Auschwitz & Salt Mine

July 6, 2019

This morning we had to head to Auschwitz pretty early to meet our tour guide there. The camp was old brick buildings barricaded by two layers of barbed wire fencing. It was a beautiful day which made it difficult for me to imagine the horrendous acts that took place there, but when I went inside the buildings, I got the chills. It was unreal in a disturbing way. The most shocking and emotional part of the tour for me were the piles of people's belongings that had been confiscated from them. The piles of reading glasses, shoes, hair, kitchen bowls, hair brushes, and so much more, was endless. It was a very emotional experience, and I don't really know how to put it into words.

For the second half of the day we went to the salt mine. It was a cool experience, physically and figuratively. It was pretty crazy to think about people mining in these small passageways hundreds of years ago. I don't know how they knew where they were going and didn't get lost.

Our tour guide was great. He had a very flat sense of humor which I appreciated. The first part of the tour was going through the old mines themselves, while the second half was going through a museum. At one point our guide told us we could lick the walls to taste the salt. I did it once, but no one believed me so I did it twice. Two times was enough.

After the salt mines we headed back to the hotel. I got dinner at a little Italian place that had really good views of the square. I had black seafood pasta, and it was really good. I'm excited to try it again in Croatia. Black pasta made from squid ink is one of Croatia's specialties. This place was good, but getting fresh pasta and seafood sounds amazing.