On Friday morning Malia, Anna, Lisa, & I took a train from Hauptbanhhof to Krakow, Poland. Hauptbahnhof is the gigantic station in Berlin where most trains leave out of. Unfortunately we didn't take the ICE train; this is the fast train. We just took the IC train, so it took a long time to get there! I forget exactly how long it took, but I believe it was something like 11 hours or so. It reminded me of just less than a week ago being on the bus from France for that long. We made the best of it though with attempts at sleep, lots of talking, homework, reading, etc. Oh and I was so proud of myself for packing light...finally! I only had a backpack. Really, I didn't need anything more, but nonetheless it was an improvement over France. And I packed the lightest out of us all....an achievement for me haha!
Oh yes, a note about the trains in Europe. You should reserve seats if there is an option to. It's not guaranteed that you have a seat if you don't and certainly not together. We found a nice section with 4 seats facing each other with a table in between. Only to be kicked out by a Polish lady saying this is her place. Just an emphasis on spending the extra few Euros for peace of mind that your seat is truly yours. The entire trip we were nervous that with each stop someone would say we were in their seat.
When we finally got to Krakow, it was dark. I think it was somewhere around 9 or so. The first thing we did was withdraw money at the ATM. As a note, I would always recommend withdrawing money straight from the ATM instead of going to a currency exchange. You get such a better rate at the ATM. And since ATMs are so readily available (or from what I've seen), you shouldn't have a problem. The currency here was Zloty. I was surprised when I read my available balance stated in Zloty!! The exchange rate here was amazing!! I withdrew 250 Zloty, which I later realized was about $63.
We didn't have a map, but rather took a picture of a map on the wall in the train station. With only our address to our hostel and our wonderful sense of direction, we set out. If this doesn't seem like a good idea, you are absolutely correct. We walked around and around and around. Somehow the streets we were on weren't on our "photo map." We wondered around for 1.5 hours until I begged for food. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant. It smelled so good and looked amazing...and it was hot! The entire menu was in Polish. We all stared dumbfounded until the lady flipped the menu over for English. Whew much better! It wasn't actually a sit down restaurant, just a tiny restaurant where they made burritos. It truly was the most amazing Mexican food ever! I realized how much I really missed my Mexican food! It was like it was fate....they had burrito postcards with a map of the city on them! We were saved....by burrito heaven! :)
Again we set out in search of our hostel. It was rather surprising how barren it was outside. We barely passed anyone on the streets. It felt so eerie. We ended up walking all the way to the highway without realizing. Then we finally looked at the map again and realized we just walked all that time in the wrong direction. Ugh! I was rejoicing at this point that I had packed light!!
It was like magic; when we turned onto our hostel street all the people appeared. It was quite obvious this was the nightlife area. I can't even explain how strange it was...not seeing but a few lone soles in our 2 hours of walking around and then all of a sudden seeing the entire town on one street! When we finally got to the hostel, there was no one in the office. They were closed for the night. I almost threw a tantrum right there. Fortunately there was someone in the hostel who was able to get us our key.
Our room was decent. It looked nice. It was only my second hostel though. While I was standing there marveling, and really just happy to see our room and have somewhere to sleep, the other girls rush past me and in unison rip the sheets off their beds. I stood there looking dumbfounded. I had no idea what was going on. They explained that they were checking for bedbugs. I had never heard of such a thing. Apparently everyone except me always checks their beds, hostels and hotels alike, for bedbugs. I never realized this was a problem. In case you don't know, they are black bugs and apparently the place to check for them in in the cracks on the mattress and under the mattress. They bite you while you sleep, and I would assume they itch. I'm not for sure. I have been fortunate not to have experienced these before. But from what they say, they are quite common with hostels and also hotels. So be sure to always check for them now :)
It turns out our shower was clogged. The water, instead of draining, pooled at your feet. It became quite clear that you had to turn the water off every 10 seconds or so to keep the shower from overflowing and flooding the bathroom. It was quite an unsatisfying shower. It was kind of disgusting standing in all that water. Nevertheless, it was a shower. We didn't do much that night; after our long train ride and very long walk here, we were exhausted.
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