Köln

From the top of the Köln Dom there are some spectacular views. I particularly like how small everyone looks from up there.

Live from Poland

Well, I've been on summer holiday for almost three months now. After 7 weekes in Thailand i jetted over to Amsterdam to meet up with Leigh and Shannon. Amsterdam was a good place to enter Europe as it's pretty multi-cultural. We camped at a pretty nice site very close to town called Zeeburg, and cycled around getting to know the city and some surrounding areas, such as Haarlem and Utrecht. Really beautiful experience.

After a week we took an overnight bus to Berlin (hell-ride), and when i looked out the window at some point - probably about 4am - and read German I felt quite emotional (i was home afterall!!). Berlin was great, very big and developed, and some great history museums. I was useless when trying to speak the language though, kept saying "bu hao yise" and "wo yao" instead of "Entschuldigung" and "Ich moechte"..useless section of my brain that deals with languages...

We then got in a BMW stationwagon with a dude from Czech Republic and a chick from Slovakia and crossed the border by car and got dropped off in Prague. He drove pretty fast (oooh about 170km/h) and we learned quite quickly not to talk to him from the backseat as he turned around completely to converse. A few swerves also, just after crossing the border in the mountains and driving past the prostitutes positioned along the bendy roads in front of their cabins. Apparently popular amongst Germans who cross the border to be entertained by the lovely and 'friendlier' women (compared to the Deutsch perhaps??).

Now. Prague was spectacular. The old town was beauitful. Centuries upon centuries of architechture all packed into an area surrounded by rivers and bridges, not to mention castles and palaces. We went on a guided tour with a grumpy old professor of history and learned a lot about the "false" history books we all learned from in school, and had to constantly "do him a favour" and forget it all and take his word for it and never say so-and-so was Czech... it was great fun though of course. He showed us a street with 17 different achitechtural eras and styles, and an old Gestapo headquaters that, when you walked past it, had a temperature drop of 5 degrees celcius. Creepy!

We also went to an amazing bar called the Cross Bar, which puts the Mad Max films to shame with the design and contraptions used to adorn the multitude of rooms that went deeper and deeper and left and right and up and down. WOW. We sadly only stayed in Prague for three nights, then Leigh and I said goodbye to Shannon (who headed back to the Netherlands for a weekend reggae fest - he met up with us later) and took a DAY train to Krakow in Poland. We did all we could to avoid the night train after shall-we-say-rumours-or-horror-stories? about people being gassed and waking up with all their belongings gone. We had one night booked and couldn't get another, so decided to head to the Tatras Mountains the next day, which are on the border of Poland and Slovakia.

Now rewind back to Berlin, and picture us in our hostel - with stress on the second syllable - meeting two girls from West End Brisbane (co-incidence because Leigh and Shannon live there) and them telling us all about the Tatras and Zakopane, and how you DON'T have to book because people will even try to get you to stay in the spare room of their Swiss style mountain houses. Now fast-forward, through Prague and Krakow, and watch Leigh and I get off our (packed) bus in Zakopane in the late afternoon of a Saturday, not knowing where North or South is, or why the bus didn't stop at a bus terminal, and no one is approaching us, tempting us with their low priced housing etc.. So what i haven't yet mentioned, is that the following Tuesday was a national holiday and the whole of Poland had migrated to Zakopane for the long weekend.

We ended up setting up my tent (which came without a fly - the mentioning of which now, should prepare you for what's to come) in the back yard of an old Polish woman for 5 bucks each. SCORE i thought.. Because of the altitude Zakopane is pretty cold, even in summer, but i had two jumpers and warmish socks. I wasn't worried. That night, it rained. All night. Non stop. Cats and dogs. Can you picture us? In the tent, cold as it was, trying to sleep without touching the walls of the tent because the water would just pour in. I also forgot to mention that i didn't have a bed-roll/sleeping-mat/ camping-matress, whatever English you speak, i'm sure you're clear now what i'm talking about. For insulation i bought three newspapers from the supermarket. Now i was truely a homeless person. I slept, or tried-to-sleep, on newspapers in a dripping tent at about zero degrees celcius. In the morning, as soon as the sun came up we put on dry(er) clothes and ended up in Macdonalds, the only place open, sipping hot chocolates and eating muffins. At that moment i was in love with macdonalds (it's of course passed now).

No need to mention that we left the next afternoon after trying all morning -eventually successfully- to find accomdoation in Krakow.

Krakow is also beautiful. Though the capital of Poland - Warsaw, was completely destroyed in WWII, Krakow went untouched. The historical buildings there are magnificent, and there's a church in the square of the old town that blew my mind. St Mary's, the ceiling is beautiful and it also boasts the largest alter in Europe. The detail of ever corner of every bend and arch... words can not describe.

There's a palace there too, with a dragons lair, pretty cool cave under the hill its built on.

We exhausted our time there, and parted ways, Leigh and Shannon to London, and me to Warsaw. I have an old friend from my days in Lueneburg from here, who was so hospitable i felt guilty!! We had a great time looking around her city, palace gardens and old town (which was re-contructed after the war, to look like it had). I head to Cologne (yes, back to Germany) this afternoon by bus, where i hope to meet up with some other old friends. I'm excited, but sad to leave Warsaw. I think I like it even more than Krakow.

So that's a long (but still short) confession of how i've been spoiling myself here in Europe. Future plans are still top secret, they may be exposed soon though.

Hope you're all well.

Peace