General rant and adventures

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Well the sun lasted all of one day and its raining again. Raining for two weeks, what did we do to deserve this? Krakow is nice but the hostel was rubbish and we nearly got run over by a tram. The hostel was rubbish for a variety of reasons that we shall summarise:

- Had to pay by cash, but wasnt told this
- No cash machine
- Nearest cash machine was in Krakow, 7km away, by taxi.
- Spent the last of our cash to get more cash to pay for the room, whilst they held Sarah B's passport hostage.
- If we hadnt had that cash, who knows.
- No cash machines worked in Krakow
- Took about 6 attempts to make one work, and we withdrew all our money (well, nearly all of it).
- Hostel was rubbish, once we did get room it was like a caravan, but with less space.
- There was no breakfast.
- The staff were very unhelpful.
- We had to sit and wait for it to open for two hours.
- Only one member of staff spoke english, and she was an idiot.

However, that aside it was lovely!

We havent updated this in a while and there has been much excitement! I (Sarah S) found a skirt I liked for my graduation, I brought it and decided to postit home, Easy? Heck no. Apparently the postal service is the only job sector in Poland where english is not required. We ended up (after a day) getting a note written in polish by the hostel people which explained to polish mail that we were stupid english people and could they please post my parcel, we promise it isnt a bomb. Argh.

We had managed earlier in the day to get stamps (after spending multiple hours searching for post offices which we still do not believe exist). However, after buying the stamps (which required more cash machine palava) they gave us the parcel back and despite our best pointing efforts, we couldnt work out why! We asked everyone where we should go, tried to put it in a letter box (it didnt fit) and the realised the problem was that we hadnt used sellotape. Mind you, it didnt come in the packet we bought of brown paper, string , sticky labels and stuff. Then we couldnt find the next post office which was apparently next to our hostel (it wasnt). However, some random travel agent directed us, and all was well.

On a random note, the boys in our hostel in Warsaw (we shared a mixed dorm) decided that me and Sarah B were lesbians. I wasnt aware of this, since they all spoke french whenever I was present. Paranoid much?

So that was Warsaw.

Then we moved on to Krakow where we have explained the drama of the hostel. The only reason we were stopping in this hostel was because we were going to Auschwitz for the day and a travel company were coming to pick us up from the crappy hostel. We waited in the rain for her to arrive (did we mention that it rained?) and then had an...interesting trip in a neon blue minibus (sarah s says it was like the drug toilets the other week...these were in oslo and dont worry, there were no drugs). The bad thing about being rammed in the back of a minivan (in the back I assume because we were the youngest) was that whenever we went over speed bumps, or pot holes (and there were a LOT) we basically flew. Ouch. It was a very long hour and a half trip to get there.

Still, Auschwitz was good. If I can say that, we don't really know the best way of describing it. Obviously it wasn't fun, informative is maybe better. Interesting. Anyway, you get the jist. Theres not very much we can say about Auschwitz to give it justice, except you should all go, at least once.

Then there was zubrowska vodka. It actually had grass in it! Apparently most of it does, but I was amused (SB). There was much sprite, I got carried away and brought three litres (SS). Then we tried to get the internet (to write this) but no (see above list for rubbishness of said-hostel).

In conclusion, we strongly reccommend you avoid Grochawa Youth Hostel, and 'cash4u' ATM machines. Also, we advise you to go to Poland, it brings adventure in the smallest everyday task and if you see the sun don't tell us!

Next stop, Prague! (sleeper train tonight! woo we're excited but not as much as the boat as we don't know if we have a bed or a seat or a reclining seat or...what really)

Lots of love! Sarah S and Sarah B (combined)

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