Drinking with the Polish....Oh Dear!

After leaving Gdansk I headed down to Warsaw where I spent a few days in Polands capital. While it was a nice enough city, there wasnt really anything that set it apart from any other. Part of the reason was that it was completely bombed during the war and rebuilt, thus everything is really new so lacks the history. There were some good museums however, highlighting what the locals went through in the war, but apart from that, very little to do. Met some cool people and had a couple of reasonable nights out, but other then that, Warsaw could be given a miss!

From Warsaw I spent one night in Lublin, a quiet town to the south East. Another that fell into the "nice but kinda boring" catagory. The next three days, however, would be anything but!

After Lublin, I headed east to meet Aga, a Polish girl that I worked with at the Ivy House in Tonbridge, who headed back to her home town, Chelm, for a weeks holiday. I spent the three days doing only three things. The first was eating. From the moment I stepped through the door, Aga's mother "forced" me to eat. No 2 minute noodles for me on this weekend!!

The second was drinking. Oh how we drank. All three nights I was there we were drinking combinations of Beer along with regular shots of Vodka. I'm not much of a vodka drinker, but I was told it was rude to refuse! I hate to be rude!! But man these people can down their vodka!

The final thing I did in those three days, was be very hungover. I havent had hangovers like that for a long time (at least since Berlin!). Even when I got on the bus to Warsaw to catch my connection to Vilnius I was in danger of losing my breakfast.

It was a great three days spent with actual locals rather then other backpackers.

I've since come to Vilnius, arriving at 3.30am yesterday morning and it was COLD. I thought it was cold earlier....my god!! Not even above zero for the whole day! Anyways, getting in earlier then i thought was a bad thing. I headed to a hostel hoping it would be open, and to my joy it was. There was a problem though, as the reception desk was closed. So I basically decided to sleep in reception for a few hours until the receptionist turned up.

After half an hour or so, one of the other guests, a Kiwi dude, came out and said that there was a free bed in his dorm so I should just crash in there. I did and got a much more comfortable couple of hours sleep! I then though had the problem of explaining to the receptionist in the morning that I had already been there, but "needed to check in".

Since being here, I got to see my first pro basketball game since I left Aus, heading out to see the local team play a Euro Cup match against a Serbian team. The local team had Matt Neilsen, one of Australia's best players, which added to the event. I tell ya it was good to finally see some top quality hoops again! I feel at peace!

Ok, well I have now less then 2 weeks before heading back to Belle and Mark's place in Wiltshire, and in that time I've got Riga, Tallin and possibly Helsinki on the agenda!