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As I mentioned before, I was going on a trip to Poland with my classmates. I was there for one week, and it was awesome. I don't have any pictures at this point, but I'm going to get a lot of them on a CD now soon from a buddy of mine, so I'll share some of them later on.

The trip started out early in the morning at Sunday 17/9.06:

This was just the day to get ready for the bus. Yes, we drove all the way instead of using a plane, except when we used the boat to take us over to Denmark. From Denmark we continued over to Germany. I was actually thinking that I was in the same country as you, Manuel, when we arrived there.

Monday 18/9.06:

This day was the day when we would drive the long way across Germany to Poland. We stayed at a place called Oswiecim there. Nothing special happened this day actually, we just made so much noice and we didn't sleep at the place we were staying at, that we managed to piss off the manager. He had a talk with our guide. You would think that he would have a word with our teacher, but we didn't have any teachers with us on the trip.

Thursday 19/9.06:

We stayed at a one-star hotel, as usual. This day we got a presentation of the two concentration camps: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II Birkenau. The second one I mentioned was larger than I had expected. I really can't tell how big it was, but I can tell you so much that if you enter this camp, all you see is a flat field full of barracks, and if you walk across the whole camp, the entrance is far gone. I think you all know the story of what happened here, but if you would like some information about this subject in particular, this is a good source:
After we had seen the camps, we drove from Oswiesim to the town in Poland, Krakow.

Wednesday 20/9.06:

This was actually my favorite day of the whole trip. We first ate breakfast at the hotel, and then we went downtown to shop. We could go wherever we wanted to, as long as we stayed two and two together. I went with two guy friends and two friends that were girls. We sort of lost the track of the two girls in my class, since they stopped at every damn store they had there. When the evening came, we went to this dancing and dining place where we would see some people perform some national dancing for us. In the middle of my meal I was picked by one of those Polish girls to dance with her all alone in front of everybody. I loved it! I didn't know one single move, but I just made up my own moves right there on the spot and made it look good. After this we went back to the hotel, after a great day with a lot of experiences.

Thursday 21/9.06:

We got ready to drive back to Berlin. This day was the second best day of the whole trip. After a long driving on the way to Berlin, we would spend the night at this place called "Tropical Islands" in Bradenburg, Germany. I don't know if you've seen it too Manuel, maybe you could offer some more information about this place than I can. Anyway, this was a really neat place. It was this cube, sort of, that was huge! When we entered, it was hot, very hot! We could feel it the moment we went inside of this gigantic cube thing. We registered and each and everyone of us got our own tent for two people. Right after we registered, I got myself a Hawaii-shirt, I couldn't resist buying one of those. This place had everything! A snack bar, a bar, huge swimming pools, and even an artificial beach. The beach was beautiful. When the evening came, the spotlights under the water made the water shine of blue and green colors. When we were supposed to go to bed, my friend had already occupied the whole tent with all his mess. So I decided to get a sunbed down at this "beach". The whole place was empty! Then a friend of mine joined me, and we started to look at the stars through the see-through roof, before we fell asleep of the relaxing fake sounds of water hitting the land. Here's a little information about it:

Friday 22/9.06:

This day, we continued our way back to Berlin. We finally reached the city, and we got the same amount of time to go shopping here as well. After we were done shopping, we had our dinner at Hard Rock Cafee Berlin. Everyone got a hamburger and a coke. It wasn't much more that happened this day.

Saturday 23/9.06:

This day we started off with breakfast at the hotel like every other day. We visited the camp called Sachsenhausen. Here they had, like in the other camps, brutal forms of torture. I don't think I should mention any of them here, in respect of those who doesn't want to read it. After we had seen this camp, we went to see the womens camp, Ravensbruck the women and babies were sent here. It was a little better than all the other camps, but still pretty bad. We went back to the hotel after these experiences this day.

Sunday 24/9.06:

There's really not much to tell about this day, other than it was an exhausting day to get home, it took forever. I could tell you all though, that the last hotel we stayed at, I spent the night in a room with some friends that I'm sure smoked like 10 cigarettes each, plus one cigar, that my clothes smelled like a cigarette at the end, and I don't smoke.

The thing that made the biggest impression with me was the facts about Josef Mengele, here's what you need to know about him: Again, not for everybody.

Anyways, I had a blast at this trip!

Great report! A good read.

Is poland one of those countries where you can walk into a damned coffee shop and buy a couple joints? Or does Norway do that too? Either way, beats going to toronto, where i went for my Grade 8 trip last year. Next oppurtunity is europe in grade 12 i believe.

OG2L, Thats Amsterdam (Holland) You're thinking of...

anyways, Wow, the concentration camps mustve been quite a humbling experience. I've done alot of research, and feel alot for that time period, but its probably nothing compared to have actually seen them.

Nice report! I am glad that you had fun on your trip. So do you know where your next school trip will be? For the Record my School trips I have been on sucked..Like we went to this Amish Village for our Grade 8 Grad trip..Anyways did you happen to check out any Game stores when you were in Poland?

Nice. Glad you had fun.
And cool that you thought of me.

I haven't been to Berlin yet. And those "Tropical Island" sounds interesting. Wasn't the admission fee quite expensive?


You betcha.



True. You need to have been there. I saw a cc in Austria and it's quite disturbing. Another thing you need to see with you own eyes are the 2 museums of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. You might end up depressed, though...

Ah, yes I knew Amsterdam was like that, but I thought there were a few european countries that supported it as well. I know you can buy magic mushrooms in the UK.. Why doesn't canada realize some of these laws.

You can be certain that they don't sell joints legally in coffee shops or anywhere else here in Norway. They don't do that in Poland either. What the hobos do though, the women that is, is drug their babies and put them on their shoulders to make people feel sorry for them, and give them money.



I did actually. You wouldn't want to buy any games or movies there. They dub everything to Polish. I even tried it out in the store I went in to, when the characters spoke, it was certainly not English...


It was pretty expensive, but the school payed mostly for everything, because our class got a good amount of money from this military located in this country's capital, they were very interested in this project, and a little share of the money we saved up before the trip was used there.

Great.

Ah, yes, Polish dubbing.
They mostly just do voice overs, i.e. they don't replace the dialogue, but only speak in Polish over the original dub. Not good.

Indeed, a good report. Sounds like a great time except for the sobering views of the camps.
My school joins in the suckery. We went to a cheese manufacturing plant! Wheee!

My school joins in the suckery. We went to a cheese manufacturing plant! Wheee!

Did you at least get to go to the zoo? That was the only good field trips we ever took. Then one of the idiots in my grade dropped his paper for class in the Malaysian Tapir exibit and then went in after it!

(for those who don't know what one is)

Indeed, a good .
My school joins in the suckery. We went to a cheese manufacturing plant! Wheee!


are you speaking of Tillamook, Todd? BLASPHEMY! especially for an Oregonian.

Ahhh... the POWer of cheese ^_^!

Cheese is good. Mmh... 64 slices of American cheese...

I'd have loved to go to a cheese manufacturing plant. You got some free cheese there?

Yes, I thought, for some reason, we were just talking about high school. In elementary and middle school, I also got to go to the Bonneville Dam, I think that field trip was repeated about three times. Never got to go out of the country, though...

Yep, that was the one. It would probably be more interesting now, but for a freshman with nothing but girls and video games on his mind, it was a gigantic bore-fest.

Yes, that turned out to be the best part of the trip. They gave us these miniature samples of the cheddar cheese when the tour was over, and EvilNES is correct about Tillamook--their cheese RULES. Also, it's right on the coast here in Oregon.

Yes, I thought, for some reason, we were just talking about high school.

I was talking about high school! We went for 9th grade bio. I think the only other time we went to the zoo was in 5th grade. They probably didn't think it was wise to send a bunch of ragamuffins (wee ones) to the zoo.

That's from "The Simpsons", right?