Does anyone know...

how to say "Please stop the bus and pull over because I'm going to wet my pants if I can't go to the toilet soon" in Estonian?

 

No? - me either, but earlier this morning I really wished I did...

Latvia

I really only went to one place in Latvia, which was the capital Riga.

 

It's a beautiful city with lots of old buildings in different architectural styles that I don't know the names of...

 

but, for me at the moment, in the words of Paul Kelly, "Every fucking city feels the same"

 

I got out of the city for a day to visit a place called Sgiulda which had an old castle there which was ok but nothing extraordinary.

 

On another note: Riga is the British stags/bucks night capital of the world. It's worse than Temple Bar in Dublin. With that in mind I would recommend that if you ever come to Riga don't be there on a Friday or Saturday night.

 

I had the questionable pleasure of having a group of them stay in my dorm room. And then, to top it off, the next night I had a bunch of arrogant Americans whose only topic on conversation was how much they were going to drink and how many chicks they were going to fuck.

 

After listening to these two groups (and I only heard what they were saying while they were still sober) I fully understand why locals are sometimes pissed off with tourists coming into their town for a couple of days, treating it like shit and then leaving again.

 

Latvia is the only country I'm come across where the currency is stronger than the euro. For one euro you only get 0.67 Lats (which is about the same as the British Pound). Most of the countries I've been to the exchange rate is between 2 and 4.But in Hungary, for one euro you get 250 Forints which makes you feel really really rich!

Lithuania

Started in the capital Vilnius. Arrived there after an overnight bus trip, dropped my bags off at the hostel and went out exploring the city.

Like all the capital cities around this part of the world it was really nice. Full of old houses built in styles that you never see in Australia. It's main area is quite small so you easily walk around it, you've just got to be careful of the cobblestone streets which are everywhere too.

Went to a museum about Soviet and Nazi occupations during the 20th century. It was in the foremer KGB office (which the KGB worked in up until 1990ish). The basement was used as a gaol and I walked through there and saw the cells were political prisoners were held.

There's an area on the 'other' side of the river which has been taken over by artists, drunks and squatters. It's called the Republic of Uzupis which literally means 'Republic of the other side of the river'. It's not much to look at but they have their own constitution which is funny. I tried to find it on the internet but I couldn't so you'll just have to believe me that it's funny.

On my way across the country I went to a place called the Hill of Crosses. It's two small hills where people 'plant' crosses. It was pretty amazing to see, there were literally (I think anyway) millions of wooden crosses on the hill. All the big ones had smaller ones hanging off them. I'm not sure why this tradition started but when the Soviets occupied Lithuania they tore them all down but people kept planting them to show their independence.

My last few days in Lithuania were spent in a place called Nida on the Curonian spit which is a long skinny bit of land just off the western coast of mainland Lithuania. It was quite relaxing to stay there for a couple of days and not do too much. I met a lady who is originally from Lithuania but lives in America now at the bus stop, she was visiting her ex mother in law and I ended up staying at here place which was really cheap plus I didn't have to share a room like I do in hostels.

One day I went for a bike ride. The next I walked over to the Baltic sea, I was planning on going for a swim but I only got in as far as my ankles because the water was freezing. So I ended up sitting on the beach for a while instead.

Poland

From Prague I caught an overnight train to Krakow in southern Poland. It wasn't too bad, I had a cabin to myself so I could lie down on the seats so I managed to get a few hours of sleep.

 

Day 1

After getting to the hostel at 6:30 I had an early start to the day. I spent the morning wandering around Wawel Castle. It's not much of a castle but there were some interesting exhibits there so it was ok.

 

In the afternoon I went on a bike tour. It was run by an American who's been living in Poland for 9 years and was really good. He told us all about the history of Krakow and Poland in general. We rode around the old town but also went out to the Jewish ghetto (where Schindlers List is set) and up a big hill to have a look down on the town.

 

That evening I crashed pretty early because I didn't sleep too much the night before.

 

Day 2

I went to Auschwitz. It was really interesting and a very moving experience to see it. There are two camps about two kilometres apart. The first one (Auschwitz 1) has a museum inside with exhibits of what the conditions were like in the camp and what happened to inmates once they arrived.

 

The Nazis collected all the inmates belongings and sorted them so there are huge piles of shoes, glasses, suitcases, hairbrushes on display. Also they shaved all the hair off everyone who came in so there is a pile of human hair that was left over and also a display of the blankets that it was made into.

 

The second camp (Birkenau or Auschwitz 2) is where the gas chambers for the mass murder of the Jews are. This camp is huge, it is shocking to see the size of it, it could hold about 100,000 people at one time. At the back of the camp are four gas chambers. The Nazis partially destroyed them as they fled the camp but enough of them remains to get an idea of how big they were.

 

That evening I went out for a few drinks. We went to a pub called Middle Earth which was cool. It was all in the theme of Lord of the Rings and the rooms were made to look like caves and had carvings on the walls. There was cocktail list where the drinks were named after LOTR characters. For example: Tom Bombadil, Arwen's Kiss, Mad Ork, Nazguls Sting. But there was one called Globetrotter which seemed a bit out of place so I asked someone who worked at the hostel and she said that they'd messed up the translation for Ranger and ended up with Globetrotter.

 

Day 3

I went to a salt mine near Krakow. It was quite cool, inside everything was made out of salt. There were lots of statues and carvings on the walls. There was also a chapel which was amazing (it took 30 years to build it) because of it's size, the carvings on the wall and the chandeliers which are also made from salt.

That evening some of the people who work at the hostel organised a trip to the movies to see the new Pirates of the Carribean movie (Movie was in English with subtitles). On the way there we had to catch a tram and none of the 6 of us who were staying at the hostel bought tickets.

We got caught by an inspector.

He couldn't speak English so one of the people from the hostel did all the talking. We stood around for ages, occasionally getting updates from her about what was going on. At first it looked like we had to each pay 100 zloty (roughly 25 euro or 40 ozzie dollars) on the spot fine.

We all laughed and said as if we were going to pay the fine, they could send it to our addresses and we'll pay it later, with no intention of ever paying it.

Then we found out that if foreigners didn't pay the fine on the spot they were supposed to be taken to the police station. This wasn't so funny because he had most of our IDs so we couldn't just run away. Also, if we had to go to the police station we would have surely missed the movie.

After a lot of discussion they agreed that we would each pay him 30 zloty cash and that would be the end of the matter. So now, along with supplying the Bulgarian black market I'm encouraging corruption in Poland!

Day 4
Very lazy day. In the afternoon I caught a train to Warsaw.

Day 5
Spent most the day wandering around the old town of Warsaw. It was almost completely destroyed by the Nazis in World War 2 and was rebuilt from the rubble so I don't know if it really qualifies as an 'old' town anymore. The old (or maybe not) town was beautiful to just walk around looking at all the houses. I have some photos of them so you can see what I mean.

Day 6
Went back to the old town and went to a couple of museums. One of them had a film which showed some footage of how Warsaw looked after WW2, it was totally destroyed. It reminded me of footage I saw of Ground Zero in New York.

In the afternoon I went to a park just outside Warsaw, the grounds were really nice and there was a palace built over a lake which looked quite cool. There were also a lot of peacocks wandering around.

Had some drinks at the hostel that night which was good fun. It was a cool because there was a very international group of us: me, 2 english people, 2 scots, 2 germans, an american and a french person.

Day 7

Had to check out in the morning so I woke up regretting the drinks I'd had the night before! Went for a bit of a walk around and went to a museum about the Warsaw uprising which is when the people of Warsaw fought against the Nazi occupiers towards the end of World War 2. Spent the afternoon laying around waiting for my bus.

Day 8
Actually day 1 in Lithuania so stay tuned for my next post!