In my country there is problem

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Yeah, so looks like I'm in Bratislava now, pretty knackered and about to go to sleep. But I thought I should finally get my ass up and write something on this thing.

The trip to Gdansk was rather bizarre...first I was standing with the other pathetic passengers in a giant queue on Hahn airport, waiting to board. They wouldn't even make an announcement, it was pretty frustrating just standing there for more than half an hour without knowing what's going on. Ten or so minutes after the flight should have started we could finally board. The flight itself went by real quick, and we were already approaching Gdansk, when the captain said we couldn't descent because of bad weather and fog. So the plane was flying a curve for about an hour over the city, which made me a bit sleepy. The flight attendant woke me up to tell me to put my bag into the overhead lockers for landing. On the ground I was told the flight got diverted, and that we were now in Bydgoszcz, a city 200km away from Gdansk, and that we were facing a 3-hour bus ride. Alrighty then, I was getting into the whole "That's just part of travelling"-mode, but just getting on the bus was quite difficult, it took more than half an hour, since they were checking everybody's name. And then, shortly before the bus left, the driver turned on Polish radio in a rather disturbing volume, which wouldn't be lowered during the whole trip. I was kind of paralyzed by the mix of Polish pop/R'n'B and the worst the US music industry has to offer. Anyway, the idiots dropped us off at Gdansk airport, and I was wondering why anybody would want to go to the intended airport after a diverted flight. I ended up sharing a taxi with two Polish people who, as it turned out, didn't even go to my direction. Great success. So in the end I paid around 15€, and arrived at my host's place at 4am. I felt really bad for ringing the doorbell, but there was no public phone around, and I had called her before the bus ride to tell her how late I would be. Still, she lives with her parents and a cute little doggy, so I reckon I woke everybody up.
After a tired welcome from my host Anna, I went straight to bed. The next day, I got to meet her parents, which were a bit shy, but friendly. Anna took me to town and showed me around. I was pretty impressed by the inner city, especially the architecture, the type which i had already seen in Wroclaw. Very unique. When I was taking a photo of some statue, an old guy walked up to me and talked to me in German. First I was a bit confused, not having had the best experiences with strangers walking up to me in Morocco, but he was actually genuinely friendly. He said if I really want to see and interesting sight, I should follow him to the old town hall. So we went with him, and the inside of the building was truly amazing! There were hundreds of blue tiles, similar to Portuguese ones, on the walls, and no two were the same! The decoration was pretty 18th century, luckily it survived WWII. So after seeing that, we thanked the old man, and went on our way through the inner city. Apart from the rainy weather, it was a really good day. When I came back to Anna's place, her mom had prepared a really nice dinner, which was apparently a specific Easter thing, Sauerkraut and plums. It tasted quite good, I was surprised. Not only that I liked it, but also because the Poles eat more Kraut than the real Krauts.
The next day a friend of Anna's took us to the nearby seaside resort Sopot, which was quite beautiful. We met with an Italian and a Portuguese guy there, nice blokes, as I was about to find out. We had a stroll along the seaside, and went to a cafe for a chat afterwards. The Portuguese guy, Nuno, took me to see Gdynia after that, which wasn't that great, and the stiff cold added only to the bad image I got from the town. At least they had a statue from Joseph Conrad.

The following day I took the train to Warsaw, and arriving and Warszawa Centralna was an absolute nightmare! I had to roam through a kafkaesque labyrinth, a cavernous cacophony of food stalls, beggars, policemen, and an atmosphere of socialist realism. When I had finally made my way to the right tram stop, at least an hour had passed. My host in Warsaw had cancelled last minute, so Anna called up a friend of hers, and I could stay at his place. He gave me instructions on how to get to his flat, but I made the mistake of just following the instructions without calling him and letting him know I was in Warsaw. So I ended up somewhere, in an area of nothingness. There was just one dodgy guy standing around, who turned out to be friendly, but he couldn't help me much either, so I went back to Centralna and called Gopi (he was Indian). With new instructions I went about my way and met him at the right station. He was an incredibly hospitable guy, and had a stunning phonetic resemblance to a guy named Apu. He cooked me a great Indian-style dinner and showed me around Warsaw afterwards. Yes, it was night, and it was cold, but we walked around for about 3 hours, and it was fucking great! The old town is quite stunning at night, and there are heaps of nice cafes, and one of them was even open on Easter Monday, yay!
After a good night's sleep the Indian hospitality continued with a good brekkie for a weary traveller. I bid my farewell to Gopi then, and went on my way back to Stalin's favourite train station. I had called another guy who offered to host me the night before, and he said I could stay with him for the rest of my time in Warsaw. But I was only about to meet him later in the evening, so I left my luggage in a locker, and went on my way to the old town. I was walking around, looking at the numerous monuments, statues, buildings, etc., happily snapping sway, trying to ignore the cold.
At about 6pm I went by tram to meet up with Tomasz, my new host. He brought some guy with him, a Polish friend of him, or so I thought. He turned out to be another guest, who, together with his sister, also stayed at Tomasz's tiny place. They turned out to be Germans, oh, the delight that was floating through my intestines! The guy was maybe 17, and his sister about 20, working as a volunteer in an old people's home in Gdansk, which i quite respectable. But less so was the fact that she told me she had been vegetarian for 12 years before coming to Poland, where she found it to hard not to eat meat. The same with drinking alcohol. "It's just so hard not to drink when everybody around you drinks alcohol." What the fuck? You should get an opinion, girl...
I grudgingly went out with them later, I'd have preferred going to bed after the really long day of sightseeing. We went by tram to the other side of the river to Praga, which is a suburb known for its enchanting grey appartment blocks. We were greeted by some drunk 15-year olds insulting us, and went on to a cozy little pub, where a wannabe-Franz Ferdinand-band played. They were awful, really. So everybody except me started drinking beer and smoking away, the latter of which having been particularly disgusting, and after a couple of painfully long hours, we went back to go to sleep.
I visited the Warsaw Rising Museum the next day, and it was pretty good. Unfortunately, there were just too many Polish school groups there, which was annoying in a way that they were constantly staring at me. I felt a bit out of place really, especially in the room where they played the Horst Wessels-Lied.
I wanted to go on and visit the Jewish heritage of Warsaw that day, so I went to see the Jewish cemetery, which was pretty impressing. I felt a bit like an intruder, though, there was a group of hasidic Jews giving me the evils for disturbing the peace of their dead, when all I wanted was paying my respects. That day, I also saw tonnes of monuments for WWII, the Warsaw ghetto and the Holocaust, for example the infamous 'Umschlagplatz', where the Jews of the ghetto where deported to nearby Treblinka. Have I already mentioned the snowstorm? It was terrible, but I went on with my plans defiantly, and arrived at Tomasz's totally soaked and freezing. We watched a film that night, 'Charlie Wilson's War', which was pretty good, despite Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.

I had a very early start the following morning, since I wanted to catch the 6am-train to Krakow. That I did, and after a nice and comfy ride, for once, arrived in a sunny city everybody loves. I went to my new hosts immediately, dropped off my shit, went to the castle and the old town, had lunch, went onwards to the Jewish quarter, which was great, and back home for sleepy time. That's all for that day.
Auschwitz was next. I had been waiting for that one for a long time. After a one-hour bus ride, I arrived to see scores of tour buses, which had transported PEOPLE there. I was wandering around a bit confused, and finally found the infamous 'ARBEIT MACHT FREI'. And yes, there were a lot of people taking their photo below that. How retarded can you be? Answer: very. The main camp consisted of maybe 26 blocks which contained exhibitions of various countries, of Jews, gypsies, of the living conditions and the extermination methods. It was pretty grueling, despite the fact that I had seen an uncountable number of photos and documents and read maybe 20-30 books about it. But seeing and experiencing it in real life is a whole different story. The stacks of school children kind of ruined the atmosphere for me, but I tried my best to stay solemn and serious.
After 3 or 4 hours, I took the shuttle bus to nearby Birkenau, which was both more gruesome, and better in a way that the camp area was a lot bigger, so I was able to roam around without being hassled by hip kiddies. It was rather surreal, seeing the blocks, the latrines, the remnants of the blown-up gas chambers and the pits where the SS dumped the ashes of the murdered. I was really taking my time walking around, feeling the atmosphere, which was probably the most rewarding part of the trip.
The stupid shuttle buses were only running every hour, so I had to walk back the 3km to Auschwitz to get the last minibus to Krakow.
That night was quite dreadful, I'd somehow managed to ruin my stomach, and had to get up to throw up. I'd planned going to visit the Wieliczka salt mines the following day, which I did, regardless of my stomach pains. It turned out to be a really dumb idea. I went on the mandatory tour, which went on for two hours, and after 10 or so minutes I wished it was already over, that's how bad it was. My legs were shaking and I could hardly stand.

Anyway, I survived, it got better after a day, but I decided to stay in Krakow for a day longer to recuperate. Last morning I took the bus to Bratislava then, which was surprisingly comfy, but then it was with an Austrian company. The ride took about 8 hours, and I arrived at the Slovakian capital at 6pm, all stinky and knackered. I couldn't manage to find a host, so I had to book into a hostel. Oh yeah, the bliss of sleeping in a 10-bed dorm again. To add insult to injury, it cost more than you would expect from an Eastern European hostel. In the middle of the night, a couple of drunk Irish guys entered the room without taking into consideration that there was quite a number of people sleeping in the room. One of them was snoring for the rest of the night, and another one had a weird cough and sounded like a dying transvestite in the process.
Today I just roamed around to see the castle and the old historic centre of Bratislava, which was nice, but not outstandingly thrilling. I've just come back from the train station, where I bought my ticket to Sighisoara in Romania, the place where everybody's darling Vlad Tepes was born, or so they say. Well that's not the only reason I'm going there, it's supposed to be a nice little town with a distinct Transsylvanian charme. The train goes via Budapest, and I have to change to the overnight train to Romania, which takes another 10 or so hours.

Apart from all that, I'm not exactly in good spirits at the moment, feel a bit weary. Maybe I shouldn't visit so many cities, and should go and see the countryside instead, to relax a bit. I was definitely doing too much in the first week in Poland, maybe that's why I got sick. I reckon I should just be taking it a bit easier, and not try to cram in everything I can.
The good news is, though, all my visas have been granted, and they are in my passport, which is still in Germany, unfortunately, but it shall be at the German embassy in Bucharest in two days. So I have a bit of time, in case the delivery is delayed, which could always happen.

This and the following week will consist mostly of Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine. After that it'll be onwards to Belarus and the Baltic states, before heading to Russia. So I got quite a bit planned, of course, and I hope that I'll find some time to relax in the next days, otherwise I should think about changing my plans to something more hassle-free.

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