Drink some of this, it'll put colour in your cheeks

Is there a single term that encapsulates the feeling that something happened very recently, and a long long time ago, all at the same time? Whatever you might call that is how I feel on a regular basis with this trip. Nine months of being on the road feels like and eternity and a split second all at the same time Before leaving Brno I found time to give my bicycle a bath and give the drive train a bit of a deep clean. It can be quite easy to just leave things until they really become a problem, rather than cleaning and maintaining things as soon as I notice a small irregularity. I thought I had planned my trip to Oswiecim well enough until I turned my attention towards the next leg that would take me on to Krakow. I changed my route on the fly to put me in a campground 15km north of Oswiecim (rather than a site 40km south) that would also set me up nicely for a more leisurely 80km ride into Krakow a few days later. I had received some advice from a stranger on the internet to make my way to the two Auschwitz camps relatively early to avoid the droves of other tourists. I acted on the suggestion and found myself rolling up to the gates of Auschwitz-Birkenau around eight in the morning. I was able to walk around at my leisure, reading the signs that explained different parts of the camp. It was haunting to be in the place that I had only known previously from textbook pictures and documentaries. There was a degree of familiarity to it. When I walked into a re-creation of a building where prisoners were housed it took very little imagination to envisage the gaunt faces of men staring back. There was also a sparsely populated grove that sat beside a pair of hastily demolished gas chambers that had an information plaque that showed pictures of people congregated there sometime between 1943-1945, just waiting for the already full gas chambers to be emptied so they too could be exterminated. After walking the entirety of the Birkenau site I made my way down the street to Auschwitz I. I was met by a parking lot full of people and it had only just turned 10:30. I reluctantly waited in line on the off chance I could join a tour around the site and museum. I was kinda fortunate to only have to wait until noon before I was able to join a tour of the museum. I could have very easily been forced to wait hours for the opportunity visit the interior of the compound. The guide did really well to explain things about both Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau. A lot of the museum content has been replicated and printed into the textbooks and documentaries shown in Canadian highschools. In some ways I actually felt that Canada’s own Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg presented the story of Auschwitz better than the real thing (in terms of content), but it’s impossible to replicate the chilling feeling of walking around the ruins of Birkenau, or the manicured tree-lined paths of Auschwitz I. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to process the amount of people murdered in the holocaust. Well over a million people. I also found it difficult to try and reconcile the holocaust with what has been going on since the creation of Israel and the maltreatment (to put it lightly) of the Palestinians. After Oswiecim I spent three nights in Krakow. I managed to visit the museum in the enamelware factory once owned by Oskar Schindler! The first Monday of the month admission is free, so I was able to get in with nearly 50 others that showed up well before the museum actually opened at 10am. There was a short documentary with former employees of Schindler recounting their experiences during the war - I really enjoyed this, but found the rest of the museum to be not quite what I would have expected. It’s a well curated museum, but I was hoping to learn more about the factory, while the majority of the museum was devoted to the wider Jewish experience in Krakow. I also joined a free walking tour of Krakow on my second morning in the city. All the free walking tours I’ve been on have been really great, and Krakow was no exception. They’re always filled with really good information, and it’s nice not to have a set price - more of a pay-what-you-can sort of deal. You also often have a chance to chat with other frugal travellers while walking to the next site of interest! Two of whom I met later that evening for a vodka tasting. It was a “when in Rome” kinda thing - I’ll save my next flight of alcohols for when I’m in Scotland with my parents! I met a lot of really cool people in Krakow. I also had my fair share of freshly made perogies. I haven’t branched out to try the fruit filled ones in Poland yet. A big part of me just wants a whole bunch of potato and cheddar pierogies, but the closest thing I can get here is “pierogi ruskie” which is potato, onion, and cheese curds - not the same. It took me two nights and three days cycling up to Warsaw from Krakow. I had a headwind for just about the entire way - this had me questioning if I had chosen the wrong direction to cycle through Europe. Too late to change that now! Every time I camp in a new country for the first time I get a little nervous. Poland is another one of those countries that doesn’t really have a favourable view on wild-camping. It’s far from the first country I have camped illegally in, but you can never really know how strictly it will be enforced, or how stiff the penalties might be should I get caught. I did find two really nice forested spots to sleep in on my way up here, entirely undisturbed if you can look past the one loud deer that found me in his forest yesterday evening. I’ve booked myself three nights here in Warsaw. I’m a little ways away from the “old town” area - which isn’t even that old because the majority of the city was razed by the Nazis in retaliation for the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. I spent a good portion of today cycling to the other side of the city to pick up my World Cup ticket and my FanID! I officially have everything I need to get into Russia next week! Not a moment too soon either - I am set to cross the border on Thursday this coming week, in anticipation of the Croatia-Nigeria match one week from today! Crazy! It’s really cool to be able to look back on the last nine months and say, “I did that!” The last thing of this size and scope that I accomplished was my university degree. Both required blood, sweat, and tears. I’m itching to get a haircut but I think I missed my chance this weekend by prioritizing getting my World Cup affairs in order. France, Austria, and Poland all share the tendency of not working on Sundays. That’s great for workers - but I’m selfish and want to do things when they’re convenient for me! A forced rest day may be for the best as I’m going to try to push myself to ~260km on Monday and Tuesday so I can get to a warmshowers host in Korsze that will allow me to stay two nights so I can visit the nearby “Wolf’s Lair” on Wednesday. I was joking with my mother a little last week that I couldn’t think of Oskar Schindler without picturing Liam Neeson, I have a similar problem conflating Tom Cruise with Colonel Claus von Sauffenberg. Next weekend is going to be FIFA-filled, then it’ll be a bit of a mad dash to see if I can cram over 4000km of cycling in to two months so I can meet my parents on holiday in Glasgow on the 21st of August! One more thing - I’ve currently got a love-hate relationship with the longer days. It is light here incredibly early! It is light at 4, and the sun was shining in my face this morning at 5am. I’ve had a number of shorter sleeps because of it - I’ve always had a problem sleeping when it’s light out.