Sobering: Kayla's travels have taken her through Germany and Poland, including the Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps
By Kayla Maratty
… in Europe
Shocked, disgusted and a little bit drunk. Just a few of the things we were feeling on our second night in Berlin. It all started after a night out on Berlin’s infamous clubbing scene, at a place called Matrix. We went out with two Americans we met from our dorm, and got back at about 4.30am.
Once we were settled in our bunks, we noticed a guy in our dorm in the bunk diagonal to ours having some solo… errmm… fun time! We saw the funny side of this, but unfortunately for him, the hostel management didn’t.
We checked out before seeing the outcome of our snitching (and quite rightly so) but were assured by the staff that someone would have a “talk” with him. None of the male staff seemed willing to have this “talk” so a petite, gothic looking woman volunteered, seeming well up for the challenge.
Apart from that, Berlin has been a good city. We wandered around from the impressively tall Television Tower, to the Berliner Dom, the Brandenburg Gates and to the Reichstag. Though i think the highlight of our time in the capital of Germany had to be discovering that the shop opposite our hostel sold 29cents noodles. Whilst nursing a hangover, this discovery was like finding gold!
The highlight of our entire trip so far has to be our time in Krakow, Poland. We took a tour of the Wieliczka Salt Mines which were the most incredible thing I´ve seen. It has nine levels which we saw three of, at a depth of 135 metres. The main attraction was the Chapel of Saint Kinga, a massive underground church carved into the rock salt. Embellished with salt sculptures, bas-reliefs and rock salt chandelliers. It was even more impressive when we were told that it was all carved by just three miners in their spare time over the course of 70 years!
That day trip was going quite smoothly until two Spanish members of the group didn’t arrive at the meeting point on time. We waited for over 45 minutes for them to arrive, much to the tour guides frustration. She was getting angrier by the minute, ranting with a heavy Polish accent about how it was wasting our time which we’d paid good money for. When they did round the corner they were met with patronising claps and cheers before facing the tour guide’s wrath! I didn’t envy them that.
We visited the Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camp also, which wasn’t as depressing as I expected, but more interesting. The most shocking part was seeing the hugh collections of hair, glasses, suitcases, hair brushes and most of all prostethic limbs! I’ve always been fascinated in studying the Holocaust but this day brought it to life in a shocking and horrific way.
I had a lump in my throat, particularly walking through the gas chamber, but I managed not to spill over. Although walking around we saw several people clutching tissues.
We’d overheard a rather self-important German guy who liked the sound of his own voice, lecturing whoever would listen about how it was wrong of people to take pictures in Auschwitz and that it shouldn’t be allowed. However, I think he’s totally wrong. The whole reason the camp is still there and open to visitors is so that such horrific attrocities should never be forgotten and never be allowed to happen again, and taking photos is the best way to ensure that this happens. I know that it was a day Sophie and I will never forget.
We arrived in Köln, Germany last night but four hours later than expected; our four-hour train journey turned into an eight-hour one after long delays on the tracks. Most frustrating of all was that the tannoy announcements on the train which explained why were in German, and my minimal knowledge of German left us totally in the dark.
When we discovered that the staff didn´t speak English we managed to claim a passenger as our translator for the journey. He explained that there had been a suicide so our route to Köln was closed. I felt guilty that we felt so sorry for ourselves for having to be stuck on a train for an extra four hours when some poor sod was obviously having a worse day. I can’t help but have the selfish thought that he was ruining eveyone elses day aswell as his own!
We finally made our destination at about 9.30pm and begin our last two weeks of our trip. We have just two more countries to go: Belgium and the Netherlands which sadly, I know will go by far too fast!