Trains, Trains, Trains

Day 227
The plan for the day was to wake up early and go to Brno in the Czech Republic. The problem was that there weren’t any hostels, the cheap hotels were full as were all the couch surfers I contacted. I think this is why I kept hitting snooze, my roommates were at class at this point, and just ignored the problem for a few hours.

When I did wake up I grabbed my guide book and the hostel computer. I tried all sorts of things in Hostelworld and the train website. I even looked at going back to Dresden for a few days, it was only four hours away. There wasn’t any hostel availability though. In the end I went with three nights in a little Czech town called Olomouc that I had never heard of.

I had some time to kill and went to the post office to send a package home as well as send off my absentee ballot. When this was done I felt like I had done my job as an American. There was still some more time so I went to the mall and picked up some food for the journey and used up that last of my zlotys on a book.

There was some confusion in buying my ticket. I couldn’t find the international office for the life of me. Once I did it was ok though. I spent pretty much the entire ride reading a fabulous book called Dreamland about 1910 New York. It was a great way to kill the eight hours it took me to get to Olomouc.

Once in Olomouc I was greeted by Francis, part of the Australian couple that runs the fabulous Poets Corner Hostel. In minutes it became one of my favorite places ever. Everyone had gone out for someone’s birthday and she made a few calls trying to figure out where they were. In the end she figured that they were in an underground bar and didn’t have any service. She gave me a great map though and I set off to the places looking for a large group of English speakers.

I never found them. At the first bar I went, a rock climbers bar with a free rock wall, I ran into two Americans who were also at my hostel and had gotten separated from the group. We ended up meeting a few locals and heading to a different bar. After some nice Czech beers we were ready to call it a night. One of the Czech guys was a bit crazy and gave us an impromptu tour that included where all the wastebaskets were. Luckily he also told us where to get the best kababs.

The American guys had to get some stuff out of their rented car and I headed up to sleep.

Gnoming

Day 225
I woke up refreshed but definitely later than I would have normally been awake. Stupid Polish guys. Why did they have to go and do that at the end of my stay in Poland? It just puts a damper on the whole country.

I felt like looking for gnomes wasn’t enough, I needed to actually get some culture. I was heading to the Raclawicka Panorama. On the way I found a happy little gnome holding a sunflower. Just around the corner a rather irritated one glared at me.

In Gettysburg there is a panorama of the battle. From what I remember it is really quite well done and I was hoping that this one would be the same. It wasn’t. The audio guide began with a history of Polish panoramas. Yawn. In the late 18^th century the Polish and the Russians had a series of battles. Poland lost all but one battle and this panorama is meant to represent this victory. The guide explained different aspects of the painting, but unlike the one in Gettysburg the point of focus wasn’t lit any differently. The guide would say if you look past the third tree on the left, and then past the broken wagon and dead horse you will see a man with a red and blue striped hat, an orange shirt and red boots. It was all very confusing and I never knew just were to look.

My panorama ticket also got me into the National Museum. This was quite good, but I was not able to take pictures. I decided to try and get serious about knowing which saint was which. I was pretty good at the saint guessing game, but I knew that I could get better. I started writing them down and noting what they were holding. Problem was that a lot of them seem to be holding churches or books, confusing. And then they would throw in a random saint like St. Hedwig. All this time I thought that was Harry Potters owl. Eventually I just gave up.

The paintings section was also pretty good, if not rather random. Next to a garden of eden painting was an Egyptian mask. One portrait had cut out eyes, very creepy. In the modern art section one display was of about 20 over sized boots with nails in them. I just don’t get it.

When my stomach began to grumble I decided to leave. I went back to the milk bar just because it is so impossibly cheap. I got the same entrée but managed to get something better for dessert. There weren’t any other museums that I was interested in so I went to the internet café and blogged a bit. I think I was more up to date than ever.

I also looked up the gnomes. No one I asked seemed to be able to tell me how many there were. It turns out that it is just some artists doing and that they keep adding more. I found pictures of a few that I hadn’t found and even some locations. Perhaps this is cheating.

Hidden in an alley the size of my NYC bathroom a gnome checked me out as I passed. Next to Pizza Hut there was one that had had a bit too much for dinner. Down a pedestrian street four gnomes made fun of the passerby’s from the tops of streetlights. That makes 8 gnomes for today and 22 in all. There is one more that I missed that I know of. It is a bit out of the way and it was raining, I couldn’t be bothered. Considering that everyone I asked gave me a number fewer than 20 I think I did pretty well.

At the hostel I made myself some dinner and chatted with the girls in my room. They were both taking two-week classes there. I read for some time before calling it a night.

Gnomes, Gnomes Everywhere

Day 224
When I woke up I could see that the crazy lady had returned. Oddly she didn’t seem to have her bag with her. I made a quick decision, instead of going to the salt mines I would just go straight to Wroclaw, pronounced Frot-Suave. This, of course, had nothing to do with the thought of running into crazy lady again.

The train ride took forever. There was an old man in my compartment that just couldn’t sit still, he was drinking too, at 8am! He was sitting near the window and I was near the door. Any time a stop was near he would open the window, hang way out and then leave the compartment bumping into me to check the window just outside of the compartment. The crazy thing was that he was going to Wroclaw as well and it was the last stop. There was no missing it. All he really succeeded in was preventing me from taking a nap. I about cheered when I walked into the station.

My hostel was easy to find and I soon was checked in. The girls at the front desk set me up with a cup of tea and several maps of the city. They were really friendly.

I went through the maps and figured out a game plan. It was a bit late in the day at this point so I figured that I should get some lunch and then just explore a bit on foot. Krakow has been calling itself the new Prague and Wroclaw is calling itself the new Krakow. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

It was quite beautiful. I was wandering through the main square when I saw a group of girls bending over something and laughing. That’s when I remembered something that I had read in one of the maps. Wroclaw is home to a population of ancient gnomes. Apparently some of them are so well hidden that even locals don’t know exactly how many there are. Besides just being cute they are also symbolic. In the 1980s a group of performance artists called the Orange Alternative staged an anti-communist protest dressed as gnomes. Some say that it was these gnomes that brought down communism.

Suddenly my afternoon had a purpose, to eat and to find gnomes! The first one I found was fixing a wall, the second was reading and the third eating a perogie.

I was hungry and popped into the local milk bar. The line was thick with students from the nearby university. Nothing was in English so I ordered a main meal from one of the three pictures available and asked the girl in line behind me if she could tell me what the desserts were. Her English wasn’t that great, but she told me which one everyone seems to order the most. My entrée was some sort of yummy potato thing but my dessert looked like and had the consistency of pink snot. I chatted over lunch with my near friend. She told me that there were about 20 gnomes and that new ones were periodically added. After lunch she headed off to class and I went off gnoming.

Almost immediately I found one that was in jail. I then found an interesting bear fountain. A couple of minutes later I found a gnome holding something, maybe money. It took me another 20 minutes to find one that was sitting outside of the entrance to the secret gnome underground. I then found some barnyard animals who had all just gone to the bathroom. Further down the road was another gnome entering a different secret door. When some locals saw me taking a picture of a gnome that was traveling they directed me up the street to a sleeping gnome. I hope that I didn’t disturb him.

I went back to the hostel at this point. It had been some time since I had found a gnome and I was growing bored. Back at the hostel I decided to see a movie. On the way I found a gnome with walking sticks and another riding a bike. The later was in the middle of an intersection and I almost got myself run over getting the picture. I also found statues of people walking into the sidewalk, it was weird.

After the movie I wanted to do a bit more wandering and ended up with a cup of tea and doing some writing. On my way there I found a pair of gnomes play a game and two more trying to push a marble ball two different directions. The last find of the day was a gnome playing the guitar while another watched on. That makes 14 gnomes for the day.

At about 11pm I decided that it was time for bed. I was in a room full of boys, most of them one group of Polish guys. Usually when one person in the rooms wants to go to sleep everyone clears out and goes to the common room. That is why there is a common room after all. These guys wouldn’t leave. I asked nicely and they basically said too bad. I then went to complain and the guy at the hostel talked to them and told me that they were leaving. I tried to sleep. They were just going for a smoke and in just a minute they were back in the room talking. I asked them several more times nicely and then not so nicely to leave. They started to call me names and got louder on purpose.

I complained again. The guy at the hostel told me that he couldn’t ask them to leave the room and that it was my own fault for booking a dorm room. However, I could pay about 4 times more for my own room if I would like. I told him that wasn’t and option and tried to explain to him how hostels work and that I have been traveling for over seven months and no one had behaved this badly, including him. Then a creepy older man offered to let me share a double room with him if I paid half the price, I said no.

At this point it was about midnight and I told him that I wanted my money back. He said are you sure you want to go out there now, you will never find another place. I replied that it was a week night, that there were several other hostels in town and that I would get a better nights sleep if I ended up on a park bench for free than if I paid to have a group of Polish men talk all night an call me dirty words.

I got my money back and packed quickly to a hail of insults. I walked about five minutes down the street to the next hostel. There I got a bed in a small all girls dorm for almost half the cost. Even though I was definitely in a better place I was livid and it took me some time to calm down and cool down before I was able to fall asleep.

So, if you are going to Wroclaw do not book the hostel called Babel, formerly Stranger, instead book the much better Avant-garde hostel.

Bleh

Day 223

I still felt pretty bad when I got up but I wanted to follow through with my plans. I got my stinky clothes together and walked about 30 minutes to the laundromat. This place was pretty good though. While I waited for my clothes I could check my email, play board games, or chill out a couch with some tea. I ended up reading for a while over earl gray.

I had wanted to go to the salt mines, but I was not really feeling up to it. Annoying lady remarked that I didn't look good. I ended up spending the afternoon reading in my bed.

When I was able to get my act together I went and did some work in an internet cafe. I came back around 9 and could see that annoying lady's things were gone. I was happy. I made myself some dinner and read before going to sleep early.

Escape

Day 222
The goal of the day was to see a few things in Krakow, I just didn't know what. After breakfast and weighing my options I went out.

After checking out the main square I headed to Warvel Castle. For some reason I decided that it was too expensive on my last visit and wanted to see it this time. I don't know what it cost then, but the cathedral was free and this time they were charging people for it.

I decided to visit the state rooms and the dragons den. It really wasn't all that interesting. There were some nice paintings and tapestries to check out and of course two throne rooms. Everyone needs two throne rooms.

The dragon's den was just a cave from the top of the hill to the bottom. There was a family inside taking turns taking pictures with each other. I offered to take one of all of them but they refused in a way that made it seem like they were frightened of me. I had no idea that I looked like a camera thief and where would I go in a cave full of people anyway? Outside the cave was a dragon statue, it was the scariest part of all.

I think I must be coming down with something. I'm was really dragging and I had gotten plenty of sleep the night before. I ended up going back to the hostel though and taking a nap. When I woke up it was dinner time. Annoying lady wouldn't leave me alone though. I kept telling her that I wanted to write in my journal, but she wanted to go clubbing. In the end I snuck out when she was in the bathroom. I felt bad, but I wanted to write and I didn't want to talk to her. I ended up at a pub milking a beer for a couple of hours and writing.

When I got back to the hostel she wasn't there. I still felt guilty, but at least I got to write.

Sad Day

Day 221
I was up early, packed, and put my things into storage quickly. I had to be on a 12:30 train and there wasn't much time.

I decided to go out to the Majdanek death camp. I have been in the vicinity of these several times now, but really haven't wanted to visit. I've been to several already and I am sure they are all alike. I picked Majdanek because it was not just a death camp but a concentration and transit camp as well. It was also not destroyed during the Nazi retreat, there just wasn't any time, as the other camps were.

Majdanek functioned from October of 1942 to July of 1944 when it was liberated by the Soviet army. The first exhibit was on letters that the Polish, political, prisoners were able to sneak out. Most of them were in code.

For some reason I went through the place backwards and headed straight to the mausoleum. I already knew that this was a large pile of human ash. It was windy and I kept my mouth closed. When I got close I could see that there wasn't much of a need for that. The pile had solidified into rock. Next door was the crematorium.

I then moved past the crematorium to the barracks, most of them were locked. I looked through the keyhole, there wasn't anything there. The Polish part of the camp looked like many of the hostels that I have stayed in. The Jewish barracks would have been packed full, up to 800 people in a room only meant for 250.

Eventually I moved into the informational bit. One of the barracks was full of shoes. At the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. there is a room of shoes with a fan on it. There was no fan here and the smell was stifling.

78,000 people died here. I took pictures of zyclone b (gas chamber chemical) and of piles of human hair. I read the info on camp life and looked at the objects that have been left behind. I'm finding this to be rather difficult to write about. At the end of my tour, but at the beginning of everyone else's, I found the gas chambers. I went through them quickly, I had done this before at Auschwitz and didn't see a need to do it again. I think the only reason that I was there was that I think that castles and history museums are great, but sometimes we have to remember the bad stuff as well.

When I got on the bus and was out of site of the camp I felt a whole lot better. After grabbing my I headed to the bus stop. I couldn't find it and as I was panicked for time I just kinda stood there asking if anyone spoke English. Finally someone did and I got to the right place. I made my train with about 10 minutes to spare.

After about 4 hours of listening to the woman in my compartment talk on the phone I was fed up. I didn't have a phone to call anyone on but I did have my ipod. I put it on and began to sing along. She got the message and stopped, and so did I.

Once in Krakow I found my hostel quickly. I met an older Polish woman there who had been living in Sweden for about 20 years. I will call her annoying lady. I knew her entire life story before she even knew my name. She didn't speak English very well and I was having big issues understanding her. She was pressuring me to go out because she wanted me to help her pick up men. I figured that if I went out I could talk to other people. In the end she got bored and wanted to leave. She wanted to go to clubs with big covers and I don't like clubs, I wanted a quiet pub. I told her that I would see her the next day. When I was sure she was gone I went back myself and went to sleep.

In the House of Nuns

Day 220
So there are two hostels here. One of them is actually part of a convent and one of them has a lockout and a curfew. The one run by nuns doesn't have a curfew. So, for the first time ever I slept beneath a picture of the virgin. The young nun who had checked me in did not know if there was room for me the next night. She suggested I wake up early and ask her fellow nun at 8am if there was space. There was, I paid and I went back to sleep.

When I got myself together I headed out to explore the old town. It's really quite beautiful in that sort of decaying eloquence way. It was not heavily bombed, it just wasn't always very well taken care of.

My first stop of the day was Lublin Castle. This had been used as a Nazi fort and prison. It's not the most attractive castle I have seen, but it was a must see in my guidebook.

It started with a lot of folk art, both old and modern. There is a particular type of Christ statue that shows him standing wounded and looking sad called Christ as the man of sorrows. These are all over Europe. For some reason the ones here all showed him sitting instead of standing. Nearby a saint gnashed his teeth at me.

The Trinity Chapel, the reason this is must see, is only opened for 30 minutes at a time. I had to share my time with a class of about 40 high school kids. It's quite small, but is entirely coated in frescoes, albeit kinda cartoonish ones. All of it is painted in the Byzantine style. Over the years a lot of restoration work has been done, not all of it positive. Currently they are working on cleaning parts of it.

The rest of the museum wasn't all that interesting. There were weapons, knickknacks and coins, plus a display on a guy who traveled round the world with a brick. And I think my pack is heavy sometimes. Unfortunately photography wasn't allowed so I can't share the things I liked best.

My next stop was a bit of a waste of time. It was the old town history museum. No pictures here either. Nothing was in English, in fact, I think they only had about three dozen things to even look at.

I had saved the best for last, the Archdiocesan Museum. Here pictures were allowed. This place had a lot of really old statues that had once been in churches. Music was playing with chanting monks. This mixed with the decaying statues and poor lighting made it a bit of an eerie place. An angel hid on a window sill, three others peered down at me from a nook in the wall. There must have been about 200 statues here.

The top floor was really scary, with the music and the wind and the cold coming in all directions I was afraid I would blow away. I didn't stay up there long.

I thought about going to a movie, but wasn't really in the mood. Instead I went to an internet cafe and spent some time with blog. I then found a supermarket and picked up some dinner. It was raining at this point and I didn't know if I was going to make it to Anne's bar or not. I hate going out in the rain.

Luckily it stopped around 8 and I headed out. Anne had off but was there to chat with her boyfriend behind the bar. He did his best to make me try all sorts of Polish drinks, but I only stuck to beer. I had a long ride the next day. I did let him to convince me to try the hot beer and strawberry mix though. It was shockingly good.

When I got back to the hostel I quickly fell asleep.

Nail Biting

Day 219
I was up early, not only did I have a lot to do and little time to do it in, but I had gone to sleep really early the night before.

The first place I wanted to see was the Independence Museum. I walked in just fine but it kinda looked like there was work going on. After several phone calls the security guard told me that it was closed. You would think he would know these things.

I had an hour to kill before the next museum I wanted to see opened so I headed to an area that used to be a textile factory but is now a mall and activity center. There is also a museum here about the factory.

The girl I bought my ticket from was very bubbly and spoke really good English. She asked me how good my English was and I told her that I'm from the States. She said that was perfect. Apparently some of the board members from their sister museum in the UK somewhere were coming for a tour that afternoon. She asked if she could give me the tour and if I would mind correcting her English. It seemed great to me. I love Poland, the people here are fabulous.

Most of the factory complex was built between 1872 and 1914 by a guy named Isreal Poznanski. They produced low quality fabrics. When it was first built it was groundbreaking and received an award from the 1878 Paris world exhibit. I just don't understand how they got the whole factory over there for viewing.

About 12,000 people worked here at any given time. Apparently it was for a pretty good wage as well. There is a rumor that at the end of the day Poznanski would climb up to the main clock and knock it back 15 minutes to make everyone work just a bit longer. Initially all of the workers were male, but after WWII this changed. Magda's grandmother had worked here and lost a couple of fingers in an accident. Perhaps this is why she was really passionate about the place.

By the end of WWII most of the machines had been used for other things or simply scratched. They were quite antiquated at this point anyway. The factory chugged through communism but couldn't survive the switch back to capitalism and was closed in 1997.

Magda turned on 2 of the 4 looms for me. They were incredibly loud, but it was really cool to see them in action. She also pointed out an old medical chest to me. Magda had thought it would be nice to fill it with period items and asked a woman who had been a nurse there what it had contained. Apparently it was always just about empty so they decided to leave it that way.

I thanked Magda for the fabulous tour and she thanked me for helping with her English. She really didn't need much help though so I think I got the better end of the deal.

My next museum was the Lodz History Museum. I don't know why they call it that though. It was located in Israel Poznanski's former house. Most of it was on his family, old furnishings and such, but some of the rooms were dedicated to other important Lodz figures. There wasn't much explanation and without being allowed to take pictures I got board quickly.

I tried to ask if the building was original but just got blank stares. I said thank you and went into the next room. I could here the women in the hallway saying thank you and laughing. Buttheads.

I then followed part of the ghetto history tour that I had picked up at the tourist office. Lodz looks pretty bad, I don't think that most of the building here have been painted since 1920. This goes doubly for the area of the former ghetto, the largest one in Europe. I was told to be careful with my camera and took extra care every time that I took it out.

Eventually I found a memorial and then a few minutes away the largest Jewish cemetery in Poland, and if not, it is certainly the most populous. Few people were about and I had to remind myself that dead people don't tend to come back to life. Parts of the cemetery were in better repair than others.

I started by walking left. On the wall there were plaques that were pretty recently installed by families from all over the world who lost relatives in the Holocaust. Many of them were by Americans. Also along the wall were grass covered pits. These had been dug as mass graves but were never used. They were left in testament. One section, called the ghetto field, held the mass graves of 43,527 ghetto victims.

Not wanting to head further back, it was creepy, I went right. I then came to a section that was being completely reclaimed by the trees. I could only see a couple of rows back. The Poznanski family tomb was massive and I wanted a picture. The thing was that I wasn't really meant to be taking pictures and there were a lot of people about, so I just didn't do it.

After the cemetery I gook a tram back to the center of town and got some really yummy pirogies for lunch. I was actually running a little ahead of schedule.

Back at the hostel I grabbed my things and headed out. On the train I met a girl named Lidia who was from Warsaw. We chatted all the way there. I wasn't stopping at Warsaw though, I was headed to Lublin.

Once I was on the train to Lublin I got more and more nervous as the hours ticked by. There are two places to stay here and both close at 10pm. When I got to the train station I had to wait about 40 minutes for the right bus, luckily there were people around to help. On the bus asked the girl sitting next to me if she spoke any English. She understood a bit and told me that she lived just a few blocks from where I was going and could walk me there. Because of her I managed to check in right before 10pm.

I was ravenous because I hadn't had anything since the pirogies. I went to the city center (about 3 minutes walk) and found a falafel place. It was the best falafel ever. When I was walking back it started to pour and I ducked into a pub, I didn't want to get wet. This is where I met Anne, the bartender. She spoke good English and we chatted as she worked. After one drink I was falling asleep though and the rain had stopped. We made tentative plans for me to meet her there the next night and said goodbye.

Woodgen't You Know

Day 218
After saying goodbye to Jeremy and Tom (I couldn't find anyone else) I went to the train station and headed to Lodz, pronounced Woodge. I read The Golden Notebook to pass the time.

I went to the hostel that my guidebook suggested (I hadn't gotten around to booking anything) just to find out that it was under renovations. Luckily they had another property not too far away.

After picking up some food I went to check out the four kilometer long pedestrian street. There were a lot of interesting and odd statues, including one of a guy playing a winged piano that played music for $.75 until the neighbors complained. Another guy was climbing up the side of a building while reading a paper.

When I reached the main square I turned around. Luckily on the way back I found the tourist office where I got a lot of info about the town. Staying here for just another morning will be hard. There is a lot to do here.

Back at the hostel I sorted through the info I had been given, read my book and wrote in my journal. I made myself some dinner too. I had a 10pm curfew though and eventually I got bored and just went to sleep.

Smell Goes On

Day 217

Today was my last day in Warsaw and I had quite a bit to do. I wanted to be up early, but I hadn't expected to be woken up at 6 am. One of the guys in my room came back at this time, he absolutly reeked and it didn't take long for his smell to fill the small space. One he fell asleep he snored louder than I thought possible. Everyone was out of the room by 7 am, he cleared the place.

I headed downtown and was delighted to find that the castle was actually opened. The opening hours were inside, where you can't get to if its closed. Thats not very helpful. The castle had been destroyed during WWII and was restored to reflect its 18^th century appearance. The rooms are decorated with objects and paintings that had been salvaged from the wreckage or hidden during the war.

That original castle was partly built in the 14^th century and added to extensively in the 17^th century. Not only did royalty live here, but it was also used as a meeting place for parliament. In 1939 the castle was bombed, but the staff at the time had the forethought to try and save much of the objects and even some of the wall paper and moldings. In 1944 the castle was blown up completely with the rest of the city. Reconstruction began in 1990 and it was opened to the public four years later. There is still work to be done though, from what I could tell the castle gardens were next.

The palace was nice. It wasn't anything I hadn't seen before, it was interesting to see the things that had been salvaged though. There was a small but nice collection on paints and a room full of porcelain. The room on coins was rather boring, but the woman watching it seemed like her feelings would be hurt if I didn't check it out so I took my time in there.

After the castle I wanted to go and see the Powaik Prison Museum, unfortunately it was closed. I did get pictures of the memorials though.

I ended up doing some blogging instead. When I was done with that I headed to the history museum. I asked the woman at the front desk if I could take pictures, she told me that it would be ok as long as I didn't use any flash. Wonderful, I like taking pictures!

The first settlement in the Warsaw area dates back to the 10^th century. Quickly the small settlement grew and soon became a center for crafts. I took pictures of everything that interested me. I was having a good time. Warsaw becomes a center for crafts. Warsaw became home to the Moravian kings and later the Saxon kings. It was interesting to see everything that had been salvaged from the original museum.

At this point tried to take a picture of a piano thing and was yelled at for doing so. I tried to explain that I had been told that I could take them, but she didn't speak any English and there was no point. I was pretty irritated though. Sometimes when I ask people act like I have done something really awful. I just don't understand. It's a yes or no question.

I wrote down a handful of notes afterwards but I was kinda sick of the museum. There was an odd dolphin sculpture that had been left over from the Swedish occupation. When they tried to move it back to Sweden in 1655 they accidentally dropped it into the river. It was rescued in 1911. By 1792 Warsaw had become a center for Polish culture. It was easy to see through the paintings how the old town used to looked compared to what it is now.

When I got to the more modern history there as a really stale smell about the place. I also knew most of it at this point. I didn't want to read anything else about WWII. Plus, my stomach was growling.

I went to Pizza Hut for dinner and to write. I've been craving pizza, but I want the greasy NYC kind, not what I had today.

Back at the hostel I met up with the guys from the night before. I hadn't known, but Jeremy was also in my room. He pointed out the stinky guy who came into the room this morning. Jeanfrançois pointed out, along with several other people, that this guy had been looking at porn all day long on the hostel computers. How gross!

That night Jeremy and Tom and I went out for a bit. When Jeremy and I got back to the room we had to get our pj's out of the rather creaky locked cabinet. The room reeked and we were both annoyed so we talked a bit as well. I guess we were louder than we thought because stinky man told us to shut up. I replied that I didn't care what he wanted because he smelled bad and woke everyone up in the morning and he didn't care then. Perhaps this wasn't the nicest thing to have said, but it shut him up. He did smell bad, really really bad. He rivaled the woman back in Portsmouth.

In the end neither of us could sleep because of the smell and we went to ask if they could do anything at reception. Apparently they had asked him several time during the day to stop looking at porn and he wouldn't. He had also was very aggressive in hitting on the guy at receptions girlfriend. We were given beds in a new room. I was happy to go to bed after an eventful night.

Not Like A Walk In The Park

Day 216
I was up early, guess because of the early night. It was Monday and I knew that everything would be closed. I decided to head to Lazienkowsk Park in the southern part of the city. Before I got there though I stopped by the American Embassy to see if they could help me vote, they couldn’t. I also made a stop for some tea and to write in my journal.

The park was full of autumn colors and was really beautiful. I was looking for a particular castle with a moat around it. I kept hearing a low crashing sound around me. It turns out that some type of nut or seed kept falling from the trees. They were just about big enough to fill the palm of my hand and very hard. I felt lucky that none had fallen on me when I wasn’t paying attention. I then saw a peacock. There was only one, it was kinda odd. There were a lot of pretty red squirrels around. I was hoping that one of them would stay still long enough for me to take a picture. Instead of running away he started to run at me. An animal bit would really put a damper on things and I ran away. I didn’t know that a walk in the park could be so dangerous. On the cute side there was a little girl feeding bread to the ducks. She would take a chunk and then eat it and then take a chunk and feed the ducks.

When I had thought I found the castle I left the dangerous park. At the exit I found a map, I had not found the castle, just something else nearby. I was far to lazy to walk back and just headed to the down town area. I still wanted to see the castle and figured if it was closed on Sundays it must be open on Mondays, it was not.

Hungry now I went back to the milk bar. This time I got perogies and some yummy noodle and sugar thing. It was a much better meal than the day before.

At a loss I went to the internet café I had found a few days before and did as much blogging as I could and screwed around for a bit just reading things. When I was sick of this I went to see The Women. I think this was the biggest chick flick ever and I can’t decide if I liked it or not.

Back at the hostel I caught the end of the happy hour and ran into Jeanfrançois and Martin. We met Dutch Max, Canadian Tom and Kiwi Jeremy. It’s too bad more girls couldn’t have been in the group, I was a bit outnumbered. We went for a few drinks and over the next couple of hours the numbers thinned out. Jeanfrançois, Tom and I grabbed falafels before calling it a night.

Milking It For All It's Worth

Day 215
Due to a slightly late night I was in bed longer than I had planned. I had a banana and a roll for breakfast before heading out.

Warsaw has a lot of things to see, and I mean a lot. Not only would it take quite some time, but I think that it would be rather overwhelming to do it all in one visit. I am sure that I will be back here at some point and am not going to stress over it right now. The must see museum is called the Rising Museum. It’s about WWII, but focuses on the two months that the citizens and partisans fought for the cities freedom.

In September 1939 German troops entered Poland. Two weeks later the Polish army was forced to surrender. Occupation begins. Right away monuments are destroyed and works of art stolen. Polish government officials and intellectuals are killed. In 1939 Stutthof, the first concentration camp in Poland opens, Auschwitz follows a year later.

Resistance fighters tried to get rid of the Germans from the beginning, but made a big push towards the end of the war. Everyone was suffering from famine and disease. Americans tried to send weapons but were too late, the Russians got weapons through, but airdropped them with no parachutes and most of them were damaged.

After much fighting the insurgents and civilians are forced out of the city. The German army begins a systematic destruction of historical buildings. Only 64 out of 987 were left standing. Few people remain in the rubble until January 1945 when the Soviet Army liberates the city. More than 18 thousand insurgents and 180 thousand civilians were killed.

After the war Poland had expected self rule. This did not happen. The communist government wouldn’t even allow the rising to be discussed and even prosecuted those who were involved. In 1956 this began to change.

This museum was really well done. They had some objects that I had never seen before. There was a house number from the home of a resistance worker and a piece of bread saved by a concentration camp victim. He wanted people to see what he had to eat. There was a monument that ran through all floors that had a heart beat and bullet holes that allowed the sounds of war to escape.

The problem was that it was free entrance day. The place was mobbed. People were really rude too, I would wait my turn only to have someone push me aside to read something. They seemed to think that they were the only ones there. I ended up just leaving out of frustration. Later on I found out that I had missed a floor. I did spend some time on the grounds outside and managed to find a German bunker that no one else managed to locate at the same time.

I was rather hungry at this point and headed to Bar University. During the communist government there were subsidized restaurants that people nick named milk bars due to their dairy heavy offerings. This is the cheapest meal in town and I wanted to give it a try. Luckily they had an English menu, the translation was a bit weird though. I decided to go with something called milky noodle soup and a cheese pancake.

The way this works is that you order and pay and then bring your receipt to a window and the person there brings you your food. It only took a minute to order, but about 45 to get my food. My soup turned out to be noodles floating in milk and my pancake was more of a tortilla. Not the best meal I have ever had, but definitely edible. The cost of this whole thing was a whopping $3.68. That included $1 for a coke.

I had wanted to see the castle but it was closed and I couldn’t find anything with opening hours. While I was walking back I noticed that there was a huge crowd in front of a cathedral, there seemed to be standing room only, I had no idea why. I was thinking about going to the National Museum, but it was late in the day and by the time I got there I wouldn’t really have time at all. I ended up back at the hostel playing around on the internet.

Earlier this morning I had had a weird moment with one of the girls at the hostel. She told me that I had to check out. I told her that I had paid for 4 nights and she said that it must be a mistake. When I came back there was a boy on my bed. Hmm, not totally bad but really unexpected. I went to talk to the hostel people. Someone had made a mistake so I had to move to a new room. I was a bit annoyed, but before I could ask for anything they gave me back one nights accommodation. I didn’t mind moving to a new room for an extra $18 in my travel fund.

After a pasta dinner I met up with Jeanfrançois. We waited for a while for Martin but he was late and we thought he was standing us up. Later we found out that we missed him by about 2 minutes. Jeanfrançois and I went to a local jazz place for live music and caught the end of a set. We were both tired and didn’t stay out very late.

Only Missing the Mouse

Day 214
I was up early, but not quite early enough. When I got to the bus stop the kiosk was closed. There wasn’t enough time to walk. One of the other people standing around realized my predicament and pointed to the kiosk across the street. My bus was in view though and there wasn’t time. I point to the bus, he pulled an extra ticket out of his pocket, I gave him the money for it and thanked him. People in Poland are so nice!

On the train I met a Spanish woman who had lived in Dublin for a decade and was currently teaching Spanish in Poland. Chatting with her was a nice way to pass the ride to Warsaw.

Once in Warsaw I got to the hostel despite the directions on the website. Thank goodness for the map in my guidebook! I dropped my things of and quickly filled my grumbling stomach before heading into town.

Warsaw was completely destroyed during WWII. All of the downtown area has been rebuilt. While there is a Disney like quality to it, I still found it beautiful. Wandering the cobbled streets and jumping out of the way of horse drawn buggies was a good way to spend a few hours. I didn’t want to really check out too many museums though. Jeanfrançois was planning on heading towards Warsaw and we had tentative plans to do some of the museums together over the next day or so.

After some wandering I was able to get my things out of storage and moved in. I fell asleep for a while and dreamed that while I was waiting to move my things into the room I had decided to go to a five star hotel. For some reason I seemed to have forgotten that I had already paid for a hostel. In the dream I called my mom from the hotel to chat. When we hung up I realized that not only did I have two places to sleep, one being very expensive, but that I had just made a really expensive phone call. I decided to not worry about all of it and go to the movies. This is when I woke up. When I realized where I was I felt like I had really dodged a bullet.

On my way out to the supermarket I ran into Jeanfrançois, he was heading the same way. We decided to skip the hostel dinner though and went to a Polish place instead. I had some yummy beef stroganoff and some type of pancake thing. I think that this was the biggest meal that I had had for a very long time. I was absolutely stuffed!

After dinner we decided to hit the hostel bar happy hour. This is where we met Martin, also from Quebec. The three of us decided to hit a couple of places that had been recommended by one of the girls at the hostel, Kasha. She had directed us to a hidden courtyard that seemed to be tourist free. This didn’t stop two girls trying to scam Jeanfrançois and Martin though. They bought them shots. The guys were both seasoned travelers though and knew what was going on. We simply left and went to another bar.

Before heading back to the hostel we got some pizza and made plans to meet up at 9 the next night.

Phone Home

Day 213
When I woke up I was ready to hit the town, but not before I had breakfast at the hostel.

I started out by exploring some of the old town gates and the wall. There used to be a big Teutonic castle here, but now it is in ruins. The thing isn't well marked and I had problems telling if it was a castle ruin or just a ruin. There is a legend that in 1746 a soldier and his wife saw a dragon. They reported it to town hall, saying that it was about 6 feet long, brown and shiny, that it could fly and swim. There were a few dragon paintings around town, a statue and even a pizza place to commemorate the story.

Next up was the church of Virgin Mary. It was nice but nothing spectacular. They did have the symbol of the cult of the shroud on display though. Funny how I keep running into that.

As I mentioned before Copernicus was born here in 1473. His family owned a house here but no one is sure if he was actually born in this house or not. The museum kinda sucked. All I learned was that he had studied in Ferrara and that ginger cakes were a local specialty. There was a lot of stuff to look at but very little descriptions. The second half of the museum consisted of rooms decorated in a style that Copernicus would recognize. Overall I was pretty dissapointed.

As I had explored the different sites during the morning there were kids running around town doing what looked like a scavenger hunt. They kept asking me things. It was a bit odd because the same ones kept talking to me. I wonder if they didn't recognize me or if they were just teasing.

For unknown reasons I stopped back at the hostel before grabbing lunch. Jeanfrançois was just waking up and decided to come with me to get some soup. It was pretty good.

We had both wanted to visit the planetarium and were disappointed to find out that none of the shows were in English. We decided to visit the Orbitarium instead. This was kinda like a really tiny science center. It was packed with kids. Jeanfrançois joked that I was the oldest one there but also the shortest. The whole thing was interactive and we tried to play with the different displays whenever the kids would back off. After waiting in line for about 10 minute to see how much we would weigh on the mood we gave up. The kids just wouldn't respect the line!

Eventually we just wrote the place off as a loss and went to explore a bit more. The goal was to walk to a lake but it turned out to be more of a drainage pool. On the way we reminisced about our favorite Simpsons and Family Guy episodes.

Kamilla was meant to meet us at 8 to go out. Neither Jeanfrançois or me really felt like another late night. I had an early train and he was still recovering from the day before. While we were discussing this one of the other girls at the hostel told me that I had a phone call. I hadn't had anyone call me since I left home, it was really kinda nice. Kamila asked us if we would mind meeting up for a movie instead with a couple of her friends. Apparently she was telepathic.

At 8 we met to see Boski Chillout, or Pineapple Express. It was really really funny, go see it. Wait, I bet it was out months ago in the states and that I am really behind.

After the movie we headed back to the hostel and I got packed up before calling it a night.