Ok so ive been in Berlin for a while now, and ill get to that in a bit. But for now id like to show you something. Ive stayed in two different rooms in the hostel, and in the first room was a girl that was just a mess. It was as if the Americans had flown over her bed and dropped bombs like it was the Reichstag (fine line humour at its best). Continue for the evidence.

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One of my favourite photos of the whole trip. A waiter on a cold and windy day waiting to greet customers. I often ‘see’ a lot of these potentially great street style photos but ive never been comfortable pointing a camera at a stranger so they mostly get missed. This opportunity was too good to miss though. I dialled in my settings, slow enough shutter to slightly blur the people walking in the foreground, but fast enough to keep the waiter sharp. Fine line, but I think I nailed it. Even managed to get a few different layers of people in the foreground. The waiter also just happened to be wearing all white so he stands out perfectly in the black doorway. So yea, pretty happy with the result.

Top of the food chain. Beautiful animal but I don’t think id ever mess with one of them.

Today I went to the zoo. I didnt really have much else to see in Wroclaw, plus zoos are awesome and this one is supposed to be Poland’s best. Getting there was easy, hopped on the tram just down from the hostel and seven stops later it dropped me off right outside the entrance. The ticket was also only 25 zloty, which is about $10. How awesome is that. Taronga Zoo in Sydney costs $900 and a donation of a baby Koala.

Overall it was a pretty sweet zoo. There was practically no one in the entire place because well who goes to the zoo at this time of year. Apart from all the food stalls being closed it was actually a good time to visit, there was never anyone in the way to see anything. The collection of animals is damn massive too as there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of land, the entire place is huge. I got lost many many times as its a maze of pathways. They also have the largest terrarium in the world I think, housing what seemed to be every sort of snake, spider, turtle, lizard etc in the world, even a blue tongued lizard. There was even a butterfly room which was freaky walking through.

The highlight of the day was of course the big cats. They had an area with three female and one male lion, he was a fair pimp. The rules for safety or whatever are obviously different in Poland to Australia, so unlike Taronga where you are behind massive panes of glass and don’t really get a ‘feel’ for their size or authority, the enclosure here just had a really tall thin wire fence, then a gap and another short wire fence you could see over. So it felt like there was only the one fence between you and the lions. This meant that when they were roaming around they were only a meter away from you and open air between. Quite cool. All the lions were also really active. I saw them in the morning and they were lying around, but in the afternoon when I went back they were running around playing with each other, clawing each other and tumbling around. Was funny to see that cats of all sizes still all act the same. They knew when feeding time was as well because as soon as they could see the trainer (100m away!) they all ran to where the food is delivered and waited patiently. But then no doubt ripping the shit out of whatever red meat animal it was they were given.

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The very colourful market square

Another day another Polish city to visit. This time it was off to Wroclaw. How do you think you pronounce that? Its not row-claw, and its not rock-law. The closest you can explain it phonetically is vrot-suave. Yep. Sounds nothing like the word is spelt. The Polish language at its finest. I headed to the train station in Warsaw to buy my ticket, showing a piece of paper with the word ‘Wroclaw’ on it because at that stage I had no idea how to pronounce it properly. Went to the platform and it was one of those cases where there is two sides to the platform. Luckily the signs actually worked at this station so I knew which train on what side to catch. The train journey was ok, it was on one of the slightly cheaper and slower TLK trains. It was made much nicer about half way through though when a stunning Polish girl sat opposite me. She had piercing green eyes. I started to freak out a bit though when the scheduled arrival time came and went and as far as I could tell we were in the middle of nowhere. Was I supposed to get off and switch trains? No it was just running late thankfully.

Walked my way to the hostel, the ‘Cinnamon Hostel’. All the rooms are named after some kind of spice, I was staying in ‘Paprika’. It was a six bed room but it could have had ten beds in it, it was huge. The first night there was only three of us in the room, and for the other three nights it was only me. It was heaven. It was also in a pretty good spot, only about a 5 minute walk to the old town. Although the city is pretty tiny anyways. Had free breakfast, wifi, maps, kitchen etc.

There isn’t much to do in Wroclaw, its very much a walk around the old cobbled streets and gaze at the buildings and history. In the middle of the old town there is a huge market square, I think only second in size to Krakow’s. Surrounding the square in typical fashion is tall colourful buildings butted up against each other. The square is of course entirely cobbled, with larger newer pavers marking out large squares. Girls walking in high heels (which is most of them) walk along these pavers so they don’t get stuck, quite funny to watch them walk in straight lines across the city. I wandered quite far on my first day, covered the entire inner city. In the more northern part of the city there is a series of canals that splits up a whole bunch of little islands with nice parks on them and are all connected to each other with bridges. Makes for some nice walking, and the weather not being the best its nice and quiet and not many people around. I stopped off at one of the many churches and climbed the tower to the top, no surprises that I was the only one up there, it was blowing a gale. I then headed back towards the town through some more parks. Came across a monument that is quite spectacular. It is of an angel with wings spread atop a stone block looking down at a woman holding a man that has a bullet hole in the back of his head. It is commemorating the 22,000 Polish Army Officers, Policemen and other prisoners who were shot in the back of the head after orders from Stalin in the Spring of 1940.

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From Krakow it was off to the ‘new’ capital of Poland – Warsaw. As I said in the previous post I wasn’t feeling too great so it was at least a good thing that it was a direct train. Only took about three hours from memory, a distance however that a German ICE train would cover in half the time. I arrived at the train station and all I had for directions was the hostel flyer that I quickly grabbed at the hostel in Krakow before I left. The only thing on this tiny little map that gives you any sense of direction is the monstrous tower near the train station. So I figured that out and it was about a 15min walk that took me about 30mins. Checked in to the hostel and went to my six bed room. There were three American dudes in their just hanging out. Got to talking and I said id just come from Krakow and it was awesome etc etc. Long story short they checked out about an hour later, cutting short their stay in Warsaw, and were on a train to Krakow arriving at 3am. I really hope they liked Krakow otherwise they’re going to think im a massive dick.

I had a bit of a sleep in the next morning, got moving about 11am. With only half a day to do things I decided to do the Warsaw Rising Museum. This is touted as one of the best WW2 museums there are, with most of it dealing with Poland and of course the Warsaw Uprising. The Warsaw Uprising was a huge operation in 1944 by the Polish Home Army to liberate themselves from the Nazis. They eventually won, however their were massive civilian casualties, and the entire city was basically flattened. As part of the museum theres a small cinema in which they recreate a plane flying over Warsaw in 1944 showing all the devastation. It was extremely well done, and it was even in 3D. Apart from that it was just great because like the other WW2 museums ive been to it was really new, there was a tonne of information, a hell of a lot of original items, and the layout was well done. I spent quite a few hours there and also bought the guidebook. Because the three Americans had left for Krakow I had the hostel room to myself that night too so I got a good sleep.

Next morning I woke up at a more normal hour and headed out to check out the city. It was a stunning day of sun and blue skies. I was told that Warsaw is an ugly city and full of construction (being that it was completely demolished in WW2 and well I guess it takes a while to build a city). However walking towards the old town I didn’t see where people were getting this information from. The old town is stunning. Every building is built in to the one next to it so theres no gap, and they paint each building a different vibrant colour. There is pedestrian streets that meander their way all around the place, creating a giant maze. After a while you will pop out in to a massive open square, surrounded by buildings. I spent the entire day wandering the streets, taking some very cliche photos of the colourful buildings. On one of the street corners was a rather attractive Polish girl playing the violin. The violin is one classical instrument that ill always stop and listen too. I don’t know why, maybe its because for some reason its thought of being super hard to play so you appreciate it more or something. Every so often she would play the Viennese Waltz which sounds great and also puts True Lies in your head. She was also standing in some really nice light so I fired off quite a few shots. In the afternoon I decided to take the slight trek down to the Botanic Garden area. The gardens were stunning, the trees full of yellow and orange leaves. In one area there is a massive monument statue to Chopin (who I had no idea came from Warsaw). Walk down to the bottom of the gardens and there is a nice lake with a palace and a couple of small open stone amphitheatres. There was also a lot of peacocks running around which was quite strange. On the way back I walked past an ‘American Bookshop’ (seriously thats the name of the shop) and the cover of a book out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. It was ‘Wall and Piece’ by Banksy, the renowned street artist. I’ve been wanting to buy this book for a long time now so finding it in Warsaw was kind of strange, but awesome.

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