Archive for September, 2006

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Beccie joins us in Poland

September 30, 2006

We whooshed to Warsaw, Poland, where we were meeting Beccie YAY! We had to catch an overnight bus which was AWFUL because it was packed and we couldn’t even spread over two seats. We arrived in Warsaw and just slept for the first day, as did Beccie who had just spent 16 hours in a London airport. In Warsaw we spent most of our time looking at stuff to do with the Jewish population that once lived there. We visited a museum, cemetary and Nazi prison. It’s insane to see how much the Warsaw Jews were forced to suffer - of the 300,000 who lived there before the war, only about 3,000 survived. The architecture was quite grey slab like in Warsaw as well - mainly because the whole city was levelled by the end of the war and everything had to be rebuilt - for every 20 buildings, only 3 were left standing by 1945.

We continued on to Krakow, the old royal capital of Poland. Unlike Warsaw, Krakow was not bombed as badly in the war and thus stil had the pretty architecture, colourful baroque buildings a a pretty old town. On one of our days there we took a day trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the biggest concentration and death camp in Poland, which I cannot even put into words. We saw the gas chambers and incinerators, the cramped living conditions and the warehouses of items that the Nazis kept to reuse - spectacles, shoes and gold teeth but also the hair of the victims to be made into cloth and mounds of baby’s clothes. It was unbelievably haunting. The odd thing was that the outside was very pretty - cobblestoned streets lined with trees and all the houses were cute red brick barn like barracks. But the atrocities that occured inside were just dizzying to even think about. We also visited Schindler’s factory and walked around the Jewish Quarter where we were staying.

We’ve now entered Prague and have been looking around. It is by far the prettiest city we’ve seen, with all of it’s church spires piercing the skies, but also the most touristy, in some places you can barely walk because of all the tour groups. We also popped to Kutna Hora to see a bone church, but more about that later.

Tomorrow we’re heading to Olomouc, also in the czech republic, a nice university town that was recommended to us.

Speak soon x x x

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Russia, Latvia and Lithuania

September 27, 2006

I need to update more often!

I’m sitting in a hostel in Prague, Czech Republic, at the moment, while Thad and Beccie have gone on a pilgrimage to Plzen, home of Pilsner beers and Claire is upstairs in the shower.

The past 3 weeks or so have been pretty crazy. We left Vilnius on a train to St Petersburg, which was incredibly fun. We ate too many lollies and got really hyper and giggled the whole journey, much to the dismay of the other train passengers who were trying to sleep. We hit the Russian border at 11:30 but, because of the time difference we were pushed to 12:30am - Thad’s birthday! After heaps of border control coming through we left again and went to sleep.

We woke up in St Petersburg, pretty groggy from the interrupted sleep and had a look around. I gave Thad his birthday present - a swiss army knife, which has come in handy so much since. Haha. It’s such a beautiful city - wide roads and footpaths with big old colourful buildings with beautiful facades running down the roads. We walked down the main street, Nevsky Propsekt and saw a few of the main sites - beautiful churches, canals and statues and ending with the Winter Palace, a beautiful green building that runs as far as the eye can see. It was the home of the Russian royal family until 1917 when they were killed in the revolution. Inside is the biggest art collection in the world, which we explored the next day, although we only got half way through one of the 4 floors before having to leave - and that took us 5 hours. Good grief. We also took a walking tour on the 3rd day with a local guide. He steered us away from the tourist attractions and showed us more where the Russians lived and worked which was fantastic. We discovered an arts centre that started as a squat but has grown into a fantastic community that produces a lot of non-conformist art and
underground music. We also travelled through the backyards, behind the main buildings, where everyone lives, which saves time and showed us a lot of things we’d never notice if we’d taken the main roads. St Petersburg truly is magical. I’m going to have to go back some day and stay for a few weeks.

We headed on another overnight train to Moscow, arriving at 4 in the morning which sucked cos we had to wait for it to get light before we were bold enough to leave the station. It then took us 3 hours to find our hostel, and no one would help us because we didn’t speak russian - like London nobody stops on the street even if you stand in front of them so that sucked. Eventually we were approached by a lovely guy called Peter who spoke english and was working in a local real estate office. He took us to his office, gave us cans of coke and a seat while he printed out a map with the exact
building highlighted, and then walked us to the door. Oh he was so lovely! A saint. We went back later and gave him a cake and a koala to say thankyou.

Seeing the Red Square and the Kremlin was so odd because it’s a place you just never expect to find youself standing. It was very nice though - although I think that St Basil’s cathedral was a bit overrated - Church on Spilt Blood in St Petersburg was far more impressive. We went into the Mausoleum and saw Lenin’s body which was absolutely strange! You have to walk down these completely dark stairs past all these very stern looking, heavily armed soldiers and then file past his embalmed body, swathed in red velvet and lit up. How odd. We went inside the Kremlin as well which, oddly enough, was filled with churches. It was strange being inside a place that
British spies had tried to infiltrate so many times only 15 or 20 years ago. It was pretty boring though - the only highlights being seeing the Tsar’s burial places - including those of Nicholas II and his family who were killed in the revolution - we were especially excited to see Anastacia’s plaque. The other highlight was accidentally walking on the wrong path and having a guard furiously toot his whistle at us for about a minute before we realised. He was so angry and was smacking his baton into his hand rather menacingly. Eeek.

I also had my 21st in Moscow WOO! Which was fun. The night before we had some drinks in the hostel and then headed to a bar around the corner. The barman was told it was my birthday and made me a present - a sambucca shot with whole coffee beans, set on fire. He told me I had to shot the liquid, coffee beans and all, and then breathe in the fumes that he’d captured while setting the alcohol on fire. It went straight to my head and I didn’t need any other drinks all night haha. Woke up on my birthday feeling less than pretty but that’s OK. Thad bought me a really nice necklace that has a
Rainbow Moonstone set in it from Tibet. When you hold it to the light it glows this really bright blue. We had a pretty quiet day - did a tour of the Metro system and saw all the stations - which are decorated with mosaics, stained glass and chandeliers - an odd contrast to the greyness of the buildings above ground. We leftthat night for an overnight train to Riga, Latvia, but ended up only spending 8 hours there before catching a night bus to Klaipeda, a town on the coast of Lithuania for some relaxing time. So for two days all we did was chill out on the beach - so nice! We then headed to the Hill Of Crosses, which was really more like two mounds but quite impressive nonetheless… very eerie. Lithuanians have been planting crosses here for centuries - in memory of relatives and as shrines to saints. The Soviets bulldozed them all down when they occupied Lithuania and surrounded the place with barbed wire and soldiers, threatening to send to siberia anyone who put up a cross, but still people snuck through the wire to place them. Pretty incredible.

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We made it to Poland…Alive!

September 6, 2006

Yay! We actually made it here!

After everyone was buying me drinks for my farewell party from Harrods, I managed to make it home at about 2am to find that Thad and Claire were drunker than I was, and still packing the last few bits, in between drinks and dodging the 9 australians and 1 frenchman crammed into our house.

We managed to get to the bus stop though at 4, and caught the bus and train to the airport, in perfect timing for our flight. The flight was pretty horrible cos we’d all pulled an all-nighter but pretty short at 1 1/2 hrs so it was OK. And then suddenly we were in poland! Ha ha.

We left the airport (after an emergency chicken burger) and waited for the bus to take us to the city of Gdansk, and fell asleep on the pavement at the bus stop. Eventually though we made it to our hostel and stayed there the rest of the day eating junk food to make ourselves feel better.

The next day we actually did some exploring of Gdansk, which was formerly Danzig of Germany before WW2. The town is quite small and also very industrial (”cosmopolitan” according to the guide) and we managed to walk through the Old Town TWICE without realising it because it was so small! They had a magnificent brick church that towered over everything. We went in to have a look and got caught in a mass service, so bolted. It was an odd church because some parts were very ornate, but the walls were often bare and whitewashed. We think maybe the tapestries etc were looted or destroyed either in the war or by the soviets. After walking around the very pretty town square with all the colourful building facades and the town hall, we sat in a cafe for about 3 hrs, eating pastries, still recovering.

That night we caught a bus from Gdansk to Vilnius in Lithuania, which took 13hrs. It was actually an OK trip as we had 2 seats each so we got a fair amount of sleep. Once it got light I got my first views of Lithuania, which were rolling hills with classical farmhouses punctuated by dense forests and the occasional Soviet block of flats. The walk from the bus station was a bit of a trek, took us about an hour and we all had about 18 kg of luggage on our backs. Vilnius is beautiful though I really love it, It’s got a huge Old Town (can’t miss this one) and is dotted with these enormous dominating churches that sit on winding cobblestone streets, however between these are run down dilapidated old buildings that just add to the odd dreamlike feel of the place. We went to the main cathedral and I hunted for the “miracle tile” and made a wish, and wandered through the maze of beautiful courtyards of the old university. We also saw the only statue of Frank Zappa to exist!

Yesterday we took a day trip to the town of Trakai, very close to Vilnius. Trakai is famous for it’s fairytale castle that sits on an island in the middle of a beautiful lake and surrounded by forests. It was breathtakingly pretty. We walked around the islands and inside the castle before having coffee on the side of the lake to enjoy the view more.

We are staying in a lovely hostel over the river in a suburb called Uzupis, which it’s residents have declared as a breakaway republic from Lithuania. It’s a haven for artists (and drunks) and the street art and statues and little galleries around here look fantastic. Thad and Claire at this moment are looking for the constitution of Uzupis, which has points such as “Everyone has the right to love and take care of the cat”. Today is our last day here, so we’re spending it visiting the old KGB Headquarters, which is where political prisoners used to be tortured and killed and has now been
turned into a musiem of Genocide. Fun for the whole family. We’re also having another walk through Old Town before heading to the train station to catch our 17:55 train to St Petersburg, Russia.

The train takes 15 hrs I think, so hopefully it’s comfy! Tomorrow we wake up in St Petersburg, and Thad wakes up 21! Yay! He’s all grown up now!

I’m off now to explore, but just to let everyone know, Thad and I stupidly forgot to top up our mobiles before we left and so can’t contact anyone or receive calls. We can receive smses though!

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