I’m Hikaru and I’m from Japan. Now I am staying in Czech Republic and learning Czech culture, architecture and so on.
This is about my trip to Krakow in Poland. On March 3rd early in the morning, I left Prague for the Krakow trip. I took the train with my friends who are also YFU students, and it took about 6 hours. We were excited and we played a lot of games on the train. The one I remember the most is “hang man”. I didn’t know this game before I came Czech, and I could feel culture difference even on the train. I couldn’t even answer easy words like “school”. I also figured out that the words which contain “W, Z, X, Q” are difficult to guess in this game.
When we went through the boundary between Czech and Poland, the train stopped for 20 minutes somewhere, where was nothing around. We thought this was caused by České dráhy. But then it started going in the opposite direction than we thought. We were confused and looked at the map many times. Fortunately, we could get there in the evening. Time passed in the blink of an eye. That was great starting of trip.
We met the other students at a hotel. First, we ate Pierogi, which is a famous polish food,
that’s similar as dumplings. There are 4 difference flavors, and I chose the cheese mushroom, onion mushroom and onion pepper. I preferred onion pepper. Finally, after lunch every student gathered, and the program began. The first activity was called “city game” where we had to do some tasks like “take a picture in front of a statue” with your group. The groups were completely random, so I interacted with students who were from Thailand, USA, and Ecuador. I was mostly afraid of talking in English since I can’t speak English fluently. But luckily, they could understand me and asked me a lot about Japan. I was relieved. The game finished at night, so we went to a restaurant to get dinner. Then we had free time until 22:00. I traveled around Krakow with friends and some other students. One of them was staying in Poland, so we could know about famous Poland snacks.
When I came back to the hotel, I met students who were from Thailand. We talked until we fell asleep. They taught me some Thai and we shared Instagram with each other. The next day we went to Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Wieliczka Salt Mine by bus. Auschwitz-Birkenau is museum about Jews, which I learned about a little in school. But it was something like “Nazis did something horrible to Jews “. So, everything in there was beyond my imaginations. For example, in the camps we saw pictures about what the Nazis did to the Jews, their lifestyle in the camp and other things which were unbelievable, and to be honest it made me feel uncomfortable. However, this experience expanded my horizon.
In my opinion, the Salt Mine was the best place that day. There were great views, edible walls, and remarkable architecture. Almost eve
ry wall could be licked, so we did that many times. It was fun and tasted salty. By the way, you can find out if a wall is made of salt if you use a light. In addition, there were amazing statues and chandeliers made of salt. There aren´t such mines in Japan, so it was fascinating for me. It was fun not only there but also on the bus, because we talked and shared culture with each other. I sat next to a guy from Alaska, which was a good opportunity for me, to find out more about his culture. But we mainly talked about how strange Japanese culture is. What was fascinating to me is that he was always surprised by Japanese culture and sometimes even impressed by it. I think these interactions were exactly the main purpose of this trip, and for me the most important part. That night, we traveled to an old town by ourselves. We had a great time in a cafe and explored everything. Also, the taxi is super cheap in Poland, so we took a taxi to go back to the hotel.
The last day, we traveled to an old town and Museum with a guide. It was interesting to learn about the history of Krakow. We could experience a lot more in Krakow than just normal sightseeing. In the museum, we watched a lot of paintings, pottery, and some other European stuff like an old chess set. Another thing we saw is known around the world and it´s a portrait painting drawn by Leonardo da Vinci called “Lady with an Ermine”. I liked it a lot.
And afterwards the trip ended. But we were taking the night train to go back, so we had to wait for about 7 hours. We were afraid of missing the train, so we waited at the station. Fortunately, there was a place for skating. We did that for two hours and then the train finally arrived.
The trip was really fun. Overall, it was a great experience for me. Especially since I could talk with other people who I meet for the
first time. At the beginning I was scared to talk to them because I thought that they wouldn´t be able to understand me and I felt uncomfortable. But throughout the trip I changed my mind and now I like to talk to them.