Day 7 - Auschwitz the Adventure

As earlier posted this was an adventure. We started out early Thursday morning after picking up the car late Wednesday night. We did get German Susan to speak English and we were off.

Our route took us from Austria to the Czech Republic and then to our final destination in Poland. Keep in mind we had a rental car and were crossing boarders, this becomes interesting later

As the co-pilot it was my responsibility to follow the map and read the road signs, in case German Susan made a wrong turn. Well I had a Nancy moment, recalling our family trips where my mother (Nancy) would follow the map marking off turns and reading every sign she saw. Mental note to self should I co-pilot again, only provide relevant information to the driver, not the whole sign Nancy. International incident avoided.

The weather was dark and rainy, but we had high hopes for clearing skies over our 400km trip. Our travels were plagued with construction slow downs, but Bryan did enjoy the 130km speed limit and we were pretty sure we could make up the time.

As we approached the Polish boarder we were instructed by the rental company to purchase a highway ticket allowing the rental car to operate in Poland. They told us rest stations near the boarder sold these tickets.

So, being responsible people we located a station and pulled in. English was not the first language and they seemed to know little of a highway ticket. We went next door to the KFC and found someone to write out what we were trying to acquire. Bryan fired up Google translate and we went back to the station. The station clerks also had Google translate open, but together we were 4 people pointing to text and laughing at each others responses.

Finally an English speaking gentleman told us there were toll roads in Poland, the ticket they were talking about was the toll ticket you take at the beginning of the toll road and pay at the end. Ok, so just like toll roads at home, talk about lost in transition.

We arrived at our destination 2 hours after our tour time, but managed to get in with an English tour that had already started.

We toured Auschwitz and Auschwitz Birkenau for 3.5 hours then headed back to Austria. Since our initial route was slow we decided to select an alternate return route to Austria. Since we had the original goole map we selected a city in Slovakia and programmed German Susan to take us there. The idea was to reprogram the GPS as we got closer to Vienna. We figured it had to be better than all the construction on the way there.

The idea was stellar, but again we encountered construction delays, and now it was dark, still raining and a great deal of no pasdong roads ahhhh. Remain calm and drive on.

I need to pause the story here and tell you about my guy. Not only did he agree to this "little" adventure, he said no problem to drive. He so didn't know what he signed up for. Bryan drove 10, hours in the rain, trekked through both camps schlepping me through the mud, while pausing to wait as I took endless pictures. And guess what, we were still talking to each other right up until 30, seconds after his head hit the pillow. Best Guy ever!!!!

Back to the story. We made a dinner stop for chips and M&Ms and were looking like we were going to make the car rental deadline when you guessed it, freak'n construction! By the time we crawled 7km to the city and found a gas station open we were late. Dropped the car and headed to the Hard Rock for dinner and much deserved beers for the driver. By the time we reached the restaurant the kitchen was closed. But guess what was open at midnight, yep my second meal at McDonalds in Austria.

Our day ended at 1:00 AM as we fell into bed. It was an adventure for sure, but one I am glad we took together.

The photo below is the map of our trek with a piece of brick collected from the "Death Barrack" explained later.Read more