As my friends are starting to annoy me more and more to make a post about my trip, I finally decided to just do it! But due to the lack of time I will do it in parts. So here will come the first part or the first foreign (for me, let's not count Riga) country I went to.
I started my supercalifragilicious trip off in the morning of the 14th August. My bus to Riga was at 6:30 am. The weather was nice and I was exited. I had about 6 hours in Riga before my bus to Warszawa took off, so I decided to wander around in the old town, go to the local market to get their really delicious mushroom pizza and then just sat down in the part next to the Monument of Freedom and started to read a book. The thing is- I had 2 books with me and I managed to finish the first one in Riga....
The day went slowly- well, I know Riga, it's not much new over there for me to see, so I was anxiously looking forward for my trip to actually begin. So at 6pm, my bus (a double decker) took off to Warszawa. It was an overnight bus and the journey lasted for 13hrs. So I got to the rainy Warszawa at 6am. As soon as I got off the bus, I started talking to some half Polish half German lad who told me to be careful in the city and asked me "By any chance, have you lived somewhere in the UK before?". I'm really obvious, it seems.... As it was way too early to go to discover the city, I decided to stay in the "creepy, leave the place as fast as you can" international bus station. The thing is, the internet lied to me with the description. It wasn't creepy at all!
After 2 hrs of sitting the tourism information in the bus station was supposed to be opened, so I went to get a map from there. For my surprise, it was closed. I decided to find out the reason for that from one Kiosk where a grumpy old lady just spoke Russian and replied to me: "Braaaazdnik, braazdnik". So I assumed they have a bank holiday.... Nice, huh? I decided to try to go to the information somewhere in the central, so I went to ask one lad about how to get there. He didn't speak neither English nor Russian. So, I tried to have my first real conversation in German with him, as that was the language he spoke.... I managed to find out I have to go to the train station and from there get a train to the central. 2 stops. Or something like that. To get to the train station- rechts, links, geradeaus! Wipiii! Kaufen 1 ticket in dem Zug und alles gut!
As I got to the central, I had to ask couple more times from old ladies in the streets about how to get to the information- none of them knew and none of them spoke English... So Poland was good for improving my Russian. After wandering for 10 minutes, I managed to find a tourism information and got the map to go to the city! I wandered around in the central and discovered near the tomb of an unknown soldier that the whole area is closed for some sort of a parade. I managed to find out that the bank holiday was a military holiday and there was gonna be a parade. Nice! There were also many military vehicles out for showing and I climbed on top of one of them and of course had a tourist picture taken of me! I wanted to make a picture of the unknown soldier's statue as well, but then some old military guys just came and asked whether I would take a picture of them with their camera. I did it. After that they agreed to be on a picture with me and while the photo was being taken, I discovered myself all of a sudden in the air! One of them lifted me up with all my heavy luggage! Ehhhee, Polish military is great fun!
My next idea was to go to see the old town and as I got there I discovered they have free walking tour starting in 10 minutes. So I decided to look like a stupid tourist and join the tour. It was really interesting, we found out loads of stuff about the history of Warszawa and saw many places I wouldn't probably have seen by myself.... It lasted for 4hrs and after it finished I saw the military parade as well.....
Then I decided to go and try Polish whippy ice cream, because come on! One just has to try the ice cream in every country they go to! Unfortunately I wasn't too fond of that ice cream. Estonian is better. As I was on my way to get some ice-cream I met with one Japanese girl who was on the walking tour and we decided to discover the city together. We wandered around in the central, walked by the river Wisla and went to see the UEFA 2012 stadium. The weather got really nice and sunny. It was a lovely and a tiring day.
At about 6pm my back was already killing me because I had walked around with my huge backpack all day long and also on the previous day. So I decided I will take the metro (yes, they have tube in Warszawa, only one line though) to the local bus station. I was told it's a dangerous area and was recommended to get there before it got dark. I planned to just sit on the bench and relax and enjoy another book I had with me. As I got there I had another surprise- the meaning for a "local bus station" was just loads of bus stops in many places and no building. Hmmh, so I took out my sleeping bag as I was a bit cold, sat down on the ground, wrapped my sleeping bag around me and started to read my book. The thing is, I managed to finish the second book that evening...... :) I looked probably like a homeless person, the only thing that was missing, was the box where you could put money in.... Anyway, at 11:45pm my bus to Krakow left. It was more comfortable than the Ecolines bus. So my second night in the bus started....
And then I got to Krakow at 5am, which is gonna be the next post....
As my friends are starting to annoy me more and more to make a post about my trip, I finally decided to just do it! But due to the lack of time I will do it in parts. So here will come the first part or the first foreign (for me, let's not count Riga) country I went to.
I started my supercalifragilicious trip off in the morning of the 14th August. My bus to Riga was at 6:30 am. The weather was nice and I was exited. I had about 6 hours in Riga before my bus to Warszawa took off, so I decided to wander around in the old town, go to the local market to get their really delicious mushroom pizza and then just sat down in the part next to the Monument of Freedom and started to read a book. The thing is- I had 2 books with me and I managed to finish the first one in Riga....
The day went slowly- well, I know Riga, it's not much new over there for me to see, so I was anxiously looking forward for my trip to actually begin. So at 6pm, my bus (a double decker) took off to Warszawa. It was an overnight bus and the journey lasted for 13hrs. So I got to the rainy Warszawa at 6am. As soon as I got off the bus, I started talking to some half Polish half German lad who told me to be careful in the city and asked me "By any chance, have you lived somewhere in the UK before?". I'm really obvious, it seems.... As it was way too early to go to discover the city, I decided to stay in the "creepy, leave the place as fast as you can" international bus station. The thing is, the internet lied to me with the description. It wasn't creepy at all!
After 2 hrs of sitting the tourism information in the bus station was supposed to be opened, so I went to get a map from there. For my surprise, it was closed. I decided to find out the reason for that from one Kiosk where a grumpy old lady just spoke Russian and replied to me: "Braaaazdnik, braazdnik". So I assumed they have a bank holiday.... Nice, huh? I decided to try to go to the information somewhere in the central, so I went to ask one lad about how to get there. He didn't speak neither English nor Russian. So, I tried to have my first real conversation in German with him, as that was the language he spoke.... I managed to find out I have to go to the train station and from there get a train to the central. 2 stops. Or something like that. To get to the train station- rechts, links, geradeaus! Wipiii! Kaufen 1 ticket in dem Zug und alles gut!
As I got to the central, I had to ask couple more times from old ladies in the streets about how to get to the information- none of them knew and none of them spoke English... So Poland was good for improving my Russian. After wandering for 10 minutes, I managed to find a tourism information and got the map to go to the city! I wandered around in the central and discovered near the tomb of an unknown soldier that the whole area is closed for some sort of a parade. I managed to find out that the bank holiday was a military holiday and there was gonna be a parade. Nice! There were also many military vehicles out for showing and I climbed on top of one of them and of course had a tourist picture taken of me! I wanted to make a picture of the unknown soldier's statue as well, but then some old military guys just came and asked whether I would take a picture of them with their camera. I did it. After that they agreed to be on a picture with me and while the photo was being taken, I discovered myself all of a sudden in the air! One of them lifted me up with all my heavy luggage! Ehhhee, Polish military is great fun!
My next idea was to go to see the old town and as I got there I discovered they have free walking tour starting in 10 minutes. So I decided to look like a stupid tourist and join the tour. It was really interesting, we found out loads of stuff about the history of Warszawa and saw many places I wouldn't probably have seen by myself.... It lasted for 4hrs and after it finished I saw the military parade as well.....
Then I decided to go and try Polish whippy ice cream, because come on! One just has to try the ice cream in every country they go to! Unfortunately I wasn't too fond of that ice cream. Estonian is better. As I was on my way to get some ice-cream I met with one Japanese girl who was on the walking tour and we decided to discover the city together. We wandered around in the central, walked by the river Wisla and went to see the UEFA 2012 stadium. The weather got really nice and sunny. It was a lovely and a tiring day.
At about 6pm my back was already killing me because I had walked around with my huge backpack all day long and also on the previous day. So I decided I will take the metro (yes, they have tube in Warszawa, only one line though) to the local bus station. I was told it's a dangerous area and was recommended to get there before it got dark. I planned to just sit on the bench and relax and enjoy another book I had with me. As I got there I had another surprise- the meaning for a "local bus station" was just loads of bus stops in many places and no building. Hmmh, so I took out my sleeping bag as I was a bit cold, sat down on the ground, wrapped my sleeping bag around me and started to read my book. The thing is, I managed to finish the second book that evening...... :) I looked probably like a homeless person, the only thing that was missing, was the box where you could put money in.... Anyway, at 11:45pm my bus to Krakow left. It was more comfortable than the Ecolines bus. So my second night in the bus started....
