The Voyage - Days 11 and 12

Day eleven. Three Countries in One Day Extravaganza.
Yet again, we had an amazingly delicious breakfast made at our bed and breakfast. We all spent the morning showering and putting on our freshest clothes so we could have a slightly more pleasant ten+ hour car ride from Romania through Hungry and just across the Slovakian boarder to Kosice, Slovakia!
As we passed through the Romanian-Hungarian boarder we were stopped by boarder control yet again. Thankfully the story leaving Romania was similar to the story when entering the country, we were kept for a short amount of time then released without having our baggage rooted through.
The drive itself was pretty uneventful except when I drove up some switchbacks with really tight turns, I was going a little fast; I really wanted to get around the slow car in front of me. Plus Brian sang for us, loudly, that was pretty mention-worthy.
When we arrived in Kosice there was minor debacle with parking, as per usual; and a minor debacle with useless power outlets, as per usual. We somehow always find a way to make things work, hopefully that luck doesn't run out.
The apartment we stayed in that night had a laundry washer/dryer combo, the 'dryer' functions didn't work so well. Any clothes that were washed were now dripping wet with no way to dry. By morning the whole apartment was covered in hung up damp clothes. I'll briefly say our night in Kosice involved a tasty 12% beer, a lot of laughter and a lot of water.
Lesson of the day:
1. A 12% beer CAN taste good, deceptively good.
2. Storks live in Hungry, Romania, and Slovakia and my family is still obsessed with them
Day twelve. Katowice, Poland.
Our bestest pal Tilly took us to Poland through a 'back door', aka some chicken farmer road to nowhere. Eventually, she took us to the motorway (freeway) and we realized the motorway was still being built in many spots and that Tilly just wasn't up to date on their construction progress. Damn Tilly and her beloved goat roads.
We dumped our stuff off in our hostel for the day while we went to Auschwitz. I won't say much about Auschwitz because the thought of that place disgusts me. I will say that everyone should visit at least once in their youth, 16-25yrs old, so that everyone understands the consequences of standing by and watching a problem without mobilizing to action for too long. Auschwitz is huge, no book or video clip could ever describe the enormity of this mass murder ground that was capable of killing 1.1 million people in a year and a half; it has to be seen personally.
Clearly after a day at Auschwitz we needed a pick me up!
Dinner was the perfect thing to get our minds off of the horror of the day and our dinner did not disappoint. The dishes were aesthetically pleasing enough that we took pictures. My stew came in a mini camp fire stew pot with a little sterno gel cup burning under the pot. Fantastic. Hungarian stew made in Poland, just fantastic.
Lessons of the day:
1. Auschwitz is huge and people are disgusting.
2. There is not a single stork in Poland - my family is disappointed.