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On Saturday, Feb. 5, I awoke around 6:45 and got ready. I had an early breakfast and we left Krakow at 8:30. On that bus ride no one sat next to me. Finally someone did. I got to meet someone new again! I met Connor, an ITI student studying Theology at the Grad. level. he was nice. It was about an hour and a half to Wadowice, the birthplace of the Pope. We watched an autobiography of the Pope on the way there ("Witness to Hope")It made me love the Pope even more! I never realized that he was an orphan at an early age. I could really relate to him in that he lost his mother at an early age. That made me respect him a lot. He went through the Holocaust and actually entered the seminary during the Holocaust, which was very risky. I thought to myself, if he suffered so much and could write an encyclical on redemptive suffering, than I am going to listen to him b/c he definitely knows what he is talking about. We went to the place he was born and it was just an upper floor filled with his vestments, an old scapular, and a lot of pictures of him throughout his life. There were flowers in the spot where he was born ( a spot on the side of one of the rooms). It was really neat to walk in his footsteps, to think that he grew up in this town and saw essentially the same sights as I was seeing (at least the older structures like the church). Then I went in the church. It was beautiful, but not my favorite. There was a picture of St. Joseph that I really liked though. The child Jesus was holding onto his neck like a real child would. I have only ever seen pictures with St. Joseph by himself, so to see him interacting with Jesus was so beautiful and moving. There was also adoration ( They have adoration chapels all over Europe (it's so wonderful and inspiring to see the people praying before the Lord in mass)). And of course, Our Lady of Czestochowa was there too. On the bus ride to Auschwitz, Connor shared the Pope's favorite cake. He bought a couple of pieces of it and was sharing it with everyone. It was creamy on the inside and had something like cornflakes and honey on top. I cannot explain it very well. Auschwitz was so nauseating. I felt so sick. I had to leave our tour early and I didn't get to see St. Max's cell b/c I felt so sick. There was a collection of all of the hair they cut off of the Jews and a display of the rug the nazi's made out of the Jews' hair (sick and twisted!!!). There was also a collection of their glasses that was incredible. They were piled so high! The collection of artificial legs did it to me. I just wanted to barf after that...