 4 cans of Polish beer, so naturally we already had a fairly healthy glow by the time we touched down in Krakow, in Southern Poland.

Krakow is a great city to go to if you are seeking to have a good time. Unlike most of Poland, it was untouched by the Second World War, and as such, most of the buildings and monuments are all originals. There is a massive town square in the centre of town, which is packed with clubs, nightclubs, bars and all of which is in close walking distance of the hostel we were staying at. Frankly, the 4 nights we were in Krakow were all fairly debaucherous. The one moment of seriousness came on the Monday where we went out to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau which is located nearby.

Auschwitz itself doesn't actually resemble a death camp, and indeed it wasn't. Auschwitz already existed as a series of army barracks, comprising approximately 30 large brick buildings. The Germans converted these to prisons, and used Auschwitz solely as a work camp. While they did perform some exterminations at Auschwitz, these were mainly of an experimental nature, designed to test the nature of the Zyklon B agent used to in the extermination process. Auschwitz does however possess the sole surviving gas chamber and crematorium.

It was at nearby Birkenau that the great holocaust occurred - Birkenau is a much larger camp, and it was designed solely as an extermination camp. The camp is vast - several hundred cabins dot the interior, and the camp is dominated by a large brick structure underneath which passed a length of railway track. The brick structure came to be known as the Gate of Death, since all who passed under it in the trains would not survive. Upon arrival at Birkenau, the Jews on board the train would disembark, and be directed by SS doctors to either the camp or the showers. All the men and women who were fit to work went to the camp, and all other women, children and elderly went to the showers. The showers were of course the gas chambers in disguise, and what happened after that is well known. Suffice to say that at Auschwitz they have exhibits including a pile of 30000 pairs of spectacles, enough shoes to fill several rooms and 2 tonnes of human hair - this represented but a small fraction of the belongings looted from the dead after the gas chambers had done their work. All very sobering.

After Krakow we came to Warsaw where I am at the moment - we've been here for a few days and are leaving tonight for Riga by bus. 9 hour overnight bus trip. Should prove to be suitably shitty. We're spending the weekend in Riga, and then heading off to Tallinn in Estonia on the Monday. Once there we'll be spending the rest of our time in and around Estonia until we fly back on the Sunday.

On the whole it's been a pretty good trip so far - it's certainly been a completely different world to the usual stuff I've been up to in England.

Except for this bus trip. It's really going to suck.