My Polish adventure.......!

Happy Easter to everyone! I know it's Tuesday already but... I wasn't about to blog in the middle of the trip I'm now writing about I suppose. Not even only to write "Happy Easter"! Anyway, I don't know how to best sum up my Easter in fewer words than a billion. But I will try my best, because my posts have been getting increasingly long and I know your eyes and brain probably get tired after about this point already!

On Thursday,
I got off work at noon and spent the afternoon and evening travelling to Kraków, which I think is the second-largest city in Poland, located way down south and requiring an 8-and-a-half hour train trip from Dresden via Wrocław, another major city in the west. I went with Camilla, who you should know, and Francesca, one of the other Australian gappers who's doing her placement near Heidelberg and who decided to join this trip when Camilla told her about it in Erfurt.
On the train from Wrocław to Kraków, the three of us sat in a compartment with a guy called Tom, who could speak good English and pretty much talked to us about increasingly random stuff for the whole journey. We arrived late and checked in at Orange Hostel (yep, good name), and I found there was free Wi-Fi so I used my laptop to catch up with stuff.

On Friday,
We spent the morning walking around the city centre. It's great, very historic and a big attraction for tourists, particularly the main market square with its many cafes and stalls. I spent the afternoon with a girl called Ewa, who I met in January 2007 when I was in Germany for the first time - we've kept in E-mail contact, and for me, one of the reasons for doing this trip in the first place was to visit her. We saw a few sights around the place, had a bite to eat and spent a while in a bar with her friends. My plan was to stay the night in the youth hostel again, but the next two at Ewa's place. She said she still had to ask her parents and we'd see each other the next evening. Camilla and Francesca spent this time doing a tour at the nearby salt mine. While I wasn't there, they booked a tour of the Auschwitz concentration camp for the next morning, which I was interested in, however the tourist information place was closed by the time they told me they booked.

On Saturday,
I was still hoping to do the tour - when the girls were getting picked up outside the hostel I was going to ask if I could buy a ticket and come with them. However, at 8:30 the girls went down to the street and I joined them at 8:32, only I didn't join them because I got a text from Camilla saying the tour bus left and they couldn't ask them to stay a minute to wait. I thought the tour would leave the city at 8:30 and be outside our hostel at more like 8:40, but that aside, I was alone in Kraków with nothing to do. I went and chatted with the receptionist at the hostel and she suggested I visit the Kościuszko Mound, a big spiral-shaped hill that looks out over the city. Ironically, Mount Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia, was named by a Polish man after this hill. This hill was named after a Polish general, by the way. I spent the morning there, which was good, and I also looked around a nearby wax museum of famous past Poles. In the afternoon the girls got back and we looked around a castle area in the city for a bit before having a meal at a restaurant - I probably should mention that one of the things I noticed about Poland was everything is cheaper when compared with countries that use the euro. Despite being in the EU, Poland uses its own currency called the złoty, with 4.30zł converting to 1 euro. Prices of stuff I saw included 3.80zł for a cold 500mL bottle of coke, and 2.50zł for a tram ticket, which is much cheaper than you'd find anywhere in Germany for one thing. At this fancy restaurant, I had an entrée of soup followed by a main of grilled chicken, accompanied by a side of fries and some vegetables, plus two glasses of Coke, and all of that cost about 45zł. Basically 10 euro! I got back to the hostel and had no e-mails or texts from Ewa to tell me if I was able, or not able, to stay with her, and I asked if I could stay at the hostel for another night, which was fine with them. I paid 100zł in total for the three nights at the hostel, which includes internet and breakfasts! That's like 23 euro, which is what you'd pay PER NIGHT in Germany.

On Sunday,
I had no contact from Ewa when I checked my e-mail in the morning and came to the realisation that I had nowhere to stay that night (Camilla and Francesca are continuing south to Budapest, with the train leaving tonight, so that's their bed). I got onto CouchSurfing.com (you know, that awesome website that has held meetings I've blogged about) and sent out a few requests to people in Kraków to see if I could find a bed at such short notice. Camilla, Francesca and I spent the morning walking around the Jewish quarter of the city, which has several synagogues, and ate lunch at a nice café, again very cheaply when you convert to euros - for 30zł (less than 7 euro!) I had a main of pierogi (traidional Polish stuffed dumplings, kind of like ravioli) and a side of potato pancakes and a beer. When we were back at the hostel (we'd left our bags there), they kindly let me use the internet some more, and I found a reply from a CouchSurfing host saying I could stay with her, if I didn't mind sharing the room with her and another CouchSurfer. I said that was totally fine and we arranged to meet later.

Camilla had arranged to meet Tom, the guy from the train, so he could take us to see a few places. He picked us up in his car and first took us to see an old bunker, built in the 19th century and used during the world war, then to the historic town Nowa Huta, but on the way there, he stopped to get petrol and asked for 100zł between the three of us for doing this "tour". We gave him the money but were puzzled, cause he should have told us beforehand that he wanted to charge us for this. We had a walk around Nowa Huta then got back in the car and weren't sure where we were going. Tom, whose driving was growing increasingly more wreckless, ended up taking us to an abandoned factory. The three of us were exchanging looks like "I don't want to be here anymore!" as Tom opened a big gate that he said we weren't actually allowed to drive through. Francesca chose to stay in the car and Camilla and I followed Tom around the place, with him asking us to climb up to the top of one of the buildings on a conveyor belt, which we politely refused, then later, walk down into a cellar full of water, which we also refused, wondering more and more if this guy was actually safe to be around. As he drove us back to the city, he drove without a seatbelt for some of the way, talked on his mobile while changing lanes to weave between cars and then drove up over 120km/h on a road where I saw a 70km/h sign. When we arrived in the city centre and he dropped us off and drove off, we were quite happy to be there alive to tell you the truth! I never felt any real danger apart from the stupid driving, but it was increasingly weird all the same, and we were glad to be rid of him. The others went to the station but I had to go to the market square, so I said goodbye to Camilla for a week and Francesca for who knows how long.

I met Andrea, my generous CouchSurfing host, in the market square. She was born in Romania, raised in Hungary and has lived for a couple of years in Poland, so she's fluent in Hungarian, Romanian AND English, and quite good at Polish too. We spent the evening with many other CouchSurfers, not unlike meetings I've been to in Dresden. Some of them were locals from Kraków, some from other places in Poland and some from other countries including Canada, France and Azerbaijan (and now Australia!). We had a bite to eat at a restaurant then moved to a bar, where we sat talking and drinking for quite a few hours! It was a lot of fun though. It was after 2 when Andrea and her other CouchSurfer and I headed back to Andrea's apartment and got some sleep.

Yesterday (on Monday),
I had breakfast with the other two in Andrea's kitchen, then the other CouchSurfer left to get a car ride back home, then it was time for me to go if I wanted to get my train in time. I thanked Andrea for being so helpful at the last minute and headed off, taking a tram to the main station then catching the train to Wrocław, having a burger and coke in the station and finally taking the train home to Dresden.

So that's it - I didn't know what to expect from the weekend, and it had its ups and downs, but turned out to be quite an adventure and I had lots of fun if nothing else. One more thing: Over a lot of this weekend I had a sore throat and a bad voice - slightly rougher and deeper. This morning, I woke up feeling the same way again and rang Pat's Bunnyhouse, explaining to the principal that I did not feel sick but that I didn't have the voice to take any English lessons today, and she said I should stay at home for the day. Bonus!

P. T. Neasey
A big thank-you to anybody who read this until the end.