euro 2009

Hello again, and i do apologise for the late replies if you are one of my devoted readers... Which by the way if you are a devoted weekly reader... (get a f@#$ing life) haha no just kidding but its pretty sad if you can't find anything else interesting to look at or read in the world... SO ENOUGH OF THAT THEN!!! I have been having soo much fun in the past 2 WEEKS... where do i start.. lets turn back the clock and remember the date of 12th October 2009.. it was a cold brisk evening on the rocky shores of the latvian coastline when, a spark of light glistened like a beacon through the fogs of the harbour... eh... ok thats just something i made up.. that didn't really happen.. but it was actually really freaking cold in Riga... ok so after getting dropped to riga from my friend Maarja which is the greatest girl in the world for doing so after I missed my bus.. you may have read in the past episode... Well now i was planning to meet with a Russian friend 'NATASHA' from Moscow and hang out for a week while still heading south in the Baltic's. Long story short, met natasha and her friend in cuba a few years ago, and i said if i am ever in this part of the world i will come and visit... well i didn't go to russia but she did come to riga.. so it worked out... We walked the streets of riga, looked at some cool churches in old town... watched a 3d movie.. you know the usual things you do when u have a week of travel with someone.. haha Ok so I introduced Natasha to my world of Couchsufing.. which I kinda though was an absolute riot... lol... I completely didnt think that if someone only get a short amount o holidays per year they generally want to lux it up a bit and stay in nice hotels and eat at nice restaurants.. etc... ah... well I hope you had as much fun as I did Natasha but the last couple of nights where luxury... haha. This experiement went well as we met this amazing girl and her family by the name of agne... I wont even try to attempt her surname... just google it or something.. haha we met her and stayed the first night at her house with her 2 other flat-mates.. we had a nice evening, then the next day we headed to trakù to Agne's family home which is beautiful by the way out in the country. I originally believed Agne lived in a castle, but I just misinterpreted everything about her email.. which was in perfect english... ah yeah so agne decided to take us for a hike into the 'wilderness' of lithuania (yeah i was scared) and waiting for someone too come up and abduct us, but Agne assured us it was gong to be perfectly fine... The 'tour' was to take about 30 minutes... turned into about 2 hours... we watched a beautiful sunset... just after the snow stopped and rain prevailed.. and eh... then we had to get back... hence the sun already setting... we only had my pathetic little light on my cell phone so it was time to hurry. I could hear the packs of hungry wolves closing in and wanting to feast on our icicle bodies... Well ok there were no wolves, but there were definitely some crazy ass dogs somewhere. As we were freezing, wet and hungry we made our way for the end of the path, along the way agne was explaining that if we were lost and had to stay the night we could feed on these little plants called Rabbit Cabbage... Ah i think she got mistaken with clover.. it just looked like little clovers.. haha And you would need about 50 000 to make a snack... mmm tasty.. So luckily we didn't get stuck in the forrest, we made it out eventually but it was black as black when we arrived to the house. Next day we explored trakù. Now, you can't get lost in this little town there is literally one street.. and we nearly got lost... don't ask me how.. otherwise I wouldn't have got lost would I... hmmm the castle was amazing.. and very well maintained. The town was quiet, but the people are very friendly there. It has a lot of history too which was nice to learn about, just don't ask me to repeat any history... eh... I need time to remember.. huh!! Time was coming to a close before Natasha was to be deported back to mother russia and i was heading to warsaw to stay with an australian guy.. yes thats right... I know what your thinking... (Deported) ok she was just catching a train ok... oh and yeah 16000kms to hang out with another australian.. so why am I moving to vancouver again...??? We spend the remaining nights at a cool hotel in vilnius old town near the gates of dawn... or what immature people like myself like to refer to as the crack of dawn... haha... please don't all laugh at once... The eve of our departures, I decided to cook some food for everyone, natasha, agne and their roomates as a thank you for having us... I hope it was ok... I think the potato bake was more like an insult... It took about a week to cook the damn thing, then i burnt it... and eh well... The girls happily ate it, but I think they were wishing they had a dog to feed it too under the table haha. On the other hand.. the creamy mushroom and whitewine fench country chicken went well... Just wish i could have matched with the damn potatos. Never mind next time... The evening was a hoot with laughter, laughter and more laugher about nothing in particular.. I think I used regular mushrooms... eh... I picked them myself from the forrest walk little did anyone know, haha.. eh just kidding I wouldn't have thought if that quick enough... Good bye, fair well.. ill see again in the future, where the words used when departing from natasha, agne and vilnius en route to Poland. Now poland is part of the EU, they are an emerging progressive society and they are proud people. I like the thought of this. Well at least before I entered the country. WARNING!!! be very careful when traveling on a train on your own across country boarders. This is what happened.. I was tired and I have a gimp knee (and no not like pulp fiction kinda gimp) more like ex footballer too old, should have looked after his injuries better kinda gimp. Yeah so I have had problems with it, since I am walking a lot and usually upto 3-4 kms per day with about 25-30 kgs depending on what animals decide to hide in my bags at any time. So my feet where on the edge of the seat in a cabin.. on my own and yes i should not have had my feet on the seats... I know this, but I did it and there was no signs saying not to do it. well at least no pictures.. so hear is a lame joke for you... Guess which part relates to me... Ok so 2 polish boarder police officers walk into a cabin and abuse (verbally) this young australian guy for having is feet on the seat. In polish of course.. The australian was embarrassed and obviously sorry removed his feet from the seats. This made the police angrier.. but continued to ask for his passport. He hands it to them and the second police officer walks up, not more than 3 minutes after the first, fat officer has told this aussie to take his feet off the seat, and continues to yell at him again for having had them there.. Ok so if he didn't get it in polish he needed to hear it again in broken english.. Ok, so he gets it.. NO FEET ON SEATS.. finished... there was awkward silence for a moment, then the police wrote some things on a piece of paper and asked the man for polish money. 'do you polish'... ah.. yeah thats exactly what I thought when i first heard that... Ah sorry come again miastro... DO U HAVE POLISH MONEY... oh thank god.. it was money he wanted... but no said the australian...He explained he had just come from lithuania, he had no polish money yet... YOU PAY 50ZL NOW!!! Now the aussie knew you didn't need to pay, but what would they do... arrest him...? ahh... no they yell at him AGAIN.... for the 4th time about having feet on seats and walk away... Now this is not actually a joke as you can tell this shit happened to a friend of a friend of mine... huh!! But the drama of my adventures did not expire there in the train on the boarder... Because they were destined to follow me all the way to warsaw... not the police, just my string of bad luck... Because next I was told to get off the train at the wrong stop. It is difficult to find the names of the stations when you are on the opposite side of the train, and the only sign is about 200 meters away.. I had to get off the train to check, double check and by the time I finally found the sign.. the train was leaving.. and I was ofcourse at the wrong stop... It was warsaw, but I was about 3 stops or 10 kms from where I needed to be. Now remember I have no money in polish so I need a bank... This station is a bit derelict.. the atm convientently has no money and the information person doesn't speak english.. Maybe there will be a bank on the outer building. Ah no just an old man about 60-70 getting beaten up by police. The police seem real nice in this part of the world.. Hha... So I walked back inside, it was currnetly about -1 C. and I was hungry and just wanted to go to sleep at this point, which i considered doing in a quiet, out-of-the-way area just away from the crowds... But I knew i'd get woken by police, beaten and asked for money again.. so that wasn't a good idea.. I figured I needed to try again with my crap little map in hand I showed the ticket women where I wanted to go, but she was of no help... Luckily an old polish man standing right next to me offered to help.. But he kinda looked like the man from Hostel... Luckily he wasn't eating chicken salad at the time, but he offered to take me to get a ticket... I told him i have no money as the atm won't work, and I can only pay by credit... He said he would pay for me to travel there to the city, direct me to the train track and see me on my way... And thats exactly what he did. This man was a godsend, i was already late for meeting with my cs host Paulina. So they told me I needed to meet them at 'the palm tree' oh so easy, the palm tree... Im thinking a restaurant or bar called the palm tree... No literally there is a big plastic palm tree in warsaw where i had to catch a tram to, but I just thought it was a tree and didn't recognise the connection. I waited and finally met with Paulina, and as normal... we where in town already. i had 2 bags and a pet rabbit (ok so there wasn't a rabbit, but it would be pretty cool traveling with a rabbit don't you think?) so why not go to a bar and drink with all my bags... it turned out to be just the right thing I needed.. oh and some zaepikanka... i have no idea if thats close or not... but when you are hungry these things are cheap... and huge... like a long bread roll halved and topped with cheese, sauce and some other things.. probably best not to know... but it was good... Made it back safe and sound to Paulina's home with the other couchsurfer staying there from dublin and sat up talking for a few hours before finally heading to bed to then get up about 6 hours later to head back into the city and meet my new host raymond (from australia). But first I had to catch a bus in the rain... the bus driver short changed me.. but what ever...!! and then i woke up raymond 1/2 hour early and i don't think he was too happy... But we ended up having fun, walking around the city.. Sitting in cafes and people watching, eating street vendor foods and talking... I actually have finally met someone in the world that talks as much if not more than I do... I even talk in my sleep but Raymond... wow he is like the talker of all talkers... I feel very inadequate and slightly lost for words in his presence... But we had loads of fun, he gave me loads of useful information about the city and history before parting ways for me to head to krakow.. But thats for another story.. So i will leave you with this word of advice.... TAKE YOUR F@#$ING FEET OF THE GOD FOR SAKEN SEAT DAMMIT!!!!!! adios until next time shushu shushuk