Krakow... Beautiful...

After getting on the wrong train, i.e. first class instead of second and express train instead of slow train there is casual gun pointing and fines to pay, the fine is 10PLN and I ask if they have change for a hundred. I continue my journey to Krakow in style.

Ahhh Krakow... Beautiful, I'd fully recommend it to anyone, great night life, beautiful sites, castles and of course Auschwitz is an hour and a half away.

The hostel has a BBQ every night so despite already having enough Polish sausages to possible overdose I decide to go along, plus they have a pub quiz following.

I drink with some Canadian chicks and we get slaughtered on the hostel bar's 10 shots of polish vodka for 30PLN ($12NZD).

The following day I meet up with some Scots and an American and we go to a lake which used to be a quarry. The women are unbelievable and insane cliff diving ensues. Pity I didn't take the camera that day.

In the evening we all have a few beers and play pool at the hostel, surprisingly I take everyone to school. A relatively quiet night because the next day we're going to Auschwitz.

Auschwitz is... well its un-be-fucken-leavable, you can literally feel the personal hell of the people that died there. Everything is presented so matter of fact, from the bullet holes of the firing squad to the scratching of the names on the wall.

Auschwitz II - Birkenau is completely different, the scale is much bigger the numbers are much bigger, its more of a production line of death and appears to be less personal. As far as the eye can see there are the chimneys of the huts that housed people while they waited to die. There are two separate ash piles with small signs. Its quite hard to comprehend "Here lie the ashes of approximately Six hundred thousand people".

Back at the hostel the next day I wandered in to a massive Catholic procession. It turns out that it is a national holiday today and I run in to some school kids that I met in Warsaw who are on a class trip, they are keen to chat and tell me whats going on.

I go to a resturant and have a big night out on the town with some Danes and Swedes. I have a paticulary "good time" with a curly haired Swedish blond called Elana. I take her to the lake the next day and we get caught in the rain on the way back.

Check out all the photos here:

Warsaw Poland: What the hell…

Arriving in Poland via air I get a very reasonably priced taxi to the hostel. I have a random night out with some Irish guys. We go to a club that is full to the brim of beautiful women, at this point I realise that Poland has no men, apparently according to the Irish all the men are in Ireland working.

I meet a hot hot hot local girl called Nap or Lap or some other single syllable name and take her for coffee, dinner and dancing, she is obvisouly blown away by my cosmopolitian ways and likes me for some strange reason, hey I'm not complaining. The next morning she says she wants to meet up later on so we can spend another day together. I wander through the hostel gates and there she is in all her hotness with... her mother. Mother and daughter smile at me and Mother says "You marriage". At this point I start freaking and politlely decline. Damn woman, I'm not ready for that kinda commitment!

The next day is spent wandering the city and then come dinner time I met an Aussie and a Canadian travelling together who are keen to go get a bite to eat. We go to a restaurant called Sphinx and eat heaps of fancy food and drink heaps of Polish beer and vodka. I’m dreading the bill but it turns out that everything is amazingly cheap here. Quite simply, we have a fantastic night out.

Belinda Courtney and I wander the town coming across an awesome park full of naked Greek statues, do I hear a photo-op? We see Poland's tomb of the unknown soldier and its at this point I realise that since 900AD Poland has pretty much been at war every 50 years or so.
The old town square is beautiful, after world war two it was utterly destroyed but they rebuilt it lovingly brick by brick. The weather gods are far too kind cause I’m sweating like a bastard and surrounded by oceans of beautiful women. The evening is spent drinking in the hostel with Belinda, Courtney and Rob the English guy.

The next day I check out the parks and museums and monuments. Suddenly I realise that there is a huge amount of cops with full on riot shield gear. I’m getting a little worried as I have no idea what is going on so I decide to head for the safety of the hostel. The problem is the more I walk the bigger the police presence. Once fear has reached all time highs I walk around a corner to the tune of Like a Virgin by Madonna which is blasting from somewhere. I’m so confused and I’m thinking that this is the biggest practical joke ever when I stumble upon what appears to be Poland's first Gay-pride peace march… Thanking the lord follows as I can be pretty sure that these guys aren’t going to cause trouble and the police are only there because Poland is a hard-core catholic state that is paranoid about such things. A few trannies on the back of a truck pass by rather harmlessly and all is well in the world again.

I see an Arthur Miller play in Polish for cheap. The unfortunate thing is that I speak three words of Polish and I can’t even guess which play it is so I pretty much have to guess at the story. Glad I went though.

Belinda and I go for a drink and play some pool, we get some even cheaper beers from the Supermarket and drink in the park on a grassy mound. We hit a jazz bar and drink and dance the night away. I experience the local vodka which is drunk with apple juice, I decide that I like it very much.

I check out the Jewish cemetery and its very airy. Some of the graves that pre-date World War have obvious bullet holes.

All the photos are here:

And that's Warsaw, hope your’re happy I’ve updated now mum ;-)