Poland

Well very good fun was had. Arrived in Berlin on 7th June. Had to change trains 3 times to get to this little town in Poland called Gorzow Wlkp, which is between Berlin and Poznan. Spent a few days with a friend, Tomasz, who was an excellent host. Had a barbeque at his parents house and all his and his brothers friends were there...lots of very friendly Polish, Vodka and singing traditional polish songs to his dad playing guitar. A very merry time was had by all. Spent a few days in Gorzow, walked miles and miles through the forests, spoting snakes, lizards, deer, frogs and ending up at the German WW2 bunkers. Eating lots of traditional Polish food....mushrooms and cabbage with beetroot soup!!! mmmmm

Spent the next few days in the south of Poland on the Czech border, in the mountains. Went hiking in the beautiful forests, the rock structures were amazing. We walked through a huge labyrinth of rocks at the top. We also saw a chapel made of human skulls....really spooky and a black squirrel which is quite rare! Lots of thunder storms, not too nice when you get soaked and your're camping.

Left the mountains on the overnight train for Warsaw. Spent one day here, just walking around town. The old part of the city is particularly impressive. More traditional Polish food, boiled potatoes and fried eggs for dinner, then camping again in the centre of Warsaw! This time we actually had hot showers though.

Its quite amazing how few people I have met on my way that can speak English, haven't even met any tourists! And Polish is a really difficult language to learn with all its sch's and sh's and shh's and cz's and ch's etc. One day maybe, I'd love to come back here and be an English teacher though, it's such a friendly country, although very poor and a lot of the systems and ways of doing things are a bit back to front. The communist jokes I heard were really funny though and put a lot of things into perspective.

Thanks Tomasz for a wonderful time, would have been lost without you.

I left Warsaw and Tomasz early the next morning for a 30 hour train jouney to St Petersburg. Slept and read books most of the way. As soon as we got to Belarus, the train had to be taken into the siding to have its wheels changed. That was an interesting experience.