okay, show me the "computer not restarting and erasing my blog again"

okay. just wrote an entry, my computer freaked out and restarted itself, and now i have nothing...

alrighty then...

i went to krakow this weekend. it was really fun. and really cold. see?



(man i hate trying to write the same thing twice. it never comes out as well the second time.)

right, so the weather wasn't so happy our first day there (and the train got in at 6.0am after a 10 hr trip), but we went around sightseeing. all day. it's not that you necessarily want to, but you have to. otherwise you've wasted your trip. Krakow was a nice city. it had a very large square in the middle where they held all sorts of events. and their castle/cathedral was great. but i think in general, the town didn't really do it for me. (and they had an interesting Jewish district complete with Holocaust survivor (via Schindler's list) and pigeon market, where they sold . . . pigeons.)

the next day we went to Auschwitz and Birkenau. that was . . . unbelievable. it was pretty much impossible to imagine what went on there. i just dont understand how a human being could have been capable of that of anything that went on there. i mean, i don't care who you're working for, how does anyone justify smashing a baby up against a wall in the name of ethnic cleansing? i don't get it. And Franziska, my german neighbor, went with us. i think the significance of the whole thing was slightly different for her. but she's not always a big "talker," so i don't know more than that.

anywho, i took more picture there then i have anywhere, i think. we got back, ate dinner, and boarded the train with lots of chocolate. i mean, it was a 10hr ride. you gotta have chocolate.

i'm very torn about my return. as jesse put it, it will certainly be "bittersweet." i mean, i can't wait to see everyone and on top of that, celebrate christmas with family and loved ones, but i'm never going to see any of these people ever again. i mean, anything's possible, but let's be realistic. never again. that's really distressing. i've become great friends with a lot of people here. not all of them, but they've all become my friends. how do you spend 4 months with people, getting to know them and hanging out with them and experiencing brand new things with them and then just leave them forever? it just seems wrong. and i think it'll be incredibly difficult to keep in touch with most. i just dont know. i mean, all i can do is visit with them as much as possible until i leave. and then that's it. wow. i hate that.

yeah.