The moderate escape

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Dobry Wieczor (Good Evening);

Well, we've found ourselves 599km south east from where we were before; significantly sweatier and tireder but with our finances looking rosier than the botanical gardens.
Yes Ladies and Gents we're in the land of Poles, Poland. Krakow (pronounced Crack-ov) to be precise. I've been here before but this Emmas first time and well I'd like to say we can confirm its a beautiful city but so far our only exploits in the second city of poland has been to supermarkets to get a drink and when I went and got a very lovely Amaretto ice cream from the market.
But to put the Amaretto ice cream into perspective we have to zoom back 24 hours and 599km to Burger King in Berlin. After having what would be our last regular meal for 16 hours we set out crossing the road into Berlin Zoological Tiergarten station and made our way to the big one in Berlin, International Train station Berlin Haubbahnhoff.
Now I've seen some train stations in my time, the ever changing but never finished Derby, and 'The IRA stopped bombing 15 years ago but we'll still not have bins; Birmingham New Street, but this was the cherry on top of our German style cake. Its over 5 floors and has S-Bahn, U-Bahn, R-Bahn and International links and as if to take the mickey to the rest of the world has a 3 floor shopping centre, upon which we sat down in Cafe Ritazza (that well known German institute) for 2 1/12 hours with our one cup of hot chocolate, thats what you call German efficiency! Come the time however we hopped on the train to Szczecin (after much deliberation with polish people it has been decided you pronounce this Sch-ech-een but in a heavy polish accent) as the plan was to first get out of Germany which was putting a hole in our already strapped pockets and to move onto poland where despite what the returning builders may tell you, is still cheaper than the west. Szczecin proved to be a typical Polish (pardon my language) shit hole, with a few reminders of what they used to build before Lech Walesa (if you dont know just wikipedia him!) was even born. Anyway the problem was we had decided that Szczecin being, well a city, it might have an atm within shooting distance of the station. Well it might have if you had an anti-aircraft missile. We were all out of Zloty and with only E20 on us and with as much knowledge of polish as someone at 1am on a friday night trying to order one of them polish beers we needed a miracle. Luckily one such miracle had been printed off from what shall now be known as the holy printer, peace be upon him. It was for those you who aren't keeping up, a page of essential polish phrases. Armed with my Dziejujes and Tak's I was ready to take on the fiersome Polish woman who was behind the seemingly melting glass wall. A quick 'Krakov' later and she was slain and we were sitting on Peron 2 Tor 2 waiting for the Rzsezow train which would stop in Krakow at 7.45am the next day. With it being 8.45pm we were looking forward to a nice sleeper cabin and a deserved rest after slaying the evil dragon woman of Szczecin.
This is where the plan came unstuck. Simply put we had an 11 hour train journey down south in temperatures that seemingly never went below, 'frick, thats hot' all night and with the prospect of no beds. They'd all be taken by Polish people and I wasn't about to come from Berlin and forceably move Poles. So we saddled up in a 6 seater old styley cabin with two young 22 year old Krakovians, whose names were unknown. This was a comfy arrangment with lots of available seating despite the sun being on a collision course with our window. After a quick nibble on a nutrigrain we were ready to settle in, safe in the knowledge we might have at least some sleep. Then they came, it was the equivilant of an Englishman who when someone who doesn't understand English comes up he'll repeat what he said louder and stick a ee on the end of all his words, you know the sort 'you speaka dee Eeenglish?' Well two men wandered in and took up their seats in our 6 person cabin to the general dismay of everyone else. Even the fact that the loud one was carrying beer did not lift a deflated cabin. As midnight approached cain fever set in on Emma and she managed to nod off, albeit over me. However then luckily one of the young poles was translating my English into polish and we started drinking a bit of beer and generally laughing at how I pronounced places like Wroclow (honest its pronounced Vrats-lav) and Lodz (pronounced Woodge)
Well despite this general merriment soon it was time to sleep, but the ticket inspectors had a thing or two to say about that. As well as the general uncomfiness of a sitting upright posistion we had to contend with ticket conductors who would sneak up on your door open it suddenly and turn the light on and scream the polish equivilant of 'Ticket!; which is fine at 9pm but at 3 am its masochistic Anyway after 12 hours at Gas Mark 9 we were sozzled. Getting off eventually at Krakow Glowny station and hauling our luggage up the stairs the hostel kindly provided us a lift which we snapped up with both hands (apart from Emma, who used her enthusiasm for both) So its here at Dizzy Daisy hostel we write to you after spending a day recovering from our 'experince' if you can call sleep deprevation and forced starvation an 'experince'. You'll be pleased to note however this hasn't put us off trains and Virgin trains are starting to look like Morgan Freeman (watch Bruce Almighty) at this moment in time, especially when you compare the toilet facilites.
With all this time to kill however we have been busy looking at how we can a). get to Bratislava, and b). find new ways to make signs pointing to policeman at Brno saying 'do you know him' . In the meantime we've booked a trip to Auschwitz tomorrow, which when you're in Krakow is stupid not to go and see. It'll be my second time but Emmas first so no doubt sanity will be bought back to the blog tomorrow whilst she recounts her story of the last 24 hours as well as going to Auschwitz.
So after wasting your time as much as a health and safety demonstration at a Wacky Warehouse we're off to go do battle with the much friendly Dragon of Krakow.



Do widzenia!

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Comments

[Luski]

Yo guys
yo guys, i see everything is going as swimmingly as it can in your typical style. I believe though that forced starvation and sleep depravation were clearly acts of self sacrifice in order to obtain entry to the much loved poland. auschwitz is one momentous occasions that i both fear and get excited about at the same time. i believe the experience could truely bring a sense of prospective. Let me know how that goes Em, i'd love to know what your take on it is.... you know my love of war history. anyways i'm off cos am knackered after a hard days work take care Luski

[mebods]

eufa cup
hafnarfjordur (iceland) , guzan got permit slaters

[Bev]

Mark
Mark , you really must persue a career in travel writing I havent laughed so much in ages , well since I saw Julie Walters in Mamma Mia last night. Keep up the good work.