By the time we'd arrived in Vienna I'd survived two night trains in a row, had a grand total of ten hours sleep over three nights and visited eight cities in six days. Safe to say I was pretty exhausted.
As Mitch and I have already visited the city before we spent the morning at the castle with Steve and Josie, before parting ways to head to Bratislava around lunch time. We didn't really achieve much until tea time when we gorged on traditional Slovakian garlic soup (served in a bread bowl!) and the tastiest beef goulash with dumplings. I was so full I could hardly walk and we only spent like 7€ each!
Steve and Josie arrived on the last train that night, so the next morning we all went out to a lake on the recommendation of two lovely Canadian girls from our hostel. It was such a BE-A-UTIFUL day, we just lounged around in the sun and swam for six hours. Which unfortunately left Josie with a rather interesting tan...
At lunchtime we were feeling adventurous so we decided to try something new... Bull's testicle goulash. Now I expected (and kinda hoped) not to enjoy it, but it actually turned out to be really tasty! I kid you not. I actually preferred it to my bolognese. It looked different to how we expected too, which probably lessened the trauma a little.
That evening we attempted to try out the Bratislavan night life but failed somewhat miserably. We ended up drinking a little too much cheap Slovakian vodka at the hostel with a couple if Swedes we'd met and despite wandering the city streets for an hour or so didn't manage to find anywhere suitable so just retired early. Well, around 2.30am.
We're now in Budapest and about to head out to the baths for the day, I literally cannot wait! :)
Since I had SO MUCH TIME to plan this blog post/time to kill on my a million and one train journeys (well six but close enough) I've prepared you a special treat... I started vlogging! Yes, you read that read it right. Now goodness knows why I am sharing video footage of myself in this state with the internet world, but unfortunately for all involved I think this is the best way for you to witness my progressive exhaustion and delirium. So I am sorry that you have to look at me in various questionable states, though hopefully you'll get a pretty good picture of my most epic journey so far.
My camera work is impeccable. I intended to cut my mouth off for most of that video, I'm just that quirky. On another note I've been let down a considerable amount by German trains/conductors, for the first time ever. I didn't think Germans had the ability to be late. It's safe to say that they're not used to it. Whilst us Brits are experts at lateness and therefore know how to deal with it, it would appear Germans simply panic, causing them to not let anyone know whats going on and constantly inaccurately guestimating new times of arrival, resulting in my case in a lot of frustrated adults, who were then further aggravated by the group of restless teens on a school trip... Well done Deutsch Bahn. Though like I said, this is the first time they've let me down, so hopefully it was just a one off!
Something I forgot to include is my impression of Poznan... well, let's just say I wouldn't recommend it, though I did only get to wander for about an hour. Still, there are much nicer places to visit.
On my eventual arrival to Krakow - seventeen hours later than I originally intended, because of course, that train was late too - I met up with Josie, Mitch and Steve, who were moments away from calling my mother for fear I'd been kidnapped. During the day we visited Auschwitz, which was well... intense, emotional, shocking, disturbing, overwhelming... I'm going to write a separate post on my own reactions to the visit soon, I just feel that particular one deserves a special amount of time and attention to get it spot on. We also had a little meander around the centre for a few hours in the evening, which I really enjoyed. The atmosphere was lovely and it really is a beautiful place. I'd love to visit again the future and spend a bit more time there.
After my SECOND NIGHT IN A ROW on a sleeper train, we arrived in Vienna around 6.30 and started to explore early. It was nice to visit the castle for a second time and we even got to go in the labyrinth!! Mazes are like one of my favourite things ever in the world ever. However after walking around until lunch time Mitch and I were simply too worn out, especially with the scorching 36*C heat and around just ten hours sleep over the past three days. So now we're chilling for the afternoon in Bratislava whilst Josie and Steve continue to explore Vienna. It's a pretty nice city on first impressions and super cheap which is always a plus. Also, our hostel which is called Patio is so nice, slightly more than we'd usually spend but the showers and rooms are lovely and there is free wifi, computers and a bar/club with a garden. Special thanks to Lisle from Lousiana for the recommendation in Krakow :)
