Poland, The Motherland

Inside the Wawel Hill Cathedral
On Sunday, we drove from Prague to Krakow. I had never heard my father speak a word of Polish, but for some reason in Poland he is fluent. He's been holding back on us for 50 years. In typical nerd fashion, he said "Polish by birth but first time on Polish soil!" Then proceeded to say our names Kalinski and Kalinska. Ah dad, you always provide free entertainment.
Krakow is a really nice town. It has a huge square in the old part of town, which is actually the biggest in all of Europe. We got together with my cousins, Bogusha and her daughter Kasha. They showed us around the town and took us to my grandmother's old house. Bogusha is so cute. Va-duh, vaa-duuh. That means water; she was teaching me a little.
We had a traditional lunch in this little restaurant where the Wawel Hill bell ringers hang out. Apparently it's a difficult organization to get into, and they only ring the bells at Wawel on certain special days. For example, when the pope died.
Speaking of Wawel, Kasha showed us around the beautiful and wowing Wawel Hill. There is a cathedral and fortress combo built on top of a hill overlooking the Vistula River. If your enemies wanted in, they had to deal with 50 feet of brick wall. But at the top, there is a cool cathedral with copper and gold cupolas.

My very extended Polish family
That night, after I walked around the whole city all day, we went out for dinner with Bogusha and her family. She had two vodka oranges and persuaded me to have piwo and vodka (beer and vodka). Strange combo, but better than expected. She wants me to come visit her for a week sometime. That would be interesting:
Me: Where is the bathroom?
Bogusha: (non-understood Polish)
Me: What?
Bogusha: (repeated non-understood Polish)
Me: Oh, ok, I guess I'll find it myself.
Haha, it could be fun.


The electrified barbed wire surrounding the camp
On our way back through Poland, we stopped at Auschwitz. It was a really heavy day. I totally recommend going to one of the concentration camps, just to pay respect to the people who suffered there. The atrocities committed there were vile and disgusting. One thing that struck me was the sheer size of the place. Auschwitz itself is fairly small, but Birkenau, or Auschwitz 2, is so enormous that we couldn't even see half of it. Even from the observation tower, it's impossible to see the entire camp.
After visiting Auschwitz, I feel the need to somehow be involved in preventing further genocide. It's ridiculous how the world counts on the UN to stop genocide, but the UN is completely useless. "Oh, you won't give us permission to enter your dictatorship regime to stop the mass murder of innocent individuals? Okay, I guess you've got us there." Something has to be done. However, if the US did anything, people would criticize the government for "meddling in affairs that have nothing to do with the US." What's the solution?