Stranded in Bialystok and Good Times in Vilnius

This entry might be short. After all, there is not much to tell, and that in itself is part of what is to be told (?). Did that make sense? Read on, maybe it will make sense afterward.

So, we got to Bialystok, because we were planning to go to the Biewiczka (or something like that) primordial forest that straddles the border of Poland and Belarus. The first night we were there we went a-wanderin' down to the core area, where we saw a respectable church, and a palace, but nothing overly notable. We also noticed a large congregation of people in a park and ended up wandering through what turned out to be a ... household fair? There were tents devoted to furnaces, hot tubs, tools, etc. It was really just rather random, but we did get some enjoyment out of a lifesize foosball game, with people as the players tied to the poles, and the attractive girls some of the companies were using to get people to their tent. After a quick wander through there and the adjacent park, we went back to our hostel and read/putzed around until bed time.

The next morning is when we were planning to get up and go to the forest. We arrived with little time to spare, though, and could not find the bus that was supposed to be leaving to the forest. We asked about it but nothing ended up coming of it, so the entire reason we came to Bialystok was shot! Not wanting to let the time go to waste, though, we spent that day wandering Bialystok further, only to realize, a little bit to our dismay, that there is not all that much to see in Bialystok. We went to a mall that we found for a while and did some random wandering, and that night ate at a pretty good Italian place, but that was about it. You can imagine that by the next day we were pretty eager to move on with our trip. We got our train tickets to Vilnius and got onto what we thought was our train. Turns out we were wrong! So, after getting ourselves back to Bialystok from the random town we ended up in, I made some inquiries, mostly to people who did not speak English, and found out that the next opportunity we had to get to Vilnius was at 2am. The current time was approximately 11am. You can imagine how stoked we were!

Of this there is not much to tell. We spent way too long at the mall, way too long at the train station, and way too long in a park near the two. It finally got to 2am and we were pretty happy to see the bus roll around the corner. The nice thing about buses, too, is that you have someone to ask if it's going to the right place. You don't always get that on trains.

So I'm not very good at sleeping on moving things. Sometimes I can manage trains but not usually buses or airplanes. This was no exception. So after laying awake for most of the train ride I began to talk to the only other person awake, a middle-aged Latvian man. We talked for a while, and he mentioned many things about his daughters, seeing as how they were around our age and also in school. At the end of the trip, he invited us for coffee with his daughters. We thought this was a little random but accepted because he seemed like a decent fellow and we always like meeting locals. We parted ways to get some sleep and see the town a bit first, though.

Liam and I found our way to our hostel (after a little bit too much searching due to a faulty guidebook), and were happy to find out that we could check in early so that we could get to our beds for some sleep. We woke up and saw the sights in Vilnius. It's got a very pretty and extensive Old Town with more to see than many we've been too, and we also saw a massive Church made out of an old pagan temple and climbed to the top of Gediminas Hill, where we climbed further up a tower and got a fantastic view of the city. We then called the number the fellow gave us, which was his daughter's, and it was getting a little bit late now, so she told us we should come over for supper instead. They came and picked s up at our hostel a short while later and brought us to their house, where they had a veritable feast prepared, with turkey meatballs, sausage, potatoes, strawberries with creme fraiche, cake, coffee, beer and wine. We were a little surprised, but pleasantly so. They were also good people to talk to. Both of the older daughters knew four languages each, the dad knew something like six, and they had a lot to say on all kinds of subjects. I think at times I felt a little bit outclassed! Anyway, it was a great evening and the fellow dropped us off back at our hostel at the end.

The next day we got up and went to the Museum to the Victims of Communism. It is a really cool museum that tells the history of Lithuania under the communist yoke. The place is contained within the actual old KGB headquarters, and the basement still has all of the original rooms, where prisoners were kept, tortured, interrogated, and killed. One especially interesting room was just a lowered floor with a raised pedestal in the middle, where they would make prisoners stand, filling the floor with ice cold water, so that the prisoner could not doze off or they would step into the water. That night we went out for dinner with the girls we had met last night, but only after they took us around some other parts of the Old Town that we had not seen before, such as the University and the Presidential Palace. We got a coffee afterward but then the girls had to go so we went back to our hostel.

The next day was and the next entry will be about Klaipeda, a coastal city of Lithuania where we spent a few days.

Flickr Stream!

I got my Flickr stream web address! It was just a small option that I somehow missed a million times.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/csaraka/

In Which Liam Falls Ill And Colin Must Explore Poland Alone

So, where I left off, I had gone to Auschwitz. A very sobering experience, but that's all I will say in this entry because I want this to be positive! For due sadness, please see previous entry.

On the bus between the two sites at Auschwitz I happened to get talking with a girl there from New York, who came along with us (Me and the UK Army Girls) to our hostel where we found Liam. The three of us (Masha, Liam, and I) went and found us a milk bar to get the full Polish experience. A milk bar in short, is a cafeteria subsidized by the government, a sort of a holdover from Communist times, where you can get your fill of traditional Polish food for dirt cheap prices, as long as you can deal with people that only speak Polish, and some poor people asking if they can have your food (yes, this actually happened to us). The food was, as expected, mediocre, but it was so cheap and we left feeling satisfied, so we were not too worried about it. After that, we wandered around for a bit and stopped in for a drink at a cool little chill techno-bar thingy, but ultimately Liam and I ended up going home early, because Liam was getting sick and I was very tired from having gone out late then gotten up early to spend all day at Auschwitz. The next day, though, we all met up at Wawel Castle, a sort of quaint but ridiculously, eclectically styled castle. It's sort of a mishmash and very interesting for a morning. The best part, though, was a cave underneath the castle that opens up onto a ridiculously ugly dragon-insect statue-thing that is all sharp angles and has about 8 legs.

We wandered around Old Town for a bit after grabbing a bite to eat, until Masha went on her tour to the Krakow salt mines. By the time that came around, Liam was feeling like junk, so I tagged along with her, which I cannot say that I regretted at all. Not only were the salt mines interesting and a good way to spend an afternoon, but we also met some more people. I went out with Masha and three students studying in Sweden (but who were actually from North Carolina, Jamaica, and Australia) to supper at a quaint, cheap little place serving more traditional Polish food, at which I had more pierogies and shared some of Masha's smoked and deep fried camembert cheese with cranberry sauce. Now, that may sound odd, but it was actually delicious. Afterward, we went back and found Liam so that we could go for a drink, after which everyone headed back to their respective hostels, except for Masha and I, who were unwilling to call it a night. After a fair bit of wandering we managed to find a little house club tucked into a building south of Old Town, where we actually ran into a Kiwi fellow I met at our last hostel in Wroclaw. We all talked and had a few drinks and generally jovial good time until we were abruptly asked to leave at the stroke of 3AM.

The next day, Liam and I met Masha in the Old Town, which we hadn't actually given a proper go-round to. We went in the church there, whose name escapes me but which was beautifully gilded in a landslide of gold. We then met up with the group of girls from Sweden and explored the tower attached to the church... partially because Liam was convinced that there had to be a wizard at the top, or if not, that he should take up the post. We all got some good pictures up there. After that, we were all very tired, and made a half-baked effort to explore the city walls before the Sweden students had to go catch their flight. After that, the remaining three of us did manage to motivate ourselves to check out the Barbican, a fortification built to defend against assaults after the introduction of guns to the region. We were feeling very tired, though, and soon after split up along our merry ways, Liam and I to Warsaw, while Masha went to Berlin.

Unlike our last train ride, the way to Warsaw was very uneventful, but when we got there, we had quite a time finding the proper bus. We eventually figured out we were about 100m from the bus mall, where practically every bus in Warsaw goes, but I maintain that this was not well-signed at all. Somewhere in the 5 minutes it took to take the bus I managed to leave my coat on it. We then arrived at our hostel, which was OK but not the best, and we went to sleep slightly frustrated.

The next morning, we were of course perfectly content (because this is just the way you have to approach travelling I have discovered). Liam wanted to check out a vintage clothing shop, so we walked there, catching a few of the sights along the way, such as the Unknown Soldier monument. The vintage shop was super neat, and I actually got an old Puma shirt with stripes on it for pretty cheap. Not feeling very energetic, we got some supper from the grocery store, ate, and spent some time on the internet before going to bed.

The next day Liam was feeling quite sick. We had moved hostels though, because we didn't like the one we were in. We walked over to our new hostel, which was thankfully very close, and because we couldn't check in yet, we left our bags with them while Liam sat in the common room for the day and I went to check out Warsaw. I mosied down to the Old Town of Warsaw, which contains a mermaid statue way cooler then Copenhagen's, the Pope (John Paul II) on a large pole, and other small charming things. I also had the privilege to see many exhibits devoted to Poland's 20th anniversary of democracy (because this was that day) and an exhibit devoted to the idea of coexistence (among religions, races, etc). I then caught a few random buses and trams until I found my way to the Palace of Culture and Science, a huge building built by the communists that apparently matches some other ones in Russia. It towers over most of Warsaw and offers a great view of the whole city. After that, I went back to the hostel to find Liam, and we went out for some KFC. Upon our return, we convened in the common room with other travellers to have a few shots of vodka with raspberry syrup and strawberries dipped in white chocolate, and other things, all to celebrate the anniversary of democracy with the owners/operators of the hostel. After that, we all socialized for a while, until some travellers went to sleep and some went out. Liam went to bed, as he wasn't feeling 100%, and I went out with a gaggle of travellers from various places such as Spain, France, England, and Iran. As soon as we left the hostel, we were offered free drinks at a small bar nearby, so we did and found out it was another karaoke bar. We all gathered around one microphone and sang Yesterday by the Beatles then went on our merry way!

The next day, Liam was feeling even worse, so we tried to find him a Polish doctor. Our first try, the hostel receptionist phoned for us and asked ahead, confirming there was an English speaking doctor there. However, when we got there it seemed that the English doctor (and indeed, all the English speakers) were no where to be found. We went back and talked to the hostel receptionist again, who called another place who set us an appointment with an English doctor. Liam waited around for the appointment, which was right by the hostel, while I went and checked out the Warsaw Uprising museum. The Warsaw Uprising was the Polish resistance to the Nazi occupation during the Second World War. The museum had a lot of information, but I did not know a lot about the Warsaw Uprising, and I found the events laid out in the museum to be a bit confusing in chronology. That afternoon, it was a bit rainy, so I went back to the hostel to wait it out and hung out with other people who felt the same as I did. That night, I went out with another Canadian we had met, as well as an Englishman and two Aussie girls, just to a nearby pub to have a few drinks.

The next day, Liam and I were off to Bialystok! But that is another tale.

In Which Colin And Liam Make A Quick Return To Germany Before Setting Forth To Poland

So, after saying our goodbyes in Usti nad Labem, and heading, very hurriedly, to our train, we spent some time on the train before realizing that Liam had left his camera at Cody's house. After some colourful language and vocal self-loathing, we realized that it was not a Big Deal, and that Liam could go get it the next day, as we were only staying in Dresden that night, a mere hour or two train ride from Usti. Knowing this, and staying at a very nice but not particularly social hostel, we decided to get to bed early so Liam could go and do that, while I happily slept in. When I met him at the train station later, we then proceeded on to the closest interesting thing we could find, which happened to be the German Hygiene Museum. The German Hygiene Museum is an institution from before the war, has been moved and/or bombed a few times, and is thus comprised of two main focii: the history of itself (how meta!) and Health. The word hygiene, I think, is a bit misleading, because the museum covers all sorts of human health topics, including genetics, sexuality, body systems, body ergonomics, and more. The history portion is also interesting; my favourite fact is that, shortly before and during WW2, the museum shared Hitler's ideal of the Aryan nation. Perhaps not the most positive aspect of its history, but interesting nonetheless. Anyway, after leaving the museum, we proceeded to get drenched on our way back to our hostel, as the area of town had lots of development with little shelter. We grabbed our stuff and headed to the train station as fast as we could, but still missed our train. So, we spent 3 hours at the station drying off and waiting for the next train, to our next destination, Wroclaw (pronounced "VROH-swov," crazy Polish!). Maybe that's valid after you throw all of the accents in there...

Anyway! Wroclaw was good but nothing particularly notable or amazing. By this time, I, at least, was getting a little bit over the "go see Old Town, go see this Church, etc" routine, but we went through the motions, and though pretty, it had nothing over anywhere else we had been. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our time there, also taking in an Archaeology Museum and what I can only describe as a Polish, mass-karaoke bar, where we felt a little bit out of place, spending valuable brain power trying to figure out the Polish pronunciation so we could make asses if ourselves. After a few days we dusted ourselves off and headed to what I consider to be the most appealing bit of Poland, Krakow.

First, though, I have a note on our train ride to Krakow. Upon figuring out our train and getting onto it, we were confronted with shaved head, floor-licking drunk, singing Polish men. Not knowing what to make of this, we swiftly put them on Ignore. The train, though, was packed to the roof, and upon seeing a relatively empty bit of space where I could set my bags down and maybe relax, I headed over there, continuing to Ignore. This fell apart a bit, when one of them realized that I was an English speaker, and did not know Polish. He was standing out in the aisle, but promptly went into one of the rooms to have a quick conference with his mates. I was confronted by a different fellow, who spoke a fair bit of English. He was generally very friendly, and not that drunk, so I talked with him. I was then offered a shot of vodka, and a beer, and I took the shot of vodka, and turned down the beer. After being offered another shot of vodka, I instead diverted their attention to Liam who was a little way down that train, and who I imagined would be a bit more game for midafternoon drinking. He came, and much the same thing happened. This degenerated until Liam and I each had a few shots of vodka, and I was telling them that Liam could not have any more due to the fact that he was on medication. By this time, we had realized that these guys were 'friendly' in the way that social bar bouncers are friendly: perfectly personable as long as things are going their way. It thus fell to me to consume the vodka until I had had too many shots (and thankfully, their bottle ran out), and talk with them as Liam went into semi-comatose. Thankfully, the crew had been doing so much drinking that they all managed to pass out at the same time, and I told Liam that we were putting them back in Ignore, and getting to the other side of the train, where I spent the rest of the train ride sobering up and talking to an Aussie girl who had stayed in our room the night previous (because it was a dorm room. get your minds out of the gutter!) and a few much nicer Polish people. We later saw the Soccer hooligan crew leave the train, where they were monitored by policemen in riot gear. We breathed a sigh of relief, and then another one, when days later we found out that bands of these brigands like to find excuses to start fights with foreigners.

We arrived in Krakow, where I was absolutely famished, to the point where I bought the first thing I saw outside of the train station. This was a kebab, the popular street food in both Krakow and Warsaw, and the source of most of my vegetables for the past week. Upon finding our hostel, we were a bit hesitant that it seemed to be tucked into a back alley with nothing going on around it. When we went inside though, we found a great, friendly atmosphere, and a wonderful tongue-in-cheek communist decorative scheme, which consisted of communist posters and large red utilitarian spraypaint pictures on the walls. We went to our room so I could sleep off a bit of the vodka and met our roommates, three UK Army Medic girls. After sleeping for a bit then going on a mission to find some food, we returned with some drinks and some juice, including some Apple Beet juice, because apparently this was a good idea to me at the time. I had one sip and couldn't stand to take any more, and it became sort of the icebreaker for our night out with the girls. We wandered to a few Irish pubs and finally to a club where we danced like goofs. Especially me, as I was being dared to dance with a few Polish girls who were taking themselves way too seriously. It was good fun and we all got back to the hostel safe and sound.

I had found out that the girls were going to Auschwitz, so the next day I tagged along with them. Liam didn't want to go for reasons I am sure he would love to explain to you if you asked, so I needed someone to go with and it was fortunate that we found some people! We got there and joined an English tour. The tour was a bit irritating at first, as our tour guide was very soft spoken with a very heavy Polish accent, but soon after she either hit her stride, or I became accustomed to her voice, because it ended up being a very emotional and informative tour. The woman sounded at times as if she would cry, which of course choked me up, but not as much as some of the things they still have there. There are, for example, piles of personal items that came from the prisoners, such as a pile of shoes, a pile of glasses, a pile of luggage. One of the most disturbing, though, was the pile of women's hair. Walking through the gas chamber and oven chamber at Auschwitz-I was also very emotionally trying. The walls and ceilings are stained and scratched and the whole place feels so dark that it's all to easy to imagine the horrible things that went on there. It is definitely a place that you should go to, if you are in the area, though, because it's an important reminder that humans are imperfect and capable of atrocity.

I think I'll leave it there, because it's difficult (and feels a bit wrong) to find a positive note now that I've gotten into all the Auschwitz stuff. Next time I'll tell you about the rest of our time in Krakow, as well as Warsaw.

Prague, Kutna Hora, and Usti nad Labem (All in the Czech Republic)

First of all, I have to apologize, because I have definitely fallen way back on these entries and have not had a chance to get my pictures up on to Flickr or Facebook. That being said, it's a bit cold out today so I have some time that I might use just to catch up. Hopefully my memory serves me well.

So we left off on our second full day in Prague. We decided to take advantage of the "free" (read: tips-based) walking tour. The tour took us through Old Town Square, Wenecesclas Square, and across the bridge to the area which holds Prague Castle, where my mom and I jumped off the tour (after tipping the fine fellow who served as our tour guide) and checked out the castle, while Liam jumped off a little while later to find the Franz Kafka museum. The castle is the largest medievel castle in Europe, very grand and a great walk. We stopped in at one of the restaurants, which was surprisingly reasonable and tasty for being in such a touristy area. The Prague Castle contains probably the most massive cathedral I have ever seen, done in a Gothic style architecture. Standing in front of it is very imposing; hopefully you will see what I mean when I get around to getting the picture up. I believe it was called St. Vitus' Cathedral.

After separating from my mom for a little while, meeting up with Liam, and going to H&M for a little while to find new shirts (I had no clean ones and was running a bit short on shirts as well), we met up again for a drink at a really fancy drink bar then went out for supper. We went to this packed Czech-food restaurant that a friend of my mom's had recommended. We were a little worried that we would not be able to get in, but after a bit of waiting we managed to get a seat, and oh boy am I ever glad that we did. We got some Moravian (Moravia is a region of Czech) red wine and our meals came. The meal was tres bon. I had, and this is going to sound weird maybe, sour cream and potato pancakes with saeurkraut and ham in them, served with a garlic aioli. If you doubt me that this is delicious, then you can go to Czech and try this restaurant out for yourself. It was so good! Liam had something called "Moravian Sparrow" which is actually a very nice pork and my mom had some (I think) venison goulash. All were delicious, and if I ever go back to Czech I will definitely be coming back to this restaurant. After supper, my mom was tired, and thus went to bed. We went back to our hostel where we ran into an American fellow named Trevor staying in our room and went out to a pub with him. The pub was nothing special, but I managed to convince Trevor he should hit on (err I mean talk to) two Czech girls that were standing close by to us. This ended up being a good idea even if neither of the single boys got anywhere, because they took us to another few places nearby that they liked, and we had someone to hang out with. We had a damn decent night, getting home in the wee hours of the morning after walking the girls to their night tram.

The next day Liam, my mom, and I all went to a small city outside of Prague called Kutna Hora, where we actually ran into the American fellow again. We were purportedly going there to see an ossuary decorated with the bones of 40 000 people, mostly plague victims of the time. The ossuary was pretty cool (Liam was uberexcited) but we realized that the place had a lot more to offer, so we got a shuttle up to the Church of St. Barbara, a church similar in style and size to St. Vitus in Prague, and walked slowly back through the town, enjoying the quaint atmosphere, which is actually a UNESCO protected site (the town, not the atmosphere). All in all, the village is very pretty, relaxing, and worth seeing if you are spending time in Prague. We came back to the city, and Liam and I went on a quest for a laundromat, which we never found. Instead, we tired ourselves out walking so much that we went and slept immediately afterward.

The next morning was interesting. I won't go into all the details, but basically I panicked because I was running out of money and we spent some time trying to figure out if we could work in Europe somehow. After talking with mom at lunch that day, I decided to continue on with the trip but keep my ears open for possibilities to go home a bit early or maybe work if possible. We said goodbye to my mom and decided to head to a city in Czech called Usti nad Labem to meet a friend of Liam's.

There's not too much to tell about Usti except that we met some pretty rad people there, had a few nights of free accomodation (thanks Cody, if you ever read this!), as well as internet and Smash Bros Brawl. All times had in Usti were great. One thing that I did experience here that I had not in Prague was the traditional manner of Czech pub-drinking. Instead of ordering your beer, you merely have to withstand it appearing in front of you like a dang ninja every time the beer you have gets low. If you want to stop drinking, you have to be alert and tell the waitress not to bring you any more beer, or put something over top of your beer mug to signal the same thing. It's an interesting way to do things, but kind of makes sense with the Czech style of beer, which is incredibly easy to drink lots of.

Next up was a quick stop off in Germany before we moved on to conquer Poland. Tune in next time!