October16th

Wow I haven't updated my blog in a while, so this is going to be a long one.

On our second day in Krakow we went to Auswitch and Berkeneu the Nazi concentration camps. It was a really moving experience when you think about how many people were killed there. (1.1 million) We got to go into some of the gas chambers in which people thought they were getting a shower but instead were gassed to death. People thought they were just starting over and that the Germans were relocating them somewhere so that they could lead a new life, but they were just leading them to their deaths just because they were Jewish. It's terribly sad.

On our third day i got my first real taste of the Polish winter that is soon approaching. It was sleeting hard and it was windy and cold. We took refuge inside indoor museums and ancient churches that were really spectacular. One of the churches we went to has one of the most famous alter pieces in all of Europe. The people at the church recognized this as a tourist attraction and you had to pay for a five dollar ticket to take pictures, along with the other ticket you had to buy to get into the church in the first place. O well, it was nice to be warm at least.

On our final day we went to a church called Corpus Christi for mass and it was a really neat church. I learned here that you kneel outside your pew when its time for communion and the priest will come down the row and put the Eucharist right into your mouth. Then at 12:00pm we got on an 8 hour train to go back to Gdansk. We had a quarrel with the ticket person on the train because they were saying that the kids did not get the student discount because we were not Polish students, even though the website doesn't say we had to be polish, but we got it all worked out and got back to Gdansk.

Monday was my 15th birthday and it was a bit different than American birthdays. For example I'm not sure they celebrate birthdays here so finding a cake was pretty difficult. we finally found a good chocolate one with cherries in the middle. We went to McDonalds for dinner because that's where i wanted to go. i got what i wanted for presents, new headphones because my old ones broke and i couldn't listen to my iPod. i also got my own digital camera so that i can take my own pictures and upload them onto my blog and Facebook.

Nothing really exciting happened the rest of the week, just schoolwork. I hope my Saints beat Ottawa tonight and remain undefeated. I'm gonna set my alarm for 1 am Sunday morning my time so that i can listen to the Jayhawks football game. with luck the KU-OU game next week will be on ESPN America so that i can watch it.

hope you guys are having fun and keep warm and healthy.