all hail vic

Day 1 - the first train ride

Welcome to the 8th of August, the day after my birthday, and the day Iigot on a train from Prague to Ostrava (NE Czech Republic), where i then changed to a train bound for Katowice, Poland, where i then changed to a train bound for Krakow, where i am now sitting in a hostel typing what i hope to be the first entry in a trip diary. a trip that is anomolous in form. i´m going day by day here and doing minimal planning.

i´m staying in Strawberry Hostel just outside of the old town. and tomorrow morning i´m waking up bright and early to not see the city. instead, i will be starting with Auschwitz-Birkenau. a nice light beginning to what will inevitably be an exciting trip...

as for the train ride, the things i shall remember:

from Praha to Ostrava
- the girl sitting across from me who reminded me of a girl from Carleton. her name was Bree. the carleton girl, that is.
- reading. and reading. i´m reading a book entitled ¨The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night¨. it´s excellent so far.

the Ostrava train station
- i was standing alone, wondering whether or not the station was used by the Nazis during the war. WWII and the holocaust was on my mind because i was and am planning/going to Auschwitz. and so things were kinda dark (mentally) at that point.

from Ostrava to Katowice
- the only way i knew i was in poland was because my mobile told me via an SMS. no border marks at all. and i didn´t get a stamp when they checked my passport. grrr...
- i found a place to stay tonight on the train. that is to say that the Strawberry Hostel people hire people out to roam the trains and provide information to tourists heading to Krakow. if they ask about hostels, they immediately suggest Strawberry Hostel. an ingenious thing to do, really. and it´s only costing me 33 zloty a night, which is roughly 33 zloty, which is roughly $10.
- i had the compartment to myself, so i got to put my feet up.
- it was this train where i realized that, despite my limited knowledge of czech, i won´t be able to understand a lick of Polish. oh well.

from Katowice to Krakow
- again, the compartment to myself. very nice.
- as we were humming along, i looked out and saw a brilliant, pastel pink reflecting off of a passing building.. (heh heh.. a passing building...) so i got up and looked to the rear of the train and saw a very obscured and brief glimpse of the most picture perfect pastel sunset i´ve ever seen.

in Krakow
- a big red van picked me and other passengers up from the train stations. it was like a strawberry, heh.
- i´m sharing a room with a dutch guy and a sri lankan who lives (and has been living for a long time) just outside of stockholm, sweden.
- i withdrew 500 zloty from the bankomat before setting foot in my hostel. and i booked my Auschwitz trip first thing, as it is sponsored by the hostel.

and now i´m using the hostels free internet to tell you all about today. expect day 2 tomorrow, since it´s free.

Posted by iain at August 8, 2005 10:19 PM