I went to Poland during my semester abroad in Vienna and I traveled with a bus company that plans trips for Erasmus students. I did not know anyone going on this trip but I stuck with this guy I met from Finland the entire trip so I was not too lonely. I did not really think much of going to Poland. There was nothing that I was dying to see in this country. However, I was pleasantly surprised by my experience in Poland. 

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Our bus traveled from Vienna to Krakow. I thought that Krakow was absolutely beautiful. We got a great tour of Krakow where we saw several large churches and learned about the culture of the city. I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Krakow. 

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The next day, we took a bus from Krakow to Auschwitz. Although Auschwitz was certainly not an enjoyable experience, I am glad that I went, for it was very important to see. We had a tour through Auschwitz camp that was very informative. I learned a lot during this tour that I had not known about the Holocaust. The artifacts from these camps were displayed throughout the camp. Looking at these personal belongings from these victims put into reality the horror of the Holocaust. Most difficult for me to see were the pile of children's shoes and the room of hair. Prisoners were stripped of all their belongings and their heads were shaved upon arriving at Auschwitz. There is a giant room with all the hair of these victims in a pile. I was not allowed to take a picture of this but one can imagine just what a horrible sight this would be. People were crying in this room and understandably so. After leaving Auschwitz, we traveled down the road to the Birkenau concentration camp. It is hard to look around these camps and imagine what life was like during the Holocaust. 

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My time in Poland was a wonderful learning experience. I believe that everyone should travel to a concentration camp to learn about this treacherous history. We can all learn from the past, in hopes that these faults will not be committed again. 

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My second time in Poland was during my semester in Berlin, when I went to the city of Wroclaw with my Uni. The bus ride from Berlin to Wroclaw was five hours long. 

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We checked in at the hotel. We stayed at Novotel and I have no complaints. The room was very nice and clean and the buffet breakfast is one of the best that I have had at a hotel. After checking in, we all split up into our excursion groups. I was in the group that would go to the Royal Palace. The palace was once a palace of the Prussian monarchy. The palace was heavily damaged in 1945 during the siege of the city. Now Wroclaw was once named Breslau and was a German city. After 1945, Breslau was transferred from Germany to Poland and was renamed Wroclaw. The palace museum finished with renovation in 2008. Overall, I was very disappointed in this excursion. We got to the Royal Palace at around 4:00. They told us that they did not have a guide for us, so we were all handed the audio guides. I could never follow what the audio guide was referring to. The whole bottom floor was a museum of artifacts and the top floors were the palace. As I was exploring the second floor, the lady working motioned to me that I only had ten minutes left. She began shutting off the lights and locking the doors. I did not even get to see the rest of the palace. So at 5:00, I had to leave.

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Dinner was not until 6:30, so I just walked around the city to find dwarves. I will talk about this later. Dinner was also annoying. Dinner on Friday was paid for but we had a very selective menu. I would normally not complain about this but the other groups had a much larger selection. I had to choose between two soups and two main dishes. I got chicken noodle soup which was barely warm and probably came out of a can. I then got dumplings filled with meat for my main course. I figured I would try these but I was not that satisfied. Dessert was an apple pie, the only aspect of the meal that I enjoyed. After dinner, we walked back to the hotel and I fell asleep.

 

In the middle of the day, we all met back at the hotel for our dwarves tour of the city. Over 600 dwarves can be found scattered around the city of Wroclaw. Finding these dwarves was the highlight of my time in Wroclaw. The dwarves originate in 2001 and commemorate the Orange Alternative, or an anti-communist movement. From our tour guide, I learned that students took to the streets wearing all orange and dressed like dwarves to protest against Communism. This theme somehow transferred into placing dwarves around the city. The dwarves are actually quite small and are easy to pass up. However, they are so abundant that you are bound to see one. Each dwarf has a different theme and attire. Some dwarves are smaller, bigger, with friends, alone, or with family. They are inside, outside, valleyed in the streets and climbing lightposts. Apparently, these dwarves are a major tourist attraction because many other people were taking photos of them. There are now apps to find these dwarves, people will dress the dwarves up occasionally, and a Dwarf festival takes place in Wroclaw every year.

 

After hunting dwarves, my friends and I went to Pizza Hut and took our individual pan pizzas back to the hotel. We did not want to wait for food at a restaurant. We had a very chill night watching TV and eating pizza in my friend's room.

 

The next morning, I had a wonderful buffet breakfast once again. It was then time for the five hour bus ride back to Berlin. I must say that my first experience in Poland (Krakow and Auschwitz) was much better than this time. Perhaps the weather played a major part in this but I do not think I would go back to Wroclaw. If I did not have my friends there, I probably would have been miserable.

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