August 31st: Day 7 of Seminar

Au revoir Poland!
We headed out from our lovely hotel, did I mention it sat on the water, and we ate breakfast on a little terrace right alongside it..lovely!
So we headed out for our next stop...Prague!! But first, we made a stop at Gross Rosen Concentration Camp in Poland. I was a little anxious, this is was going to be intense. Being one of two Jews in the group of 33 students in the program, visiting a concentration camp, was definitely something eye opening as a Jew and something with a deep connection to my Jewish background.
It was a smaller camp where as labor, the Jews worked in the quarry there. Okay, embarrassing moment (apparently): So I never knew what a quarry was before this trip. Sorry I was never taught that! However, I apparently will never live this down! It is a huge area where one digs for stone.
Anyway, I walked around the whole concentration camp. It had remains of bunks, the baths, some monuments and the gate which the prisoners built. On it, it said in Polish "Labor means Free."
After hearing so much about the Holocaust and how much of my family was killed during, it was interesting to see one, however, very depressing. It kind of made me realize how unfortunate it is that I really don't know too much about my family that came from this part of the world and their experiences there. Sadly, it is because the majority of them were Polish Jews killed in the Holocaust.

Our next stop on the road, was a Baroque Church Drzeszow, Poland. It was very interesting architecture. We also had a group lunch there at the restaurant attached to the church. The soup was really good, and the rest okay. haha. This was followed by our first quiz of the course (oh right, because this traveling around Europe for 11 days is a course). Yup, it was a little rough. We then had out next lecture "Crossing through the Sudetenland" because we were near the Prague/Czech border. We arrived in Prague that night at 7:00pm and went out to explore the city. It got pretty interesting I'd say.
So we all went to dinner, the bill was 2000 crowns. But, that's really cheap, the Prague currency is ridiculous. Then we all went out to the 5 story club. I'd say the epitome of eurotrash. It was awesome. Each floor was a different type of music: techno, 90s, hip hop, etc. So many people from the program was there, it was awesome. On the way home, at around 3:00am, I thought I was being smart, take off my heels and switch to my flip flops I had brought in my bag. After wearing them for a little bit, all of a sudden I step on something and it cuts into my foot. I look down and realize I stepped on some gross nail in the middle of a Praha street and the bottom of my foot is cut open and really bleeding. Lovely. Well done. That HURT!