I arrived at the Central station around dark, I wandered about the streets packed to the gills with people from every corner of the world stuffed with Bavarian beer. I wound my way around the station and into a dark side street. wandered down past the empty and forboding parking garages to find 4you youth hostel.

I checked in and dropped my gear. Munich it was.

I woke up early the next day and decided that it was time to get some exploring it. I headed out on a day trip my brother had suggested to visit Neuschwanstein castle. Its the castle that Swan Lake was based on and overlook both the river and waterfalls. Its absolutely beautiful.

Getting there was a trip. I woke up early but still managed to miss my rail connection for the tour of the castle. Instead I wound up jumping in a Black Dodge Ram with two americans who were from the Frankfurt base and taking off on a driving adventure to find Fussen and Neuschwanstein.

After experienceing the castle and its surrounding area, complete with an introduction to the mad Ludwigs we headed back to munich, grabbed a nap and then headed out for a few cold drinks. We went to Hofbrauhous and to Augustiner and then wandered about, ending up in the Atomic Cafe and finishing the night in a Hostel bar down the street and across the station from our own.

Alot of interesting people and more so alot of first time travelers.

On my third day, I took advantage of a bit of a lull in the atmosphere and headed out to the BMW WELT exhibit… which was spectacular, from there I wandered my way to the Olympic park with a canadian friend before we headed back to the hostel and prepared for another full night out and a about.

German atmosphere and drinking culture is a whole new experience. The most starteling part of the experience was Englischer garten. More so the straight up nud sunbathing in the Central park.

We were even fortunate enough to have a live show as a drunk man ran up to the bus naked and did his rendition of meatspin.

Truly frightening.

After a day relaxing and witnessing the beauty of BMW and Olympia and German Fraulines, we returned to Augustiner for our last night out. I woke up the next morning and arranged a car (there are agencies in Germany where you call in and ask if anyone is driving your direction). There was a man headed to Hamburg but no connections to Berlin. The train ticket to Berlin was 120 euro and the car was a pleasant 30 euro even.

Eight hours, some Iggy Pop and a few bagels later, we arrived in Hamburg.

we ordered and ate, talked, and enjoyed the afternoon before continuing on our wander about the city. we managed to make it up into a large park near the Eiffel tower overlook and grab some great shots of the city and Charles bridge before wandering back down into town, discovering some dinner and then splitting up. I wandered back through the streets to my hostel and prepared to go out.

Instead I ended up playing kings cup in the hostel common room with some of the other fellows who were there. we hit the sack and called it a night.

the next day I met up with a young lady from the hostel and we went out for a Bike tour of Prague with a local guide and then wandered the streets until we found an excellent Mexican restaurant.

That night after dinner and a full day exploring the nooks and crannys of prague – from the dessicated hand of a thief who was apparently grabbed by the state of the virgin Mary to the national theatre and the memorial to the men who killed Hitlers second in command – even finding the Fred and Ginger dance building – I decided to go out dancing.

I left the hostel after a quick shower and went out in search of beloved salsa. I found it on the fifth floor rooftop bar of a major shopping center. complete with Bachata, Cha cha cha, Reggeton, and Salsa it was a perfect end-note. To make it even better one of the previous world champions of salsa made an appearance and danced for us. it was absolutely spectacular. such a pleasure.

I headed home and then gathered myself up for the trip out of Prague to Munich.

The next morning I caught my bus to Munich and prepared for German prices.

Chuckling to myself at the wonders of travel, I get off the train at the next station only to be ushered onto a bullet train right next to the one I’d gotten off. The problem? The train I was put on was going to Polom. Sweaty, Hot and severly lacking airflow the entire direct train packs onto the already full Polom train. with people sitting in the aisles and standing in the door corridors we ride for another hour – the beleaguered air conditioning not able to cope.

Sweaty and miserable we’re then ushered off the train at Polom and pushed like cattle onto buses. Again too few buses too many passengers. with people standing in the aisles on the big coaches we head toward another city. Without direction other than clerks pushing us toward the next destination I feel lost and unable to get my bearings. I threw myself to the wind and just enjoyed what little I could during the travel. without airflow, stuffed human beings in tin cans raise the humidity level considerably.

The buses arrive at a bus station in a town I’ve never heard of and couldn’t find on my map and they point down the street saying Praha. without knowing it, ten minutes walk down the street we find (much to our delight) the Train station. we wait for a 45 minute late train which should connect us to Prague. From there its 3 hrs to Praha, we’ve already been traveling for four since the border town. we board the train, again unventilated with only small windows at the tops of the car just in time to miss another summer torrential downpour. Humid and rife with the smell of humanity we pack into the train cars and fit 8 people to a cabin with people still out in the hallways. The train takes another 7 hours to arrive in Praha at 11:45pm. We’ve been pushing since 8am.

The problem was that due to the catastrophic flooding which is apparently unexpected for this time of year, many of the main rail lines were flooded or washed out. In addition 10 people had been killed by the flooding and many roads had washed away. Due to these problems, there were only a very few open rail lines to Prague. As if this wasn’t enough of a problem, a lot of the rail lines don’t connect until Praha, leaving the rail companies to have to bus their passengers between the lines. Then the Queue of trains trying to use the few open lines made for delays of up to 6 or 7 hours. It made for a wonderful time and a great day journeying to Prague.

I located the library and made my way inside. I met the librarian and we quickly discovered that neither of us spoke the others language. She went back into the stacks and came back with a colossal 1980’s Polish to English dictionary and began to translate a sentence I had written.

Seeing a computer terminal nearby I pointed and expressed Internet. She understood and let me get on while she went to work translating. I quickly booted up Google and although in Polish I opened the language tools section and went to their translator. I then quickly began typing my questions.

“I am looking for my ancestors, Haskell/Chaskell, Berger, Loseman… Any of these names buried here?”

“I understand, Please wait a moment”

“Maybe, Catholic priest mastered a document about Jews in Lipsk. Maybe. Wait.”

“Is there a Cemetery? Or the old synagogue or schools?”

“Yes. Cemetery. Only two Jew buildings still.”

“Can I see them?”

“Yes, But one may be school. Synagogue torn down – pool now.”

“Wait forty minutes and I can master you to the Cemetery and Old Jew street.”

I sat patiently as she finished her shift, we were then joined for 10 minutes by a young man who was studying a little bit of English. he had just finished high school and was eager to try out his English although nervous as well. He said he could walk with us for a few minutes and translate but couldn’t stay long. I repeated the earlier conversation to him and then asked him about the graves and any records about deaths or families living in Lipsk from the end of the 1800s.

The answer was – the Cemetery was pillaged, parts of it were taken by farmers and the tombstones broken or thrown away. What little was left was kept on a forested patch of ground preserved from farming a little outside the city. It had a memorial but the only stones there were from 65-75. She said there were no Jews left in Lipsk. No one took care of what was left of the cemetery.

We arrived a few minutes later. The cemetery was as described. a small corner of a field down a dirt road. Completely overgrown, what few tombstones were left were in the far righthand corner under a large tree. All placed together and relatively recent. I kneeled in the grass and undergrowth. Focused myself and connected with the spirits and feelings of those who may have died or lived in this place. My ancestors, my family.

I felt like they only passed through. That this place was only a temporary stop on an ageless journey. My mind turned and all I could think was our family was nomadic, this place wasn’t our origin or destination, only a stop along the way.

We left the cemetery and walked on, reaching a small building which was where the last Jews in Lipsk had lived. It had survived since the 1850’s with some moderate upgrades in the 1970’s. it was rough and abandoned, but still had curtains inside and a little well outside. We continued on to the Jewish street Ulica 400. There we met the Catholic priest who had written about the Jews in Lipsk and although our translator had left us, we communicated through sign language that the only other building was a home, which may have been the school house my great grandfather helped build. From there we walked to the town’s new recreation center, built where the synagogue had stood. He gestured to the large open pool demonstrating how big it was and what it looked like.

We headed back to the Library and the Librarian gave me a copy of the priests book, in Polish but none the less a palpable reminder and perhaps a guide to what came before.

I left the library with the librarians contact information and headed to the bus stop to return to Augustow.

At the bus station I found I’d missed the bus and had to wait until 4pm for the next bus back. As I was reading the sign my translator and his younger brother (who does Parkour) stumbled upon me, invited me back to their house for a drink and then decided to give me a tour of the monuments and sights of Lipsk.

We saw the Church, Monuments to soldiers from Lipsk, Communistic monuments, old artillery, and the river and lands around the City.

We then had a quick lunch of pizza, and meandered around until later that afternoon. Then my translators younger brother decided to demonstrate his Parkour ability, starting with a J-flip, and going into two aerials, first a back flip and then front flip, followed by running up the bus station wall and doing another back flip, then running off the top of a hill and doing a front flip to land on a narrow ruined wall below. Impressed we talked for a bit more about university and what they wanted to study and then I caught my bus to Augustow.

I waited in Augustow for 6 hours for the 10pm bus to Krakow ( a tiny little minibus for a nine hour ride ) and then checked myself into my hostel, booked my hostel in Prague and made my way the next morning for a 15 hour ordeal.

I grabbed the evening train and arrived at Augustów station around 11pm. Much to my dismay (and continued anger against poland) the train station at Augustów is 4km, yes FOUR kilometers from the city. That combined with a locked and dark train station and lack of phones or any way to call or find a taxi lead to my wonderful walk to the city center. 4km and about an hour later walking in full gear (my two packs and thin clothing) in northern polish weather – Cold, dark, Drizzly, left me cold and a little upset. I did manage to listen to my Ipod which made the walk much more bearable. However, Polish signs + dark road + no idea what the town looks like + no place to stay = Very nervous walk.

I arrived at the city and walked another KM into the center, I passed the cities two hotels and tried their receptions – one the door outside was locked and no one answered to door bell or heavy knocking. the second had lights on but had no answer, once again to heavy knocking, yelling and a bit of frustration at the impossibility of Hotels with closed receptions, despite it being around 12:30am. I made my way into the city park and found myself a bench near the bus station (well lit) and laid down to nap for a while. I woke again around 2 am… it was way too cold. So I wandered until I found a Bank with a separated area for its ATM. I stepped inside and found that I was the second person with the idea. I wedged myself into my corner of the small space, giving the other man sheltering in the space his area.

I strapped my bags together on my chest and then pad locked the straps together putting the key in my back pocket and then lying on my side against the wall. Sheltered from the wind, light rain and cold temperature I dozed until around 5 am. I woke and unwound myself before putting myself on the first bus to Lipsk at 6:20 am.

I arrived in Lipsk around 8:10 and started my search for remnants of my family.

Apparently the Polish rail system accepts student discounts only for polish nationals. However, their railway desk had sold me a student ticket, having accepted my student ID (ASU Sun Card) and taken down my student number. I boarded the train and had no issues until the Railway conductor asked for my student ID with my ticket. She didn’t speak any english and I didn’t speak any polish so I had to rely on a young Polish girl as translator. The railway conductor was upset and expressed through our translator that my student ID was not valid and that I would have to pay a fine on the ticket of 150 Polish Zloty. When I refused and asked the translator to explain that their offices had taken down my ID number and had sold me the ticket and that I had accepted it in good faith of its validity. As such I was in no way responsible for the violation of the rules nor was I going to pay her 8 times the ticket price in a ticket.

The conductor became rather upset at this and after some heated yelling at me and my translator in Polish, my translator told me that she now wanted my passport and that the ticket would be 200 zloty. I refused to give her my passport at which point she screamed a bit more in polish and then started saying Police Police. My translator then informed me that she was threatening to call the police if I didn’t pay the fine and that they would meet me at the station. She then asked me for my passport again so she could write me the 200 zloty ticket.

I stood my ground and refused her again. Noting again that their offices had sold the ticket and that it was a problem between those offices. If she felt there was such a big issue we could discuss it at the PKP station in Warsaw with someone who spoke english. After 5 minutes of me repeating my offer she yelled again at my translator and stormed off. My translator then told me that in two hours, when we arrived in Warsaw the police would be waiting for me at the station to arrest me.

I sat for the rest of the train ride in relative suspense, knowing I was in the right and sure that I wouldn’t be punished for doing nothing wrong. In my mind I kept telling myself that I would be vindicated by the police. The constant positive reinforcement boosted my mood and I took video using my Flip Video camera of myself on the train with the ticket explaining the situation just in case.

I disembarked the train to the call of two Polish police officers dressed in solid black with night clubs and guns waiting for me.

We repeated the same dance as I had on the train. I staing firmly that I was in no way responsible for the mistake and would not pay. I especially wasn’t going to pay a fine for a violation I had not committed nor was I going to pay a fine for a fine for that violation. I showed my student ID and expressed my concern that I was being taken advantage of as some kind of a gimmick against travelers.

By this time I was also quite aggrivated and over an hour late for my check in at my hostel.

After some more back and forth the officers finally gave up on trying to get me to pay for violation and instead tried to explain to me that I had to pay for their appearance. IE: I had to pay the costs of their being called and coming to sort this out. At this point I insisted that I didn’t violate any rules, the Issue was one between the two PKP offices and needed to be sorted out there, as such I was not responsible for the Conductors decision to call the police.

Finally the officers gave up and just walked away and left me to wander to my hostel a full hour and a half after my check in appointment.

I checked in, Had a drink and walked down Nowy Swiat (new world) street in Warsaw before having a traditional polish meal and calling it a frustrating day.

I could only stay for one night at the hostel because the next evening was a city sponsered free concert by a Mr. Lenny Kravitz and everything was packed. Nervous and unsure of where I would stay, but sure that I wanted to take the time to see and really understand Auschwitz and Birkenau I arranged with one of the gentlemen working at the Hostel to Couch surf for the night at his apartment. After leaving my bags at the Hostel I headed for the tourist tour booth and picked up my ticket for the Tour.

Auchwitz is an experience that is hard to describe. My foto’s can only express a small portion of the combined atmosphere and understanding of how many thousands of people were executed and tortured there. Our bus pulled in after an hour long documentary shown on the ride over. The weather had turned from semi-sunny to dark, forboding, cold and rainy. Nasty weather for a nasty place.

Dark silver and black clouds rested over the complex as we passed through the electrified barbed wired fences and past the famous gate reading “Arbiet Macht Frei”

As we passed under the gate our guide began her description of the grounds and the daily proceedures. From daily public hangings to torture and suffering wrought for the slightest action Auschwitz was a place of horror. The feeling of that suffering has not been washed away.

Even as the rain poured down the brick, running clear and picking up the reddish colour of the brick it was clear that the suffering here will never be washed away.

we turned down the main block corridor and started entering the buildings, examining shoes, combs, suitcases with namesand addresses written on them and finally a room containing tons of grey and decaying hair. The Hair was used by the german war machine to make uniforms, socks, and felt… what was left over is perserved in the museum open and in braids. The very real pieces of the humans beings who were slaughtered and tortured there threw me over the edge.

We continued on to the prison barracks and inspected the standing, suffocation, and isolation rooms, as well as the death wall where the firing squad operated.

Finishing by walking through the gas chamber and undersized crematorium at the end of the camp we quietly climbed back on board our bus and headed to the Ruin of Birkenau. Auschwitz II Birkenau is mostly destroyed. The germans burned the warehouses holding all the prisoners belongings at Birkenau to the ground as well as detonating explosives in the giant crematoriums there in a desparate attempt to cover up their sins. they failed. the imported german stables- cheaper to reassemble there than build brick buildings – which housed 700 people in the space where you would fit 50 horses still stand, perserved as a museum complete with the barrack used as toilet and wash room. Five minutes for a total of 2000 people to use the facilities. Violators executed.

We made our way to the tower, made famous by Schindlers list and over looked the camp before boarding the bus and heading back to Krakow in somber reverence.

I left Krakow early the next morning taking an afternoon train to Warsaw.