Adventures in Dutchland: Rewind and Remember

So, it's been awhile, eh? For starters, I'm back in Canada now (hence the use of eh with rather little mocking). I could write a whole post about it, but I have a lot of filling in to do before I get to life in Canada, and to keep it easy for the both of us, I'll break it into parts.

First up: Cassie and Poland!

My dear friend Cassie arrived in Holland the weekend after I was in London. I picked her up from the airport and we hit the ground running. In a nutshell, this is what we did: Anne Frank house, red light district, hardcore Sunday night partying with fellow Canadian travelers, broken bikes, high tea, pedicures, biking around Maarssen area, kayaking in Utrecht, and a night of great Belgian beer at my favorite restaurant Olivier, Apeldoorn free-range monkey zoo, and a trip to Poland (which will have it's very own section in this lovely blogpost). All in all it was a whirlwind of an adventure complete with broken cellphones and few blank memories. Here's a photo summary. =)

High Tea at the coolest little place in Utrecht called De Bakkerswinkel.

Kayaking in Utrecht with Laura. This is where the first cellphone fatality happened. Laura was leaning over to help me pull my kayak in and that's when her cellphone found it's new home at the bottom of the canal.

The adorable little monkey's at the monkey zoo...

And the two little monkey's that joined us for the adventure.

Biking in the Maarssen area. I was so darned excited to share what my life was about for the last year. It was so nice to finally be able to share it with someone!

And now for Poland.

While Cassie was here (haha, I say here as if I am still in Holland!), we made an adventure to Karakow...well, we didn't make the adventure. The worst airline in the entire world, Wizzair, made it an adventure for us. After arriving at the airport, we were told that our flight was 6 hours delayed! What fun! Not. After awhile, we gave into the overpriced beer and drowned our sorrows. We eventually arrived in Poland at 11:30pm and still had an hour drive into Krakow ahead of us. Would have been a fantastic drive if all public transport and shuttle buses hadn't been closed down for the night. Thankfully we met a really awesome Polish lady who was on the last shuttle bus from the airport to Krakow, and she negotiated (which is a polite way of simply saying she begged) with the driver to let us on. Eventually he agreed, but only if the people who had reserved the seats didn't show up. Thankfully they didn't and the looming thought of having to sleep in the airport vanished. =)

While in Poland, we visited Auschwitz and Birkenau. It was a very sobering experience, but I'm glad we went. The material was presented in a very respectful way, and to maintain that respect, I have restrained myself from posting pictures of the actual camps. I don't think I need to go into any detail as we all know the horrendous story.

The rest of our time in Krakow was spent seeing absolutely everything we possibly could, and I think it's safe to say, we covered all of it! We saw the Jewish Ghetto (which has had no restoration work done on it. All the buildings are as they were during the war), Schindler's Factory, we ate a traditional Polish meal of sauerkraut, pickles, perogies, schnitzel, and beer, we saw the castle, and I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but you just have to trust me when I say we saw it all.

The original gate of Schindler's factory.

This was a train platform where Jewish people of Krakow were collected to be taken to concentration camps. People were told to pack all their belongings as if they were moving away, so many people brought chairs with them. However, the Germans had a different plan, and in order to maximize the number of people that could fit into the train car, they were to leave their large items behind. Now, on this spot, lies a monument of chairs dedicated to the Jewish people who were forced from their homes and sentenced to death.