Pakistanis in Graz

After Vienna we headed south to Graz.  We were accepted by a group of Pakistani graduate students, and we went to the student housing where they lived..  We were welcomed warmly: they gave us our own room and fed us some very spicy Pakistani food. (This was very humorous, because we are such wimps with spice)  They were all very religious, so at times there was a bit of tension for me.  Even with such generosity, there was an unspoken knowledge that the presence of a woman in the house caused unease for some of the roommates.  Some of them would not even shake my hand; physical contact of any kind was out of the question.  I do not begrudge them for this, because they never treated us with anything but kindness.  I did my best to be respectful; I always made sure to keep my body covered.  Nonetheless, it was a little uncomfortable.

Graz is a very pretty little city.  The streets are lined with buildings in a spectrum of colors.  The trams that run through many streets are charming. There is also a hill that rises up abruptly which you can climb to view the city from above.  We had a wonderful time.
 

Vienna: How to get your car towed

Ah Vienna!  I absolutely love Vienna.  Not because it is any more spectacular than so many other European cities.  Not because our time there was so perfectly memorable.  There is really no good reason for my captivation, and I know it.

The only thing I can think of is the film Before Sunrise.  Months before visiting Vienna, when we were still in Spain, we stayed with a couch host who watched this movie with us.  As we walked around the city all I could think of were the sites I had seen in the film.  I think it is this association that created my infatuation with Vienna.  It just goes to show how subjective our opinions of places can be.

If I had not seen this film, I would probably not have very fond memories of Vienna.  On the first night we arrived, we were greeted by the nice young man who had accepted our couch request.  We had a lovely evening chatting at his dining room table.

The next morning things were not so bright.  We left the house to find our car had been towed.  We have handicapped parking from Spain, because of Javier's disability.  Because we were coming to a big city, we asked our host in advance about handicapped parking around his area.  He was very helpful and even asked his father - who worked for the police department - about how the spaces worked.  It seemed we would have no problem parking right outside his house.

This was wrong, Wrong, WRONG!  His father had told him quite incorrectly that the numbers on the handicapped parking sign were just i.d. numbers for the spot.  Wrong.  They were actually indicating that the spot was specifically designated for someone. 

It became a huge fiasco for us to get our car back.  We had to go to the far outskirts of the city to get it, and despite our pleas of mercy about the fines we still had to pay quite a lot.  Fortunately we did not have to pay the fine for parking in a handicapped spot - we generally had the right to - but we did have to pay the towing fees.  To make this even more ridiculous, the time of towing was only 10 or 15 minutes before we had stepped out of the apartment and saw the car was missing.

If only we had been a little quicker in leaving.

The rest of our time in Vienna was rather uneventful.  We enjoyed walking around the city.  It really is an elegant place.

Bratislava

Bratislava is a beautiful city.  It is like many other European cities, so I won't say much about it.  We stayed with a really cool guy.  He is a serious outdoor enthusiast.  For both work and fun he spends his time doing extreme sports.  We still keep in touch with him online.

This is the UFO bridge.  There is a restaurant in the top.

Slovakia: Have a Drink With Us

In eastern Slovakia we were hosted by a young man who had just moved back home from college.  He was living with his mother and father outside the tiny town of Bardejov.  When we first met up with him, he took us on a tour of the little wooden churches near the town.  These were the few churches we were able to enter. 

In the evening we were treated to a wonderful meal by the man's mother.  Afterward we retired to the living room to talk.  The man's parents did not speak a word of English, but they were very interested in learning about our lives.  The father was especially talkative, and kept his son busy translating for us.

After talking for a while in the living room, the father invited us out to the bar down the road.  We bundled up in our winter clothes and walked out into the snow.  At the bar the father ordered plum brandy: slivovitz.  When I told him I liked it, he was overjoyed.  He kept ordering more.  It was a point of pride for him.  Eventually we had to leave his father at the bar, so we could go back to the house to sleep.  The walk back was warm and toasty from the alcohol.

The next morning we were greeted with another wonderful meal from the man's mother.  We had to leave shortly after breakfast, but she made sure to supply us with food for the day.  She sent us off with sandwiches and a huge jar of homemade pickles. 

There really is nothing that compares with the hospitality we experienced in eastern Europe.

Little Wooden Churches

In southern Poland and eastern Slovakia are beautiful and intricate wooden churches.  They were built between the 1500's and the 1700's and have beautifully painted interior walls.  All of the churches we visited were Orthodox, but there are also Catholic and Protestant churches in the area as well.

Poland: A Smorgasbord of Couch Hosts!

We did not want for couch hosts in Poland.  We had hosts practically fighting over us.  For basically every town we requested a place to stay, we received at least two positive responses. 

Even when we let one host down, because we had already accepted the request of another, they would insist we come and see them.  How could we decline such eager hospitality?

Every person we stayed with, had lunch with, or took a tour with was ecstatic to have our company.  The grandfathers would bring out their special liquors and insist we have seconds; we were treated to delicious home-cooked meals; and given intimate introductions to the places we visited.

I always suggest Poland to people who are planning on visiting Europe.  The cities, food, and history are marvelous, but the people are even better.

Warsaw

Warsaw is a nice city, though I don't have too much to say about it specifically.  A pretty typical European city; it was almost completely destroyed by the Nazis at the end of the Second World War.  We stayed with a wonderful man who fed us amazing food every day, and refused to let me do the dishes.  He even gave me his Rubik's cube when he saw me solve it.

Apart from walking and exploring the city, we also visited the Warsaw Uprising Museum.  This museum delves into the uprising of the Polish resistance in Warsaw against the Nazis, and subsequent demolition of the city by the Nazis.  It was very interactive and we had a great time; I highly suggest this museum.

Oswiecim - Auschwitz

It was just after New Years that we took the drive west of Krakow to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp.  From the moment you arrive the experience is sobering.  I think for many it may seem odd that we actually spent two separate days at Auschwitz I and Birkenau.  It was important for us to learn as much as we could while we were there.

Auschwitz I is not very large.  This was the original camp, and it did not hold as many people as the later camps.  A few places in this camp are very heartbreaking and difficult to see.

The first place that was very disturbing for me, was an exhibit which included the clothing, shoes, and hair of many prisoners.  There were even artificial limbs in the exhibit.

The next area was also upsetting: the rooms where they first tested their methods of gassing prisoners.

Probably the worst area for me was the series of rooms in Block 11 where prisoners would be tortured or left to die in different ways.  The standing cells were particularly distressing.

A sickening feeling rises up from deep in your chest when visiting these places.  A silence comes over everyone.  There really is no joy in a place like this.  We spent the whole first day visiting Auschwitz I, and by the time we had finished seeing the rooms we needed a break from the sadness that had overcome us.

The second day we went to Birkenau.  Birkenau was built later to accommodate the increase in prisoners being brought to the camp.  The train tracks were built right into the compound; bringing many to their final living quarters.

Birkenau is very different from Auschwitz I: it is much larger and there are very few remaining buildings.  Much of the camp lived in canvas tents and wooden barracks, the only remains of which are the brick chimneys.  At the back end of the very large camp, are enormous piles of concrete and stone.  These are what is left of the gas chambers.  The Nazis tried their best to destroy any evidence of these at the end of the war.

This site evoked a very different feeling than Auschwitz I.  Despite the fact that the vast majority of deaths in this concentration camp occurred in Birkenau, the wide open landscape and lack of remaining buildings makes the experience less solemn.  There is much less evidence of the terrible acts that occurred there. 

Krakow

Krakow is a charming city located in south-eastern Poland.  We spent a week in Krakow around New Years.  We stayed with two different hosts.  The first were a charming couple who lived in some communist era apartment buildings away from the center.  We stayed with them twice - before and after New Years.  They had a grumpy rabbit they were watching, who Javier and I often think about.

During New Years we had to leave the couple's house, because they were going away to visit family.  For New Years we spent the night with a young man who was having a big party at his small apartment.  We rang in the New Year with these young people who proceeded to open sparkling wine and spray it all over the place.  It was a long sleepless night of fun and conversation.

On a hill overlooking the center is a small citadel.

The central plaza of the city is broad and impressive.