Wroclaw, part II

Wroclaw, as always, is incredibly pretty. Criminally underrated, as most Polish cities are.

I actually didn't take as many photos of Wroclaw as I would have liked to, since I spent far too much time on other things. I spent almost an entire afternoon searching for a sewing kit, since one of my flipflops had broken and I didn't want to buy a new pair. It's amazing how many things fell apart during this trip: my H&M bag which I had to throw away in Vienna, my flipflops, my leggings, practically everything. After spending hours looking for a sewing kit, I then had to spend another hour in the hostel fixing my broken flipflop. Also, the new bag I'd bought at Keplerplatz was falling apart, so I had to mend that too. I guess that's what you get for 15 euros. On the bright side, Wroclaw was so incredibly hot that it was nice to go back to the hostel and do some quiet sewing and cool down.

That was another thing I noticed about this trip, the continental weather. For the first half of my trip, up to Prague, the weather was unbearably hot. It was like being in an oven, or even back in Taiwan. Only exception was Vienna, where it was uncharacteristically cold, and Dresden, where it was also decidedly cooler. Starting from Nuremberg, it started to get very cold indeed, going into the minuses when I was in Hallstatt and Salzburg.

But back to Wroclaw and its picturesque old town, which I would have dearly liked to spend more time in, but it was Berlin the next day.

The town hall again, which I can never get enough of.

The town square, which was peaceful and serene.

One of those red-bricked cathedrals which has those typical colourful tile roofs that's so commonly seen in this part of the world.

Dinner.

Will's blood sausage.

The second night was fully booked and that was when things got a bit out of hand. A Polish traveller named Pavlov treated us all to vodka and someone decided we should all play truth and dare. Truth actually wasn't that fun since we didn't know enough about each other to ask shocking questions and hear equally shocking revelations, but dare got progressively cheekier as the night grew older. One of our roommates, a Turk, told us we were too noisy and we ended up sitting in a bathroom to finish the vodka and dare. Jake tried to make Will put his glasses in the bog but I put my foot down firmly on that one. As the booze continued to flow and everyone got increasingly drunk, the dares got more and more outrageous. Since I had a rather early bus to catch the next morning, I had to leave the scene fairly early, and by all accounts that was when Dare got really out of hand.

Got up at the crack of dawn the next morning after getting less than three hours of sleep. Whilst you're backpacking, there's always THAT early bus to catch in the morning..

As I went into the kitchen to make myself one last cup of coffee from their very excellent coffee maker (that's the first thing I'm buying when I get a place of my own), I was rather surprised to bump into Jake. I hadn't expected anyone to be up at 4 other than me, much less him. We ended up having one of those conversations you usually see in bohemian films premiered at the Cannes film festival. Lots of musings on carpe diem, 'gather ye rosebuds,' and the temporality of time and space.

Took the DE BAHN bus to Berlin, and came up with a whopping cold there, but that's the stuff of my next entry. Enjoyed my bus ride immensely - buses >>>> trains any day. Trains are way more expensive and incredibly uncomfortable. Buses are the way to go.