Poland: Olsztyn, Gdańsk, Toruń, Poznań

Ok... this has got to be the most out of date blog on the planet, but I still want to tell you about my continued adventures in Poland ( I will tell you about my current situation shortly).

After Estonia we had a plan to hitch hike all the way to Poland in two days. This plan failed spectacularly and we ended up getting a night bus from Riga to Białystok. From here we hitch hiked to Olsztyn where we spent a few nights with a couple of fantastic people (one of which I think I have man crush on...) One of the coolest things I noticed was the old soviet style apartment buildings had some very cool paint jobs done, including massive (3m+) high street numbers painted on them. Very handy. Sorry you can't see the numbers on the below photo.


From Olsztyn I embarked on my first solo hitch hiking experience where I pretty speedily (and in once case a little too speedily with a crazy pole in a rattling old Mercedes) got to Gdańsk. Gdańsk is a pretty darn cool city, it has a massive historical centre and a cool history to match (Being part of German mercantile leagues, part of Germany [known to them as Danzig] and the odd solidarity movement). I stayed with some hippies in a small cottage in the middle of a forest somewhere which was incredible. I was once again stunned by other peoples (complete strangers) hospitality. And I even got a chance to get some gardening done.. my first real work in months (if not years).
From Gdańsk I took a sneaky train to Malbork which has the largest medieval castle in Poland. It was well worth the two hour detour.

Hitch hiked from here to Toruń which is a very cool town, again one with a whole lot of history to offer (heaps of churches and it is the birth place of Copernicus). Had fun relaxing and exploring there. On the way there got a sweet ride with a truck driver who was on his way to Hungary. He magically pulled a beer from a sneaky fridge in the truck and gave it too me... right then I was living the definition of living the dream: Getting a free ride with in a massive truck, drinking a free beer, talking Polish to a fantastic Pole driving around Poland on a beautiful autumn day. Damn... could I be any luckier?

Toruń at dusk.

My luck ran out... I got to Poznań and watched the Rugby World Cup quarter final... my plans for Paris and the semi's were slowly being changed to a week recovering from the lose in Amsterdam. These things happen though, onwards and upwards I guess. Poznań was very cool, I don't have any super photos but I had a fantastic time there in art galleries, pubs, bars, clubs, sheesha lounges and an apartment jungle.

From here I hitch hiked to Berlin, which will be the next post, perhaps tomorrow if you are lucky... what an adventure that was. To finish: here is a photo of me and my fantastic host in Toruń, you can take from this what you like, I learnt that I am massive, she is not so massive, and I am a very bad photographer. Boy Henry James would be proud of the number of commas in that sentence (perhaps a public blog is not the best place for a joke only Andy would get?).