33 hours from Cologne to Krakow... Say WHAT?!

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 :)

Vienna Day 2: The Heuriger and Flex

Our second day in Vienna wasn't particularly eventful but we had fun all the same. The weather was pretty horrible so we decided to go and spend the day at a place called a Heuriger, a wine tavern typical to east Austria where it is traditional to go and taste the wines of the season. We spent around five hours there, drinking wine and playing cards. It was the chilled out day we needed after being pretty much none stop up until then.

As we were all already quite tipsy, we decided we might as well carry on and see what Vienna's night life had to offer. There was a table football competition in the lobby that Pete, Tom and Jake decided to take part in which resulted in us meeting a load of people from the hostel to go out with that night. As the people were from all over europe, this meant I got to learn bits of new languages, namely icelandic, which I found very exciting. We headed to a club called 'Flex' which is usually an electronic club but it turns out it had a special indie/rock night on, with loads of english music, so that suited us perfectly.

The bathroom wall was made entirely out of sweets... :D

As we were foreigners we also got a chance to go on the stage with the DJ set, which was pretty cool!

There was cool graffiti all over the walls near the club as it was down by the river side, so we wanted a picture with it.

Turns out that Vienna is a really good night out, if you know where to look! It appears that most of the clubs do electronic and dance music, which really isn't my cup of tea, but on the whole austrians are a really friendly and helpful people (or so I found anyway) so it's always worth asking around. Also if you want to practise your German, I've found that unlike other european countries, they will let you have a go and not reply in English as soon as they detect a slight hesitation or accent.

Vienna Day 1: Rathaus Film Festival

Once returning from the Jazz Bar, we managed to get around three hours sleep before waking up to various phone alarms. Our bus was at 6.30am but we still had to find out where we were getting it from and some people still hadn't packed. Luckily we still had time to munch on Burger King bacon and cheese sandwiches that Ben and I, as we are wonderful human beings (and the only ones with any czech money left) decided to treat everyone to.

Our bus company was AWESOME. The journey from Prague to Vienna is about four and a half hours, for which we paid 16€. For that price we got complimentary hot drinks, reclining seats and individual TV screens, with games, music, TV shows and movies (both in English and Czech). The company was called the Student Company, if anyone is interested in travelling in or out of the Czech Republic, I'd definitely recommend them.

When we arrived in Vienna we were rather sleepy, so after a few hours of relaxing and settling into our new hostel, we decided to go and visit the Rathaus (town hall). As Lauren has a friend who lives in Vienna, we had a big list of all the best things to see and do whilst there. It was really useful as our hostel was rather a long way out of town, so we could decide on our heading before leaving, rather than wandering around aimlessly, which is much easier to do when you are closer to the centre. I'll post it as a separate post after this one, if anyone is interested in having a look :)

The Rathaus is a really grand and beautiful building. Somehow we had managed to time our trip so we arrived during another festival, this time the Rathaus Film Festival. Although this meant we couldn't get a full frontal view of the Rathaus, as there was a giant projector screen propped up in front of it, there was a really cool atmosphere about the place. They had various international food stalls behind where the films were screened and big posters advertising what showing was on each night. We settled on returning later on to watch an opera in german called 'Der Freischütz - Hunter's Bride', but first we decided to explore a little more.

Unfortunately the Cathedral wasn't as spectacular as we hoped as there was a great deal of scaffolding with a billboard stuck on the front, obscuring a large portion of it from view. It was still pretty impressive though, so I'd like to see it once they've finished the cleaning, or whatever they're doing.

The open air opera (that's what we've decided to call it, so we sound extra cultured) was pretty incredible, even if we didn't understand much of what was going on. We resorted to making up our own story lines and guessing what the characters were saying and therefore found the whole thing thoroughly entertaining. We probably should have picked something that was showing in english, but then that would have been cheating wouldn't it?

N.B. We also sampled the curry wurst. Unfortunately I have to say that it's not as good as in Germany. Sorry Austria.