christmas

I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. Mostly because we watched the butterfly effect which made me nervous when I went to bed. After lying for in the dark for a while the sound of the wind pressing against the windows made me think of chain saw murderers which made me jump and switch the light on. The only thing that finally got me to turn off the beside lamp was the sound of andrew getting ready for bed. Unfortunately I woke up at around 6 in the dark, which set my heart racing. I turned the light on again and fell asleep for an hour with the light on. I turned it off later when I woke up again. some how the idea of eating cherry tomatoes popped into my head that made me feel unafraid, so I was able to go back to sleep without much difficulty.

Martin came in this morning to wake me up. He brought in my well stuffed stocking. THAT was a treat. They gave me a stocking to hang on the door of my room during the night. I guess his mum stuffed it early this morning. I got thick socks! I've been wearing them all day. and this was even better - a 300ml bottle of johnsons baby oil. I was just about to run out and was planning to get some at the airport if I could. terry's chocolate orange, lip balm because I'm guessing she noticed that my lips are always chappy, moisturiser and that shampoo I used at one point, and more!

I guess it's their thing to have champagne on christmas day. Andrew popped some moet and chandon because martin cut his thumb while trying to open the bottle. We toasted christmas and then martin's dad. It was a little sad. Anyway since we had to wait till 2 for dinner [because that's when dinner is on christmas day] I got drunk on champagne while watching wallace and gromit! I'm excited about the wallace and gromit part, not the getting drunk. It wasn't that bad though, I was just tipsy.

The food was AMAZING. It called to mind that video where they say that weaving is manly - 'as long as you're weaving with BACON!!!' There was a small mat of woven bacon on top of the turkey. there were sprouts and carrots too, roasted potatoes and parsnips, which are incredibly delicious. sausage meat, stuffing, bread gravy, and turkey gravy. I'm still full. oh wait, that's because we had christmas pudding a bit later. it was doused in brandy before being set on fire. that was awesome. had it with way too much cream - ice cream, brandy sauce and Irish cream. yeah I'm going to have to pay this back next term.

good god I shouldn't have spoiled myself like this before going to Italy to shop. If I buy anything it'll probably be too big by the time I get back. I'll just buy something along the lines of UK8-10 and after all the spinning next term maybe I'll get back there eventually. Not like I have much choice with the spinning either since I HAVE to do intense cardio at least twice a week now to prepare for kilimanjaro.

Anyway back to christmas. Martin got me a pair of convertible mittens which I'm wearing right now. They're awesome sauce! I'm afraid his mum spent way too much on me though. she forgot to take the price tag off the cashmere scarf she got me. and that along side the other stocking fillers and what not. oh well, I'm glad I got her that pearl necklace in the end. Also, I got the merchant of venice in the style of the original script! and that was really apt since I'm studying it next term in my law and literature course.

so martin and andrew have been playing games since then, and we watched a few shows as well. I've been reading the book andrew gave me by dara o'briain - who is probably one of the most awesome sauces on this planet. since Andrew's game is an rpg I've sort of been following the story line as well. martin gave me an adaptor that came with the swanky headphones andrew got him, because he said that he'll never need it, whereas I might be able to use it for my piano. so that's exciting sauce too. now I won't have to worry about waking joe and tom up in the mornings. or disturbing them during the late nights. off late I think they've been going to bed later than me though, so that usually isn't an issue. I can use more appropriate hours for cello practice from now on though, so that'll be useful. especially if nick actually sends me for grading.

I'll probably be off to bed soon. it's roughly half an hour to midnight. I'm leaving at about 1600 for Heathrow tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to the night at fiumicino. hopefully they have powerpoints there so I can charge my laptop. whatever, for now it's a happy christmas and decadent sleep tonight!

Auschwitz

It was strange how suddenly we came upon Auschwitz. I was expecting it to be in the middle of nowhere, but there were residential houses and shops and more on the borders of the compound. not so much around birkenau, but around the smaller site.

they didn't do much to the interior of the buildings, even after they converted them to museums. They're still quite bare and sterile. I'm sure it was anything but sterile when in was in use though.

It was really sad. they had some kind of plaque over the gate that meant something about working making you stronger/liberated or something like that. but in reality the soldiers were making them work hard hours to kill them. It was cold there as well, because it's winter, and it was snowing too. I guess it really drove home how hard it would have been for those people. They weren't given anything warm when they were sent to work. All they had was those striped pyjamas and thin shoes.

they told us about how they gassed the prisoners as well. no, first they told us about the train rides. Jews were stuffed into cattle cars and sent to Auschwitz by rail. There were no toilets and little ventilation on the cattle cars either. There was no food or water given to them, so many people just died on the train ride, especially the ones coming from thousands of kilometres away. That would be people coming from greece I guess. I mean that would've have sucked for any survivors too. being stuck in a tightly packed train next to a corpse. they said that sometimes the people weren't let out for 2 weeks. good god that was terrible.

and after that ordeal, when they arrived in Auschwitz, they were told that they would be allowed to take a shower and freshen up. The soldiers were even nice to them and reassured them by saying things like 'remember where you left your bag, so you can get it later.' then they would show them to the gas chamber, where they fitted fake shower fittings some times. Then the soldiers would suddenly turn brutal and start shoving more and more people in which is when they'd realise something is wrong because there were so many people that you couldn't actually take a shower and by then it was too late because the soldiers closed some solid doors on them before dropping cyclone b in through the chimneys. it causes you to slowly asphyxiate internally. apparently it was a painful death that could take up to 20 minutes. if you were lucky enough to be near the chimney you'd die in a few seconds.

and after they were dead, the soldiers would take the bodies and shave their hair off, and take any jewelry they had on them like gold teeth before burning them. They used their hair to make fabrics. I saw a room full of dead people's hair. It was really REALLY creepy. It made me gag. piles and piles. they used the crutches and fake limbs of the handicapped people and sent them back to germany or somewhere for injured nazi soldiers to use.

they also burned it. a lot of it. but they killed so many people that they couldn't classify all the goods and couldn't burn it in time before the russians came. They burned most of the people though, because they knew that this industrial mass killing was a serious war crime and they didn't want there to be any evidence of it. thus burning the bodies and throwing the ashes in the river, same with suitcases and identification documents.

I learned today that roman polanski was alive during the war. we were told that his mother died in Auschwitz, but he was spared because while preparing to depart for a concentration camp, his father gave him some money and pushed him through a hole in the ghetto wall. He survived the war by changing his name and in the care of some awesome roman catholic polish family.

wieliczka kopalnia soli

we went to the Wieliczka salt mines today. It was quite interesting. I thought ti would initially be a dry tour of the importance of salt and how they built the mines. well it wasn't about the importance of salt really, but it did go a bit into how they built the mines.

I licked a wall.

It wasn't pure salt, it was rock salt. and the awesome miners carved statues and chapels out of the rocks. they were like dwarves! in fact there were carved sculptures of dwarves working. there's a legend that the dwarves appear in the night and help with some of the work that the workers were meant to do. There were even chandeliers! they made chandeliers out of the salt!

and there were beautiful carvings of saints and the nativity and a crucifix that turned out slightly blurry on my camera but whatever. it was awesome! you can rent the big fancy hall at a rate of US$1000 per hour. maybe some day.

apparently one of the caves is supposed to be haunted by chopin's ghost. I think that's what the lady said. and some of the rooms had a really refreshing smell of pine. not those fake pine smells on those pine shaped car fresheners - those are disgusting. it's caused they used lots of pine to reinforce the passages and caves. It's better than metal because metal would corrode due to all the salt.

well, Auschwitz tomorrow.

friendship

it's so heartwarming when people call or write to talk to you because you matter. and they do it just because.

spring. hugs.

I'm feeling really restless.

I love samson. it's probably the best song in existence.

song writing is hard without your manuscript book. and talent.


actually I mean successful song writing. anyone can make up the same old same old on the spot.