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Published: April 1st 2009
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Short facts:
Participants: Me
Destination: Torun, Poland
Length of the trip: 3 days
Distance: 183 km from Warsaw to Torun
Music: Queen Adreena
Reading: Lonely Planet "Eastern Europe", Ryszard Kapuscinski "Podroze z Herodotem" (cannot say that I really read this, but I bought this)
March 27.16:30
Sitting in the train with Lonely Planet "Eastern Europe" in my hands. It is interesting and quite amusing to read this being Eastern European myself (especially all those "and you can see the leftovers of Soviet Union there and there"). I really like Lonely Planet and generally good guides, they show the potential of you can see and where you can be. Even if you don't see it all.
So I am watching outside the window to fields and plains of Poland, that remind me so much of my home country. Its gloomy and raining now and I'm hoping it's not going to rain tomorrow.
*Half an hour later, just before sunset, the rain stopped, the clouds moved away and the view was really amazing, the light was so beautiful*
16.50
Train stops at a smaller station and Prison
It is in front of university. They put safety things on the windows, because prisoners used to talk to the passers by. I there is some persons house like 10 meters away from tracks. Not the best place to live, unless you really like trains.
So the I came to train station in evening and first thing I bought a ticket back to Warsaw with my elementary Polish. First thing surprising me was in the bus - in Torun they have advertisement in bus in the screen where they show the names of bus stops and route. I found my couchsurfing hostess place easily and we (both after parties on Thursday) spent evening talking and sharing traveling stories (now I am really keen on going to Spain and Morocco).
Next morning after breakfast we headed to city for some sightseeing. My hostess told me some stories about some sights and I will share them here.
* Statue of Nicolaus Copernicus. Torun is hometown of this famous astronomer and in Torun his statue is in standing pose, while in Krakow he is sitting. My hostess explained it is because he is a host in Torun and a guest in Krakow.
Also one thing about Copernicus - there is a house that was thought to be a home of Copernicus, but latest research
shows that his house was actually not there. And according to that research his home was where one supermarket is now.
* Town Hall is a building calendar - it has 4 towers and 365 windows (we did not try to count them).
* There is a fountain with a guy with violin and frogs around. So according to the legend there was a plague of frogs in Torun. And that guy with his music lured the frogs outside the town and never came back (I do not know why).
* There is statue of little dog holding a hat. He is dog of cartoon character Professor Filutek. And Professor himself is as a street lamp decoration there.
You can see the animation here:
Example of comic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7512460@N03/2048158709/
Some info: http://www.yoramgrossfilms.com.au/inpoduction/filutek.html
* There is a little statue of Dragon of Torun. In town metrics there is a story how people claimed that they saw the dragon. You can read the story in the photo.
* In Poland they name block of flat architectural styles by the prime ministers at the time of building. See photos (*to be added later*).
March 28. 17:00
Sightseeing
in this sunny and Spring weather was very enjoyable. While waiting for our nalieshniki (pancakes with various stuffing) to be served in cafe "Manekin", Kamila (my hostess) and me were discussing about Eastern European identity and Poland-Lithuania relationship. About the latter topic, I experienced that Polish don't have such negative attitude towards Lithuanians, as many Lithuanians have towards Polish. Some even say that they see Lithuania as brother nation. And Lithuanians see Latvia more like brother nation, really not Poland. Kamila said that this may be because Poland is bigger and it was the "bully country" and Lithuania was the one being "bullied". I think that thsi really is one of the reasons.
In the evening first we went to contemporary art museum for a concert. We saw a weird audiovisual exhibition about suffering animals. And as for concert, there was technical break, so we decided not to wait for it to end. We went to peek into "The Lizard King" bar, which looks really nice inside. Then we went to place Kodfica where they (still) have vodka shots for 2 zlots. After we went to Dja vu club. This club inside has decorations as rock club, but the
music was all mainstream (and really bad even in those terms). So I find this a sad place. They have pictures of some famous rock history people. Kurt Cobain was really sad there. Only Jim Morrison seemed to be happy, but we decide it was because he was on drugs as usual. The last place was Desperado pub. A real dive bar with Mexican decorations and table football. They had tequila for 5 zlots and cheap beer and we could choose the music to be played. So that was real oldie evening with The Doors, Pink Floyd, The Monkees and so on. Table football, dancing, singing for someones birthday ("Sto lat sto lat...") - that was a great night.
The next day afternoon I had to go back to Warsaw. Before train I bought some pierniki (cookies from ginger bread, Torun is famous for ginger bread, and yea they were so delicious) and tried zapiekanki from place which, as I remember, is considered to have best zapiekanki (and yeah it was really good).
All in all Torun is great small town, very beautiful, calm and relaxing during daytime and with many places to choose for nightlife.
March 29.
16.40
In the train back to Warsaw. Trying to read some of the Polish book I bought, not too successfully. The funny thing here is the voice of person that announces the train stops - he speaks like Soviet politician. I did not understand what he was saying, but the locals in train were amused too. Later they explained that not only his voice and way of talk sounds Societ, he also uses old type expressions.
When back in Warsaw I had this deja vu feeling. Exactly week after (coming back from Poznan) I am in same time in Warsawa Centralna again. Just now I already know how not to get lost in the underground, hurray.
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