(no subject)
Day: 41
Tal is: in England
Goodbye Lenin. I Mean Poland.
The end of our Polish jaunt held much goodness. We keep rolling into different places (well not actually rolling, but Mum is worried that if I keep eating so much ice cream I will "roll away") with not much in the way of expectation and happy to stay as little or as long as we like, depending on how a city grabs us (again, no actual grabbing). We ended up staying in Krakow a solid two weeks - with so much to see and do it was just too hard to get away. Visiting Auschwitz was an experience I can not actually put into words - describing a room filled from floor to ceiling with baby sized shoes belonging to captive children is nothing like seeing it for yourself. Having grown up learning about the Holocaust over and over for many years, I did not think the gruesome images and staggering facts of war would affect me the way they did, but setting foot on blood-soaked soil made all those past atrocities a reality in a way that textbooks never could. For all the sadness of the place though, walking away from it put good things like love in perspective. I dried my eyes and slept with my bald head (yeah, still bald) on Christopher's shoulder for the duration of the bus ride back to Krakow.
Magnetising detail number two was that the people who ran our hostel were super helpful and almost overly enthusiastic about our presence, and meeting Owen and his girlfriend Asha was an added bonus. Asha didn't even hold it against me when I fainted in the middle of a crowded bar the first night I met her, taking it upon herself to act as Christopher's translator with the ambulance people, while I sat on the ground outside the bar, presumably with my eyes rolling back in my head. It turned out it was only low blood pressure - but waking up face down on the floor of a Polish pub unable to move my head, which was temporarily made of concrete, was still pretty scary. Not to mention that I couldn't remember where I was, could only hear people yelling in some foreign language while someone checked my pulse, and suddenly felt a giant musclebound monster pick me up and carry me outside. Chris said later that it looked like an enormous bear carrying a tiny little rabbit in the palm of its hand - "Heere iz your bunny."
We made two very genuinely sweet friends in Owen and Asha, and they so hospitably treated us to the tastiest green curry I've ever eaten on our last night. After close to a month of displacement (internal and external), it was so nice to just share some wine and conversation with good people in a warm home.
"Sure Thing Young Guv. What's The Worst That Could Happen?"
After a spur of the moment decision to head to London, we landed on the doorstep of some of my old friends (and sat on it for two hours while we waited for them to get home from work). We've been here about a week now and it's been so amazing to catch up with Dan and Dan and Xander, plus their hospitality has saved us many, many pounds. Things are so expensive it's insane - they look like the right price in dollars, but you have to multiply everything by 2.5.
A movie ticket costs $25 AUD!
Is the movie made of gold?!
Does it give you a massage and make you some tea?!
Does it come with a free slingshot and an audience with the Queen?!
London so far has been lots of staying in and watching DVDs, the AMAZINGNESS of hanging out with Min again, some Pictionary with the boys and my aforementioned best friend, and ramming into some of my closest friends on the dodgems at the Easter Fair. Actually the headline for this section of journal was a carnie's response to Christopher asking for a Dr Pepper.
Ah, carnies.
Best Thing That Happened Today: Speaking to my little Max on the phone. His Mum told him, "Maxi, Tals is on the phone!" and I hear him yell out in the background, "Tal came back! Tal came back!"
Dumbest Thing That Happened Today: I tried to eat some roast beef. It was gross.