Warszawa, part III - Dream Hostel, again

Second morning, Warszawa. What does this morn bring?

I woke up, said hi to Yao, the Chinese girl in my room, and we shared that affable and distant camaraderie that often exists between two amiable strangers in hostel rooms. Yao was my age and was slightly plump, but very nice. I washed and went downstairs to the Carrefour express next door to get myself some milk, made myself some coffee, and then took it and my phone to the top floor, where the common room was.

I usually don't include my phone pictures in this blog but it seems that I didn't take any pictures of the common room, the bar or the kitchen, which I cannot believe, by the way, and I can't write about this without pictures, so here goes. And this will be a phone photo entry, which is probably a first. And this feels weird.

Starting this off with a view from my bunk. Lower bunk, as always, because that's how I roll.

And then I went up to the common room area.

View from the sofa. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the sofa itself, but it was super comfy. The perfect surface to fling yourself upon after a long day walking around.

Breakfast bar.

I'd done quite a bit of walking around that morning in the Stare Miasto, and then breakfasting, and then shortly after I went down to the Carrefour, again, to get some frozen pierogi for about 2 euros, and microwave it into something very edible and acceptable. The kitchen was very nice.

I remember standing here and chatting with two Aussies and a Brit who reminded me of a more pompous, less handsome, posh version of Jake. He studied social geography, he said, and the Aussies said, oh so like mountains and hills. No, the pompous young Brit said (he was 18, so slightly older than Jake was when I met him, but he seemed much younger to me now than Jake did when I met him 3 years ago - though I suppose that's unsurprising), it's the study of how humans and the natural terrain interact with each other, diasporas, etc etc. He also had a slightly unfortunate name - Barney, short for Barnabas. I'm slightly ashamed to say that I burst out laughing when I heard his name - is that your real name, I said. Yeah, it is. You can call me Barney for short. Oh, like the purple dinosaur, I said, and I tried not to giggle too hard. Now that I look back on this, not one of my proudest moments, but he really did need taking down a peg or three, he was so pompous and desperate to show off. There was also an incredibly overweight American girl from Texas there who was a year older than me, and heartily cooking her pasta. I'm bad at pasta cooking so I have no further comment on that, but I did remember wondering if it was ever inconvenient, having to travel as a fat person. She'd miss out on all the fun of falling in love with hawties on the road, and being fallen in love with, and so on.

The clock ticked on to 1300, and I felt very lazy. I was planning on seeing one of the museums - either Museum of the History of Polish Jews or Fryderyk Chopin Museum - but didn't feel up to it just yet. There was barely anyone left in the hostel. Most of them, I imagined, were out by now. I thought a bit about whether I wanted to get another soft ice or not, and went out, back to the sofa area, and flung myself down. I didn't notice a girl who was already there, and I hastily backed off, apologising - didn't see anyone there, whoops, my bad et al. The girl grinned and said no worries, and introduced herself as Lital. Good vibes, I thought - like Rosa and Nadja. I knew without asking that she was most definitely younger than me (which she was), and frowned a bit as I couldn't place her accent. Her English was far too good, and had a slight American twang, but she was about as American as I was Polish. It turned out she was from Israel, and she'd just arrived. I liked her - she reminded me of myself, precocious, young, a bit cheeky, very well spoken, and she also liked Harry Potter and the MBTI. I wondered what Jake would make of her if they ever met, but somehow I don't think they would have liked each other very much. We sat there and accidentally talked for about an hour before we said, whoops - must dash, museums to visit, soft ices to eat, hawties to have drinks with. We'll see each other then, we said, and we exchanged emails and went off.