yes i'm online again! yet another super long entry... HA it told me post too large...

[lingding]

1/3

Day 7:

What an awful day of too much train traveling! So I had to get up at 6am, ate this French pie thing that tasted like the Chinese egg custard, then left at 7am with Pascal and his parents, dropped off his mom at work, then drove to Geneva. I tried to stay awake to watch the sunrise, but I was exhausted from staying up and eventually fell asleep. I wrote the previous entry while I was at the train station, and finally I got on the train at 10:05am. Which, by the way, was disturbing because there was a Nazi symbol marked into the dust on one of the windows, and I was like, "People still tolerate this?!" Anyway, I read a lot of my book, and then there was a smooth exchange at Zuerich hauptbahnhof. Then came the awful part: train to Munich.

I finished reading The Poisonwood Bible. I really enjoyed it, though like DaVinci Code, it did get a little overbearing in the theme towards the end, but I guess it's hard not to do that when the book is about something so polarized and is trying to make a point. After I finished, I just listened to music and stared out the window with my thoughts. After a while the scenery changed to southern Bavaria, with a soft layer of snow on everything, and it was really quite beautiful. Especially with the "alive" playlist, I felt like I was in the movies in those look-out-the-window-of-the-train scenes. For some reason, I got to thinking about in Amelie, how she would sometimes think about how many people were having orgasms at that very moment, which I always thought was a very poetic way to put a very crude and kind of perverted thing, but then I made it worse by thinking, "Well, there must be at least like a hundred people in the world who have had them at the same exact time, by Pigeonhole Principle," and then I shook my head at myself for just how horribly geeky that was to even think. I thought about people and love, and I thought to myself that I must love too quickly and too intensely because I want to feel life deep in my bones, and you only ever really feel half alive when you don't have love. I guess I really subscribe to the saying, "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." I thought about the people around me, and what their lives must be like, where they come from, what they do, and then I felt really small in the world, and also really philosophical. But then my legs started to hurt and I just thought about how I want to go home and just take a shower and sleep and watch TV.

The train got delayed in some random place for like an hour, and I started feeling uncomfortable because I was sitting at one of those four seater where you face the other people, and I had to avoid looking at the girl across from me because I sort of failed at German exchange with her and was embarrassed. The kid in front of us was playing with the kid next to us, while the dad of the kid next to us, obviously Swiss by his accent, let them run all around the aisles and whatnot like hooligans. Which was cute, and I didn't mind, but it must have been annoying as hell for the people trying to pass, especially when they started playing this matching cards game right on the floor. Then the little Swiss kid cut his hand on something and had to get bandaged, and then he fell asleep. There was a little girl sitting with them, though, with her grandmother, and she was reading a Lustiges Taschenbuch!!! Made me wish I had "mine" (aka Simon's). I should really go back and try to read those German books I borrowed from him.

Finally, we got to Munich an hour late, and I just kept thinking about how unfortunate I was for getting on a train that was actually late, since DB is NEVER LATE. I was so tired I kind of wish that I wouldn't hear from Marianne, just so that I could stay in Munich and relax. And of course, I didn't hear from her, so oh well about that. I suppose if I get to see Pascal, Kunal, Joanna, and Dorota, then there will have been at least some success. The hostel was right outside the train station, though I shouldn't have booked it because there were a ton of hostels right there anyway. The worst part was, I tried to sign on to their wireless and couldn't get it to work, and I was desperate to check on Marianne, so I paid a euro to use their computer. Then I saw a guy with a Mac, and it turns out it was some 128-bit ascii password or something like that, which to be fair, I had tried, but there was something weird with my keyboard, and I forgot I had restarted to see if it would fix the problem, and then I felt dumb. At least in the end I got to use my own comp and chat on aim and stuff.

The room was actually quite nice, clean with hardwood floors. There were five of us in our room: Australian guy named Martin, whom I saw again today (the fourth of January) at breakfast and chatted with for a bit and got his email; Israeli girl who went to bed at like 7pm and was nice but a little bit touchy about bed and lights and stuff; Korean or maybe Chinese girl; and an American blonde chick who lent me her hair dryer and graduated hs in '04, judging by her hs '04 sweatshirt. Actually, I was a bit surprised at just how many Korean people were there all around, one even tried to talk to me in Korean this morning, and I had to be like, "No, I don't speak Korean." I was thinking how random it was that Mike made friends with two Korean girls in Berlin, but now I kind of think that must not have been such an odd thing after all. After I went downstairs to use the computer, I couldn't get back in because the Israeli girl was in the shower with the key and I didn't know it, so I went back downstairs for a while with my computer and asked to be let in, which made it more embarrassing when we went back upstairs and the door was open.

I then proceeded to head into Munich for some food. I got potato wedges at the train station and looked around for a Deutsche Bank ATM, because I knew for sure that they didn't charge me anything extra, since I checked my bank statement after the first time I took money out. I wish I would have known that the first time I went to Germany, because I definitely lost like thirty dollars in exchange rate changing at the airport last time. The potato wedges guy talked to me in English, which I guess is nice for people who don't speak German, but I hate when people presume that I don't speak German, like the people on the train as soon as they see my US passport. Anyway, there was no Deutsche Bank, so I decided to walk out as far as the next Deutsche Bank and then go back. I passed by an ice skating rink and a bunch of stores and erotic clubs and whatnot, and no Deutsche Bank around. I even asked, so I finally just decided to go back and check online if there was a Deutsche Bank in Nuernberg that I could use. Then, of course, on my way back I came across a Deutsche Bank, and I thought to myself how funny it was that you always find things when you stop searching for them. I went back to the train station and bought tickets on the overnight train from Berlin to Krakow on the 5th, which cost a whopping 61.10 euro, which I was sort of shocked about because I assumed travel was much cheaper in Krakow, and then I realized it must be because it is a sleeper train, which always cost more. I figured in the end that is worth it because I get to sleep rather than being in stupid seats. I got a Sub des Tages from Subway, which was awesome as usual, and then showered, went online, and then went to sleep.

1/4

Day 8:

Today was kinda fun, even though I was by myself. I got up this morning, ate breakfast at the hostel and talked to Martin the Australian about traveling and extreme sports. He had spent New Years in Scotland with some random Scottish people he met, and it's crazy how when you travel around Europe you can just meet people and hang out with them. It's awesome is what it is. Coming to Europe is always one big adventure, just like in Eurotrip, especially if you stay in hostels with mixed dorms where there are inevitably lots of English speaking college kids looking for a good time. Then I got on the next train to Nuremberg, and of course I get the bad luck that I chose a regional train by accident, and it took an hour and a half, so I didn't get there until 10:30am. At Nuernberg hauptbahnhof I locked my stuff in a Schliessfach, spending a while to rearrange things to fit in the small one, just because I knew it would fit. Unfortunately, I was stupid and locked my student ID in there, which ended up costing me an extra 2.50 euro in museum costs. That's my dad's fault for getting me a stupid Swiss travel wallet where I split up all of my stuff.

I got out, went to the info center to ask about a city map and where to go, and then I just set off down Koenigsstrasse and stopped and took pictures whenever I felt like. First stop was St. Lorenz, where I donated an optional euro and went inside and walked around. It wasn't particularly impressive, but it was serene and made me feel contemplative as I always do when i go into european churches. I start to ponder the status of God in my life and see if the surroundings make me particularly inspired. I do miss going to church, it was always so calming, but now because I'm always thinking about other things during church it's no longer calming, so I don't know anymore. I want to actually go to a service sometime in Germany, but I don't think I'll get the chance just by the way my schedule is arranged, which is also too bad. I passed a few more things like the Rathaus before I decided to stop at the second information center for a German map, because I couldn't figure out which monuments I actually wanted to see, since I didn't know the English versions of things like Schoener Brunnen (so yeah, it's listed as Beautiful Fountain, but it's still harder to find on the map when it doesn't sound intuitive). I had also passed the beautiful bridges over the main river, which were sporting Christmas trees with Jewish star shaped decorations. There was some market stuff, but nothing in the Hauptmarkt, which sounds sort of dumb, but then I saw paintings of the Hauptmarkt back in the day and was finally convinced of why it was called that. Also, the Schoener Brunnen was somewhat disappointing for such a famous landmark, probably because it had no water coming out of it, since I was mostly expecting something like the Fountain of Trevedi (is that what it's called?) in Rome. I also went to a store to buy a shotglass, and I just have to say that this place is crazy about Christmas. Everything was Weihnachten stuff, you'd think they'd be gone by now...

I kept walking until I got to the Kaiserburg. Something that's cool about Nuremberg is that you can see where the moat was around the Altstadt that is now a path in somewhat of a park setting. But the castle wasn't particularly impressive either. That's why I can't wait for Neuschwanstein. I was behind these two non-German speaking guys in line for tickets, so of course the main desk guy was like, "Same for you, I would advise you against the tour if you don't speak German." I was like, "I speak German." But the tour was too expensive, so I went with just access to the buildings. But it turns out that that was a tour also, which I didn't know. I didn't catch on until after I had finished the museum, which mostly contained lots of armor and stuff, and tried to go in the Palas, and the other guys were just coming out. So the guy was like, "Die Dame kann auch mitkommen." So I was like, sweet, I'm getting in on a tour I guess. We went to the Tiefer Brunnen where we got to witness how long it took water to reach the bottom of the well and watched the candles go down to the bottom. Which is about the same as Cochem, so I guess from now on I don' t have to go to any more castles. Then we went to the Sinnwellturm where we climbed up to the top and got a nice view of Nuremberg. Then I went back to ask when I could see the Palas, where there were I guess some nice interior rooms, and the guy tried explaining to me that I could only go on one tour, but I didn't understand, so I had to ask him to repeat a couple of times until I did understand, and then I was like Oh. Shit. You'd think he'd be nice and let me go with another group to just the one place, but I don't think that guy liked me much. Whatever, I'm sure I didn't miss much.

After the Kaiserburg I decided to go to the Albrecht Duerer Haus, which turned out to be a good idea because, even though I had to pay 5 euro instead of 2.50, this gave me entrance to five different museums, three of which I visited, and I think the other two were too far away, and this allowed me to use up most of my time there. Also, they gave you a little Geschenk of a Duerer print postcard at the gift shop across the street. The actual house itself was kind of weird, probably because it was accompanied by an audio guide from "Agnes Duerer," his wife, except obviously it's just some woman doing a bad job of play acting. But it was cool to listen to stuff about his life, because I really know nothing about this guy except that he liked to paint self portraits a lot. The rest of the house was extensively restored, and other people put other stuff in and whatnot, so I wonder how much of it is actually like when he lived there. He also made some pretty intense prints, and this weird ass sculpture outside of a rabbit with kind of crazy evil eyes and little emaciated slave rabbits gnawing at it from the side or something like that.

After the Albrecht Duerer Haus I went to the Stadtmuseum Fembohaus, which apparently got this name from some guy Christopher Fembo, who made maps. In there was a lot of stuff about Nuremberg, including a bunch of films that I got too tired to watch, even though I wanted to see more about the Nuremberg Trials. Also, it was weird because the floor was slanted in all sorts of places, so you could tell it was pretty old. What I liked most about the museum was this one area where they put up a lot of pictures of Nuremberg past and present, and there were a lot of pictures of Nuremberg nach 1945. I was amazed, almost the whole city was destroyed (apparently only 9% was left untouched), making it the most destroyed city from WWII, a fact which I did not know (I would have assumed it was Berlin). Those pictures were crazy, it's amazing that the city looks so nice now after the rebuilding. Also, there was a blurb on Gluehwein, which I took a picture of =P.

After the Stadtmuseum I went to the Spielzeugmuseum, aka toy museum. That was kind of boring, considering that I'm not a kid and I'm not with anyone with whom I can play like a kid with, i.e. Sam. You really can't do that kind of thing by yourself. But there were a ton of displays of all different toys, and I learned a little toy history, like when the moon race was on there were a lot of toys with space and robots as themes, and then during the war there were really makeshift toys, etc. What I didn't like were the many many rooms of dolls. Not even cute dolls, but dolls with 16th century baby Jesus painting figures, aka they looked like little people with disproportionately small head. They had also weird joints and lumpy bodies, ugh it was horrible. I hate hate hate dolls, they are so creepy to begin with, and then to have these weird satanic looking dolls does not help. I am never getting my kid a doll unless it's cute and doesn't have eyelashes that blink.

At that point it was about 3:30pm, and I was hungry because I have a strong resistance to eating in restaurants by myself, unless it's the Vietnamese restaurant in chinatown. So I walked along until I found some fast food, and I got a Haehnchen Schnitzel for 2.80 euro, which I considered a very good price. And btw, I realized finally why it's called Wienerschnitzel. A long time ago, when we went to Cochem, I ordered Schnitzel "nach Wiener Art." And I was like, "What's that mean?" but didn't ask out loud. And after I finally learned what Art meant, I was like, "Oh, so it's Wiener style schnitzel. Ok." And finally, today, after all this time, I realized that it's Viennese-style schnitzel. Somehow I never made that connection between Wiener from schnitzel and Wien the city. Anyway, after I found that, I started seeing a ton of stands selling things like Bratwurst, and I realized that I had walked all the way to a different part of the town. This part reminded me of Koeln, it was all stores and whatnot, and an old guy balancing himself on one hand on a bottle. Also, there was the weirdest statue ever, weirder than the weird rabbit, of this weird fish man and skeletons on his trying to strangle each other. I went into a mall area where I saw they had a book/dvd/music store, and I wanted to look for Wir Sind Helden. Except the store was lame with only a few CDs, but I did get to see all the covers of the German Harry Potter books. Then I went to DM and bought some tweezers and juice.

I headed back to the train station, and where I knew Aldi was. And I was reminded of why Aldi is the best store EVER. Everything is like 0.35 euro. I love love love it. I got a giant orange juice and the tastiest chip crackers that I remember loving from back in the Leverkusen days. Finally, I went to wait at the train station for my train, beginning to read 1984. I had started it a few times but never kept reading, but I was inspired by Zach and his intense love for it, so I hope it is good. I got on the 5:34pm train to Hamburg.

When I got into Hamburg at around 9pm, I hopped the S-bahn to the Koenigstrasse stop where my hostel was. I was on the train with a bunch of German young people, and I must admit that I felt rather awkward. I always feel awkward with luggage because I hate being a tourist, but it's magnified in Europe because I feel like Europeans are always judging. Particularly with German young people, they are all really super chic and talk and laugh so loud, and I'm always afraid they are talking about me. I don't want a conductor to come by ever, otherwise I would have to pull out my Eurail and seal my status as AMERICAN. I was happy to get off at my stop, but when I got out it was all dark, and I was on a weird street with nobody around that wasn't even Koenigstrasse. I was afraid I was going to get robbed, so I walked faster and cursed myself for booking this hostel because surely it is going to be sketchy. So I walked and turned the corner and found Koenigstrasse, and I was thinking to myself that these people lied on the directions, until I walked down to the hostel and saw that I had gotten out at the wrong exit from the S-bahn. They should really warn you about that though. I was still skeptical about the hostel because it was in the basement with a small sign, but then I got inside and was amazed at how nice it was.

The guy who answered was most likely Thai, and he was young like only a little bit older than me, and he kind of reminded me of Chain, but with much better English. He checked me into my room, gave me a locker key, set up my wireless, and was generally super nice and really cool. I sat down to check my email, and no messages from anyone important, so I was like, crap I need to get in touch with Kunal. I tried to call him on my free Skype call, but unfortunately I was using a US country code like an idiot and wasted the call. So I finally decided to put money on my Skype account, and I didn't regret it, Skype is awesome! I got in touch with Kunal, arranged meeting plans for the next day, and then called Andriy.

In my room were two other people, one guy and one girl. The guy was small with tight pants and a hoodie, the kind of punk indie likes to smoke and go to clubs and rock out kind of guy, and the girl seemed sort of neutral, she was reading a book. But while I was trying to go online, the guy passed by and invited me to the kitchen to have some wine. So I went, and we started chatting, and they were both pretty cool. The guy, Hywel, was from New Zealand, and he's just been traveling around a lot. People from Australia and New Zealand always seem so carefree, it's so interesting to be around them. So we traded a lot of travel stories while I drank three glasses of wine and got a little tipsy. He was in Paris for a while, but for now his flat is being rented out or something, and then he was also in Vienna, but he ran out of money and couldn't use his credit card at the bank, so he hopped a train back into Germany to Hamburg to stay with a friend, but turns out his friend didn't live in Hamburg, he lived in Kiel, so now the guy is just chilling. He also had wanted to go to Krakow, but he didn't realize that the Eurail didn't connect from Berlin to Krakow, only from Warsaw to Krakow, but the conductor sort of winked at him and let him stay, but he knew that he didn't have the money to take the train back, so he just got off at the next stop and waited for the train back, but turns out the next train wasn't for seven hours, and also turns out that town was nothing but a train station, so there was nothing to do but wait. The girl, Marina, was from Montreal, and she was there until end of January, though I guess I never really got her full story.

After calling people, we decided to go out to a bar, despite my sort of tiredness. It was so cool, because last time I was only in Hamburg for the day, so I didn't get to experience the night life at all. We got on the S-bahn and rode one stop without tickets to the Reeperbahn and went to a bar where we ordered Astras (apparently it's a really Hamburgian beer?) and chatted for a while. That bar was kind of small but played good music and was filled with smoke, despite the new laws of no smoking inside bars. Then we went down the street to this other place where we played a game of pool and I mostly sucked because I was drunk by that point. I ordered a Weizen, but I could only drink half of it and gave the rest to Hywel. I was playing on a team with Marina, and she basically won the game for us. I thought it was okay, but Hywel thought that place was sketchy because there weren't a ton of people, so we went home. It was really cool to just hang out with these people out of the blue, and they were so cool, and I think that wouldn't have happened in a more populated hostel, where people are probably there with their own friends and whatnot. Before going to bed Hywell even kissed me on the top of the head and said "Gute Nacht," which totally took me by surprise but was pretty cute.

1/5

Day 9:

I'm in a sleeper train on my way to Krakow! It's soooooo weird, I have a top bunk (now I understand why my ticket said "oben"), along with this Argentinean guy who really looks like Virgil but with an accent (actually, this guy is pretty hot, I'm enjoying his company... hope he's not close enough to read this...), and it was crazy climbing up here with my stuff and whatnot, because it's really just this small bunk like two and a half feet from the ceiling, and I had to ask what older, not-so-agile people do. Maybe they look at you and assign you a ticket based on this fact, or maybe you're supposed to look at the ticket and say, "Oben? No way in hell..." I dunno, but I think this train, or maybe just the train that's connected to this train, goes to Kiev, and I just think to myself "Andriy!" This is pretty fun though, it's like being a monkey getting up here, can't wait to swing down and go to the bathroom!

Ok, now I'm in Poland, partly headached, in bed (it's the seventh of January). I would have written everything on the train, except that Leo, the Argentinean guy, and I tried to plug in my computer, which didn't work despite all the combinations of plug and adapter that we tried, so my computer ran out of it's 20% battery before I could finish updating everything. So let's not get too behind and talk about the fifth! I woke up around 10:45am, which was pretty late, and I had to pack up and get ready to meet Kunal at the McDonald's at noon. I checked out, then packed and sat down with Hywel to eat breakfast of Zimties (some cinnamon cereal that apparently is associated with both Germany and Italian because it had both on the box) and delicious blutorange tea. By the time I was done with that (I don't know how it took so long, must've been the packing), it was already 11:45am, and I was like, shit I'm going to be late. But then again, I love Skype, and I just dialed Kunal and he was like, "I'm running late too." So we chose to meet at 12:30pm, and I had some more time to relax.

I finally left, got to the hauptbahnhof, and tried to lock up my stuff in a locker. The thing was that there were many locations for lockers, all of which were hidden somewhere that I couldn't find in the "Durchgang," which I took to mean somewhere along the platform. Turns out they meant durch from the platforms to the stores, and I finally discovered the lockers between platforms 5/6 and the stores on the other side. Got to McDonald's and YAY! After a few minutes Kunal came walking up! After so many missed meetings, being able to successfully see Kunal was just awesome. Yes, Sam, he was hot as ever. At first he was really stressed out to go to this meeting with the housing people of some Wohnheim-like place at 2pm, and he really wanted to find the street so that he wouldn't get lost and be late. I was super hungry from the morning on the train, but I didn't want to make him late, and I figured it would be easy enough, so I went along with him. It was on this random street, Amsincktstrasse, that nobody could find because it was out in the ghetto. I mean, not really, but it was a sort of deserted large street with buildings and not even really any restaurants, just buildings. We asked so many people, and finally some police officers told us where to go.

We got to his new dig, and it looked really really crummy from the outside. As Kunal said, "There's even graffiti on the outside..." so he was all depressed and brooding, and it didn't help when we went to look for food and there was basically nothing around, and it was raining and glum weather anyway. Anyway, before the meeting we finally found this random Chinese restaurant that had a lot of space but like no customers, which was even more depressing. They had both German and Asian food, and I ended up going with schnitzel and fries and salad, which was pretty good, while Kunal didn't eat because he had a big breakfast apparently. Then another woman came into the store, and we felt a little better. But, on the bright side, we were able to talk about a lot of random stuff like school and people and life, and I think it cheered him up a bit not to only have one thing on his mind. Indeed, after we saw the place and it wasn't that bad, he was like, "I'm such the person to get depressed over something so easily, but thank goodness you're here to remind me that it's not so bad!"

We went to the building for the meeting, but nobody was there, so finally we got invited inside by the current residents. There were a whole bunch of them just lounging around in their cluttered, dirty, but really homey kitchen area, and they were all having fun, talking about how they just had a huge party last night, so the guy who was supposed to meet Kunal was "maybe drunk in a gutter somewhere." To tell the truth, other than the dirty common area, it really reminded me of BKG the way they described it, they were like, "It's more than a dorm because we are always doing things together and hanging out and making parties and whatnot, it's more like a WG," and they thought for sure that Kunal had not experienced this, so Kunal had to explain that he's had too much of this, which is why he just wants something nice and quiet and clean and spiffy. I think he might have offended one of the guys, because he was asking if the other location was newer and cleaner than this place, and one guy was like, "This place is perfect to me." Jacob showed us the downstairs area where they had parties, and then we waited for so long for the guy Florian to show up to show us the room, and then finally this girl Lena got a hold of another guy who had the key to the room. The girl, Lena, was really nice, and her room was right across the hall. If it were me I would probably love living there, at least for a little while, but I guess Kunal is going to be there for a year, and I can definitely see it getting tiring. What I thought was cool, though, was that it was just like BKG, except without the rules of Herr Fetten, and everyone was mostly German, so it would be a great way to get better at German. Even in the hour and a half that we were there we spoke some German, though everyone also spoke really good English. Kunal was the one to speak some German before me, and I realized just how bad his German was, I was cringing at the grammatical mistakes. I think that's why I'm so good at languages - because I can't stand mistakes. But I'm still glad that I'm not in the phase where I have to meet a whole bunch of new people because I'm too tired for that right now, though I know that phase only really lasts a week or two.

After the meeting and after Kunal got over his depression we just went walking around Hamburg. It was so great to be hanging out with him again, I'm always amazed at how American he is, though this was explained to me that after his international school in Hamburg, everyone from everyone ended up sounding American, which I guess is what happens in America too. We reminisced about SYTYCD, and Kunal was like, "For some reason, whenever I'm around you I get louder." Though he reckoned this to actually getting excited about stuff and not to my blatant loudness, which was nice of him. Also, he introduced me to Natalie Portman gansta rap, which I must say is freakin awesome. We went to the main lake area off of Jungfernstrasse (?) where there was a giant Christmas tree in the middle floating like an island, and he said that that place was always really super nice in the summer but not particularly welcoming right now in the winter. And apparently I was observing this on the day right before they throw out all the Christmas trees. We also saw a bunch of random mannequins chained up to lamp posts and stuff, and some of them outside this store had umbrella hats on, which was really bizarre. There were streets with a lot of stores, and we went briefly into H&M where I looked at some hats and Kunal went down to the mens section. He was trying to convince me that this was the nicest place around, but I was like, "No, I just need to breathe the ocean," to which he kept reminding me that Hamburg is not bordering the ocean, but he still obliged and suffered the cold ocean winds for me by going to Landbrueckestrasse where the port was. Touche, Kunal, now I'm looking at a map, and I guess it's just part of the river to the sea. But still.

We walked around and got a little bit wet and cold, and then we got back on the train and rode three stops over to Altona, where there were a bunch more shops but apparently also a nice old town feeling around the corner. We didn't make it that far, we just stopped into a coffee shop where I bought us a caramel macchiato and some hazelnut hot chocolate stuff. The coolest thing was the devices in this stop. Kunal asked the guy if he could heat up his drink, so the guy took it and put this metal thing into it, and it made some noise, and when he took it out, it was steaming. I don't know what that thing was, it looked almost like a solid whisk, except we guessed it either heated up or blew out steam or something. Then, while we were sitting there, there was the coolest machine that peeled oranges for you. The oranges were in this metal basket, and they would drop down this slide thing and get peeled.

Anyway, after we finished our drinks it was about time to leave, since Kunal had to go home and shower to meet with his hs friends, so we got on the train, and he missed his stop and got off, and we said goodbye. It was such a short time, but it was nice to see him. I hope he comes works in the states at some point, he seems like the kind of guy who would like it, and yet he's never done it. This kind of crazy traveling almost doesn't seem worth it because of all the train time, but I didn't really have anything else to do, and I had to make use of my Eurail anyway. They always get you like that... At the train station, I had to wait about an hour for my train, but I just sat and read 1984, which I'm getting into a lot more this time around. I don't know if maybe I'm just in the reading mood these days, but I like it. It was crazy though, on the way down to the platform, there was this big crowd gathered around, and when I finally saw what it was, there was an older, homeless-looking guy lying face down on the floor, and the most disturbing part was a little river of blood seeping out of his head. I've never seen something like that in person, so it was very very disturbing to me.

Finally the train to Berlin came, and once in Berlin - which I now remember is a huge freakin station - I had to get to the Berlin-Lichtenberg station. I remembered that it said in the Eurail guide that you could use the pass on all S-bahns and U-bahns except for in Berlin, but when I reread it, it said you could use it in Berlin only on lines connecting Deutsche Bahn stations. So this got me very confused, because I wasn't sure if Berlin-Lichtenberg was a DB station, and I didn't know if they meant on the stops between those stations or on those particular lines. I'm pretty sure the line I took was okay because it was between Hauptbahnhof and Ostbahnhof, but I had to ride three stops past Ostbahnhof, and I was so nervous the whole time that somebody would come check, even though I'm pretty sure that my excuse, if I had to use one, was valid. I kept looking around for a conductor, and I was so relieved to finally get off the train. Then one stop before Lichtenberg, I thought to myself, "OMG is it actually Lichtenstein I'm supposed to go to?" and freaked out that I would have to take the S-bahn all over and maybe I would miss my train, even though I had about an hour connection time. Luckily I ended up in the right spot with no fine. At the station I got some falafel sandwich thing at the only place that was open, and then sat down for some more reading, and finally the train came, and I climbed up to my bunk and talked to Leo the Argentinean guy (he's been traveling for 5 months and is finally going home on Wednesday... god I would die of tiredness), and at 9:20am I was in Krakow-Glowny.

1/6

Day 10:

I'm on the train out of Poland now (it's the eighth of January), and I have a seven hour train ride to Vienna, so I better update this now before I get too behind. That's the problem with journals, the more fun you have the more you have to write, so it's a lot of work to have fun! Anyway, Poland was so awesome, Joanna and her new hubby Lukasz are just so adorable and sweet and accommodating, I had a really awesome time and am glad that I visited, for sure, even though I had to venture out of Eurail territory and suck up that cost. Especially after hanging out with boys this whole time I remembered what it was like being around a woman, and you realize that sometimes you just really need some female company. As an example, Joanna was shocked that I had so little luggage with me, though I would say it's no small amount, whereas Pascal was shocked that I had so much laundry I needed more than one wash. Joanna has all sorts of bath and shampoo stuff in the bathroom, whereas Pascal's house only had three things, though they all mostly showered downstairs, so it was understandable, but it still felt much more womanly. We also had so much to talk about that I guess I could not have talked about with a guy, like boys and getting married and stuff. I was delighted that after all this time it was so easy to get along at Joanna's, so it was great fun. Additionally, her friends were really warm and kind, and Joanna always tried to include me and translate for me, whereas sometimes I felt like Pascal didn't feel like translating for me, and I spent a lot of time feeling alone, though it's understandable that translation is a tiring process after a while. Still, it seemed like the Joanna's friends really tried to include me, whereas Pascal's friends kind of accepted that I was there, and I really got the impression that it was a French thing, though it might have just been psychological based on the circumstances. Also, I ate so much more at Joanna's, very satisfying.

But before all of that, the ordeal of getting to Joanna's apartment... I had sent her the email about my arrival time only the day before, so I had no way of checking if she had actually gotten it. When I came into the station, I didn't see them anywhere, and I got accosted by the same old man four times, saying, "Do you need accommodation?" I was like, "Crap, I need to call her then," so I went to a payphone and saw they only took phone cards, and I didn't have any Polish money with which to buy a phone card. So I was like, "Ok, I need to find a bank." I walked around outside the building, looking around and seeing nothing but kind of crappy small kiosks where they did assorted things like exchange money at a large exchange rate, and I even considered just exchanging enough for phone, but I'm still too stingy or maybe just never recovered from the money I lost last time I exchanged money at the airport. I went back into the train station and was just contemplating what I should do, and THANK GOODNESS I look in front of me, and I see Joanna and Lukasz walking down the corridor. I kind of waved, but Joanna didn't see me, so I was like, "Maybe that's not her, and I forgot what she looked like?" But it was her, and I was so relieved that I was once again in safe hands. Joanna, god bless her, was like, "Yesterday I was doing my sister's hair for a ball she was going to, and I was doing that with one hand and checking facebook with the other." The two of them had their computers open the whole time, and I was like FINALLY somebody in Europe is actually SANE.

The two of them took me to their car, and we drove ten minutes to their tiny little flat. Seriously, it's a single room with a bathroom and a stove area, probably a little bigger than half of my room at 165. But it was cute, and after being there a little while it didn't seem quite so small. I put my stuff down and took a much needed shower, and then we had a wonderful breakfast prepared by Joanna, during which I thought to myself, "She really took on the role as 'wifey,'" since I remember Sam saying she said in her email something like, "I am wifey," though I couldn't find any such email. Since we hadn't been able to see the wedding disc at Pascal's, Joanna showed me the wedding photobook, which was of course beautiful and adorable. Being around married people really makes you wish you could get married, but then you're like, "Wait... no..." Joanna and Lukasz are really cute together though, and he's really hot too. Anyway, at breakfast there was salad, this noodle-y stuff with what seemed like both pickles and mayonnaise and somehow I didn't hate it, ham, cheese, bread, and tea. We ate until we were full, which is what Joanna says Polish people do - eat any old time they are hungry until they are full. Then we headed out 45 minutes to Bochnia to visit the salt mine. On the way there Joanna and I talked the whole time about different languages and learning languages and stuff like that, which was pretty interesting. When we got there we stopped at a bank so I could take out 100 zl, then went to a store where Joanna bought a few snacks, including these pretzel things by the company Lajkonik shaped like coins with a silhouette of a man in a triangle hat riding a horse. Lajkonik was this Polish icon who rode a horse and was famous for something that I can't remember, but his little horse-riding figure was everywhere.

We waited for a while at the salt mine for the next round of tours, and I realized how lucky I was to be there with Joanna and Lukasz because almost everything was in Polish and everyone spoke Polish, and Polish is not like French where I can understand the writing. The writing is a bunch of consonants in a row that I haven't the faintest clue how to say out loud. I thought it would be a lot like German, but it's actually a lot more like Russian. Indeed, there's even some overlap, as I found out later that good is "dobre," and we were watching a video of Munich surfers after dinner, since Dorota was there and she had been studying in Munich, and Lukasz was like, "ziabis," and I was like, "did you just say 'fucking good'?" They loved that. After I told Lukasz that Pascal's favorite English word was "What the fuck?" he couldn't stop saying, and everything we did Lukasz would go, "What the fuck?" and then giggle. Anyway, so Joanna would pronounce some of the words on the signs, and then I would just give up because it was too overwhelming.

The tour finally started, so we got in line for the shafts that took you something like 200m down into the ground. During the middle part of that ride was the darkest darkness ever, and it's sort of an eerie feeling to know that you are right in the heart of the earth. It's actually kind of crazy how much space is completely unoccupied on earth if you consider that you can live in those conditions. It was quite cool down there, though I'm not sure exactly why, maybe no warmth from the sun? The tour was in Polish, and I had an English audioguide, but it was really difficult to listen while the woman was talking and Joanna was also trying to tell me some fact or another. We first got to ride in a little train, which was fun, and then we went into this big chapel with all of these little artifacts that had some story or another behind them. Then there was some shaft area with a pile of dirt, and they asked people to guess what it was, and it was actually horse manure, and a giant block of salt which was as valuable as gold back in the day, and a wheel that was used for ventilation, and sticks that people used to climb up high and are now bent because the corridor is actually pushing in on itself. The coolest two stories, I thought: 1) There were these people who would use torches to go around and burn up the methane. It's lighter than air, so it was up high, and these people could either burn it up or it would explode. Since it was so dangerous, the people who would do it would be some criminals as punishment, and they'd work for a year. If they survived the year, then they were considered to have paid penance for their crimes and everyone should forgive them and give them normal lives afterwards. 2) There were horses down there. It would take a couple of hours to transport them down, and once they were down there they would stay for as long as twenty or so years. Once they were too old they would be transported back up to the surface to live out the rest of their days in retirement.

Also, there was salt everywhere, so you could lick the walls if you wanted. I only licked it once, in a nice clean looking spot, though the cleanness of it probably meant that other people licked it as well. There was the belief that if a drop of salt water fell on your right hand you would be rich (and Lukasz went and touched a drop of wet crystal and was like, "My first million!"), on your head you would be clever, and on your back you would become hunchbacked. When the tour almost over we went by the giant slide, which is really super long and goes down to the main huge chamber area. I really wanted to go on it, but they weren't letting people ride because there had been a big party there the night before, and Joanna's sister was there, though I couldn't really tell if it was her party or not. The big chamber area was hardwood floors and huge with these high ceilings carved out of the rock, and there were soccer goals and apparently used to have basketball hoops, and the next room over had tables and a disco ball, and Joanna said they had balls (aka dances) there all the time, and the next room was filled with some two hundred beds where people can sleep over. I guess it's a really big thing in Bochnia, and I was just trying to imagine our middle school sleepover in a salt mine. It's supposedly really good for your health and respiratory diseases. Very interesting.

We played soccer there for like thirty minutes, and after Joanna and I got tired, Lukasz started playing with these two little kids and their dad, which was fun to watch. I think I would not be so bad at soccer if I had the patience for it, but I just don't enjoy practicing messing around with a ball, so I could never get good at it. I guess I just don't appreciate it the same way people like Jay and Simon do. After a long time the tour guide finally led everyone out, and Joanna and Lukasz cleaned their shoes at this cool spinny thing, and we headed out. I was so exhausted, since that tour was like three hours long, that I slept a good chunk of the way back to Krakow. Once there, we stopped at the main mall, the Galeria Krakowska, so that I could buy my train tickets to Vienna. The woman said the price was 106 zl, and I was like ew that is a lot, and then I discovered that it was only 29 euro, which was a pleasant surprise.

We looked at a bunch of castle models that were on display in cases down the middle of the mall, a bunch of them with nativity scenes and/or Lajkonik in them, all beautifully decorated. Apparently there is usually a contest, and people spend all year making these models for display at Christmastime. Once we got home I went online and dealt with some administrative travel stuff, and Joanna and Lukasz made the most yummy dinner. First there was tasty chicken noodle soup. Then there was salad, which was kind of weird because there were Ramen noodles in them, but it really worked. Finally there were potatoes with these breaded chicken breasts with mushroom sauce. Joanna said that it was a typical Polish sunday dinner, because back when people were poor they would save meat for Sunday because it was a special day. It was so good, I was so full and satisfied.

After dinner some people started trailing in. First was Joanna's best friend Magda, who really looked like a mix between Caitlyn Mehner and Carly Buchwald. Then her boyfriend/fiancee (I was like, ok Polish girls must really get married early, but Joanna told me that was just coincidence). Then Dorota. It was cool to see Dorota because she was actually a familiar face, and it was super cool that the scheduling worked out that I was there the same days as she was. Another weird coincidence is that Sara Cohen is in Vienna right now, so I'm going to meet her when I arrive in Vienna. That one is super crazy, because out of all days in the year... Everyone was just chatting and catching up, and then we drank some chocolate liqueur and then "wedding vodka." There were so many bottles of those leftover from their wedding too, with a little picture of them on it. We took three shots of those over the course the like an hour, but I don't know if the shots were not that strong or I'm getting higher tolerance, but it didn't feel like much. Also, I was able to take it down as a shot, which I've been afraid to try ever since the tequila incident in Miami. Joanna said that, since it's free to go into clubs in Poland, they just drink as much as possible before going, and I was like, we do that too, except it's not free to go into clubs in the US. We also watched a couple of clips of funny movies, like this sped up dance remix video from their wedding to the Polish version of "I Like To Move It Move It" and a clip of a guy speaking really bad "Ponglish" where he said half the words in Polish and half the words "kuva," which means something like slut but is used for any purpose in Polish, like fuck.

Finally we headed out to party, and I thought we were going dancing, but we ended up at a karaoke bar where we met up with Lukasz's best friend Peter who is also called Kumor because of his last name except it sounds like Kumar but none of them have seen Harold and Kumar, and Joanna's sister's boyfriend who is also called Lukasz. At the club another friend joined us, but I forget her name, it was something like Anya but not really. I was shy to go and sing karaoke, but then I remembered that I love it, so Joanna and I booked "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" (my classic karaoke song), and "I Want To Break Free." They bought me this drink that was a beer with a cherry vodka, and you drop the vodka glass down the middle and drink it like that. It was not very strong for a while, and I was like, "I am so not drunk enough to start singing here," and then I got to the bottom and it was suddenly like WHOA. There was one guy who sang a couple of classic rock songs who was really really good, but even the other people were pretty good, and it was so different from the memory of the last bar during senior week pub crawl, where almost everyone was out of tune. There were also a lot of Polish songs, like a Polish version of "Johnny B. Goode." And one song, where it's still stuck in my head, and it's like, "Tacy sami.... Tacy sami..." which means something like, "I'm so alone..."

Finally it got to be our songs, and we sang them badly (I'd like to say that it sounded good at the time, but the recordings of us were just so bad, though I partly blame the fact that the Polish people couldn't read the lyrics that fast... And I really really wanted to sing "It's The End Of The World As We Know It.") After we sang those, and joined in for "Big in Japan," which I didn't know at all, we were all dancing around in the middle area. Dorota especially had been resisting coming the whole time because she had a test in "low" (aka law) the next morning at 8am, but she just came anyway and drank a beer and kept looking at her watch and going, "I should go. If I'm not leaving I'd better be dancing then!" and then she'd get up and dance. I think people started getting more drunk at that point, because Lukasz and Kumor were singing "Highway to Hell" (really well btw) and this totally drunk guy came in and kept trying to take the mike and sing out of tune. At the very end of the night we all got together and sang "Stand By Me," and that was really nice. I was standing next to Kumor for that, and afterwards he kissed my hand, I thought how cool Europe is that a girl can keep getting kissed without feeling totally sketched out. Then he and I danced a little to Polish music before we finally all left. I get the feeling he is one of those poor guys where his friends all have girlfriends and he is the only one left so that he just has to dance around with everyone else's girlfriends, because he was grooving with Joanna and Magda all night too. He was a little geeky in a scrawny cute way, reminded me of Pascal a little, a little bit charming I must admit.

Finally we walked home in the cold and crashed in bed, though I felt a little awkward because Lukasz and Joanna were sleeping on the floor on a mattress because they were like, "You're our guest!" Really, they are like parents already, I was thinking, they took care of me so well... It was about 2am when I finally fell asleep.

1/7

Day 11:

Yesterday was Krakow sightseeing day. I woke up at 10am, a little woozy but ok, and Lukasz and Joanna were both like "ugh..." headached. I tried typing a bit and going online and whatnot, showering, etc. Finally we made some breakfast of leftover salad with Ramen, and the normal bread and spread stuff. There was this really tasty tomato paste that was labeled I guess with the brand, "Smacznego!" which translates to "bon appetite," which was one of the like two words that I learned in Polish, and Joanna wrote it for me on a flash card. The other was "Nasdrovia" which is "cheers," and I get the feeling it's about the same in Russian because it sounded familiar when I heard it. We dropped the ham that we bought at the supermarket the day before somewhere along the way, and Lukasz went to go look for it and couldn't find it, and even after breakfast he was like, "But where is the ham?" in this sad little boy voice. I was online, and I said to Andriy, "I have to go eat breakfast now," and he was like, "You mean lunch," and I was like, "touche." I put in the laundry, and it was already noon when we were done and getting ready to go out.

Lukasz drove us out to this "mound," which I guess was a fortress area with a large hill/mound of dirt upon which you could see almost the entirety of Krakow. We walked around there and then up the mound for the view. It was quite beautiful there, the air was refreshing and the sky was beautiful blue, unlike the rain that was there the day before. The city was very big, a lot bigger than I thought it was, and there was this really huge polygon of flat grass in the middle which was apparently the biggest something like that in the world or something. Even though I've been skydiving, I still get a little bit tense walking up mountainy areas where there is no railing because I'm always afraid I'll trip. After we stayed there a little before driving home. When we got back we changed the load of laundry, and then Joanna and I left on our own to look around the city center.

Krakow looks kind of dirty at some parts, though I don't know how much of that is the subconscious knowledge that Poland is not as rich as the other European countries, but then you get to the city square and realize that it's actually really beautiful with lovely old buildings and churches like the other European cities. I took pictures of lots and lots of sights that I won't remember the names to because they are Polish and therefore too difficult for me to spell or pronounce, and I also got into the eyeball of this big statue of a head, which was fairly creepy as a picture, since my hat is close to white and it makes me look like an eyeball. Then we walked to the big castle, Wawel, bought tickets and an audio guide, and went inside. The audio guide had a lot of history of different kings and saints and generals that I can't remember, and Joanna didn't really want to listen to it because she thought it was too boring, so we speeded through some parts and slowed down at other important parts that she knew. I thought there were some interesting facts about two women kings and also one king that was so short but the figure on his sarcophagus has his both standing on a rock and lying down at the same time. Then we walked up to the bell tower and I touched the bell with my left hand for good luck. Finally, there was the burial crypts down in the basement, and that was a fairly creepy place to be. I also realized how much pride Poland had that John Paul II was Polish, because they mentioned all the places where he had been and done stuff in the building. I explained to Joanna that it seems that Polish people in America haven't retained much Polish culture, because I know a ton of people with Polish last names, but they seem totally American to me. Whereas a lot more people that are Italian or French or even Irish seem to have a little bit of the heritage within them. I really don't know anything about Poland except for maybe a little bit about what happened during WWII, and I don't even remember much about that.

From atop Wawel we looked down at the Vistula River, where there was a sculpture of a dragon, and Joanna told me this story about how legend had it that this dragon would eat up all the virgins, and the the king wanted someone to kill it, but men would keep dying to this dragon, until this one guy fed him something full of hot peppers and stuff, and the dragon got so hot that he drank all the water in the Vistula until he exploded. I'm sure I'm butchering all of these stories so I should look them up later, but that was the gist of it. It was so good to have Joanna around explaining everything, even if she would sometimes get frustrated not being able to find her words, because she knew so much about the city that I would not have gotten in any other way really. I told her she was like my own personal tour guide, and she told me that you could actually get fined for being an unofficial tour guide in Krakow, I guess they didn't want people propagating misinformation.

We went to this cathedral afterwards, which looked like it was spelled almost like Murcielago ("bat" in Spanish) but is actually pronounced more like Mariatsky, which makes me think of mariachis, so I don't really get it. The guy who did the interior main triptych was the same guy who had done the triptych in St. Lorenz in Nuremberg. I don't even remember if it was a triptych or not, but it was gilded everywhere and very beautiful. We walked around a little and then left for the marketplace again so that I could buy some souvenirs. We looked through a lot of stands which were kind of like the main area of Quincy market in Boston. They sold a lot of jewelry made of amber, which Joanna informed me was another major product of Krakow. I bought a shotglass that doesn't say Krakow on it, so I'm going to have to paint it on or something, but Joanna liked that one best because it had a glass dragon figurine in the middle. I saw a bunch of Lajkonik keychains, which were cute except for the faces, which looked like skulls and were really disturbing. I don't know why they didn't just leave the faces blank, which would be much nicer and also less work. There were also dragon things EVERYWHERE, and I was glad to know the story behind the dragons. I ended up buying this little dragon cartoon bell thing for Andriy which is really cute if only really a decoration. As we were walking out of the building, Joanna showed me a iron-looking knife hanging down above a door, and she told me that the legend was that there were two brothers that built the Mariatsky cathedral, hence it's two towers, and when one brother saw that his brother's tower was taller, he murdered him. Now, supposedly you can only walk under it safely if you are innocent, otherwise the knife will fall down on you.

We went into a bookshop and I bought two postcards - one for me and one for Sam, since I figured Sam had wanted to go to Krakow once upon a time and would appreciate it. Then we walked down the shopping street on our way to get pierogi. There was a McDonald's, and I went inside to take pictures of the McCafe. I had seen some in France, and I thought about Chen and that article where they said they wanted to make McDonald's much more upscale in Europe because it would attract more people. I think if I ever went into McDonald's, despite the atmosphere, I would still always know in my mind that I was in McDonald's, and it just couldn't work for me. Finally, we got to this cute restaurant that was very homey inside and sat down for some pierogies and tea. They were delicous. I don't know why, but for some reason I totally thought pierogies were Greek, and I also thought they would be a sandwich, though I think that part of it came from my thinking of hoagies. But the Greek part makes no sense to me, so if someone can enlighten me as to what made me think that, I would like to know I'm not crazy. They were basically like flatter dumplings, something between a dumpling and ravioli, and the ones we got were cabbage and beef inside, with these delicious chunks of what I guess was fried fat but really delicious on top. Really yummy.

During dinner we just talked a little bit about how amazing it is that we were able to be part of BKG, part of this one wonderful moment in time. Joanna said that she had been studying her three years beforehand to get good grades so that she would get the chance to go to Leverkusen, but after some time this girl she knew had told her to bring a book because it was "so boring," and then she got there and what a total opposite it was, so it really depended on the people and that particular time. And Magda had gone to London one summer and was working the whole time, didn't get to see any sights, only had one day off which she spent shopping, and was super jealous of Joanna's experience. I really feel the same way, especially because of people like Bao and Sid who basically lived by themselves when they were in Germany and got some German experience, but it wasn't anything as crazy as ours. And for me to have had Sam there with me was such a blessing. Joanna was also saying how it was great that I actually visited, because people always say that they are going to visit and whatnot, but they never really do in the end, and it's just so cool when it actually happens. She said she had some penpal exchange student or something like that, and she had visited the girl, but the girl couldn't visit her from sickness, so she thought the girl was making up an excuse, but sure enough, half a year later she came and joined Joanna in Krakow, and that was really cool that it actually happened. I really wish that people would come visit me, I really realized just how much there is to do in Boston when I thought about it, and that's just Boston, imagine going on a cross-country trip of the US! Joanna said she had some friends in the Boston area on three-month internship, I really wish she would come visit some time. I get the feeling Joanna is one of those people who wants to do stuff like that, unlike Pascal who was like, "I want to see the rest of Europe first, and then the States can follow." People in Europe seem to be a lot more conscious of this sort of wild traveling kind of thing, whereas I think Americans and those guys from down under are really into the whole backpack-around-Europe kind of thing.

After dinner we walked back to the Galeria, and Joanna bought me some bread and crackers and yogurt for train today. Then we wanted to get picked up by Lukasz, but her phone died, so we decided to take the bus. Joanna got on the wrong bus and was like, "Fuck!" and we finally exchanged and got home safely a whiles later. I think we were all tired, but they offered to do something else. On the one hand I felt like I should make use of Krakow, and I suppose it might have been good to go up on the second mound and see Krakow at night from above, but I guess the laziness overcame me, and I was having a good time organizing photos and going online. Also, Joanna was getting more sick, and she also had to look over stuff for a quiz this morning, so that worked out well. She also showed me the trailer for the movie 1408, which I hadn't heard of, but now I want to see it, even though it looks terrifying and I don't know if it's such a good idea because I will be scared at night alone in my hostel. I got it from them via the smallest USB thing I've ever seen (no case I guess it was just the plug part), but now that I try to open the file I can't, so that's too bad. I had also considered watching it with Sara in our hotel room, but now I guess I'll have to wait. Andriy?

Finally, like three hours later at 10pm, we decided to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3. It was still fun to watch, though I must say that I'm not sure I understood it any more than the first time I saw it. I would like to see all three movies back to back so that I can remember what the hell happened, though I'm sure most of it will still be a big wtf moment. It didn't help that the subtitles were in Polish, so I was partly distracted and also partly wishing they were in English because I couldn't follow some of it. Anyway, it was still funny, but we didn't finish until like 1am, and we had to get up at 6am to get me to the train station, so we passed out soon afterwards.