Along the way; Poznań

I came home from my travels yesterday. I felt an actual relief when I got on a polish train after leaving Prague. Seeing the lights of the Twierdza and coming home to see that my faltmate had been cooking.. home. It's also nice to be back at work. The children couldn't leave me alone and I walked around school with a few 7-year-olds hanging on my sleeve all day. That's happiness.

 

As I walked to the Klodzko Miasto train station at 6 am on saturday, it reminded me of walking to school back in Finland. It was still dark and raining lightly, everything was quiet and still. I had my backpack packed on my back (try to repeat that fast) and I felt awake and excited. I bought the ticket for the train and sat at the station with just a handful of people waiting with me. At this point I  had no other plans than to get on the train and try to get off at the right station in a few hours.
10 minutes after I boarded the train I fell asleep and slept all the way to Wroclaw.

I did get off at the right station. Still, I got off the train station from the wrong side and walked around like an idiot and after I asked for directions to the centre from one gentleman he just laughed politely and asked me for how long I had been walking. I turned around and tried again (but actually I did end up sleeping in this side of town). Sometimes I think I should do some research before I go to a whole new city without a place to sleep or any idea where to go. There are at least 15 hostels in Poznań. Still they only have a limited amount of beds and if they are going to have a big-ass marathon on the weekend, they fill up quickly. Just something I learned while walking around for 5 hours desperately looking for signs. Sorry, we're full.

After a while of walking in circles I realized that maybe the reason for returning to the same place over and over again was that Sensei had the position as the map reader. I took charge and we headed for the other side of town, where we got lost for the first time. I was walking on the street, almost giving up, and then I saw it... Somewhere in the distance... At this point I thought to myself that it might be just a hallucination. I went closer and there it was; a yellow and black sign stating: HOSTEL. Thanks for the lovely Cinema Paradiso (click) , and some reservation cancelling stranger I didn't end up homeless that night.

In my opinion, this time of year is great for travelling. Not so many tourists everywhere, and everything is so beautiful. And I just have to enjoy it while I can, for now the leaves are almost all gone.

Poznań is one of the oldest cities in Poland, located in the west-central area, about 260 km from my current cousy hometown Kłodzko, population in the city around 550,000 people. In comparison, theres under 30,000 people in Kłodzko. At first I was kind of shocked about the fact that there's so much people... and they speak english. And there's a lot of tourists. And the polish people they won't even give me the weird look when I order something in english or ask for directions. All this offered me again a whole new point of view on Poland. 

 

  

 

It's a beautiful city, as is every polish city I've seen so far. But one thing I've noticed is that Poland really is a country of many contrasts. They have this beautiful old architecture, and all these beautiful parks they put so much effort into; they're filled with fountains and so detailly paved trails and plantings. After all this they build these new modern buildings just around them; beside these buildings youcan always see wherever you look at least one half-demolished abandoned building which seems like they just forgot it there and someone will take care of it -someday.

I didn't actually go sightseeing that much. In the night I just walked around town (not really fast or even that much, for my feet were killing me for the walking I did during the day). The city was lively, probably a good place to have a night out. And I did some amateur camera shooting, oczywiście.

I had a plan for the next morning; go to the bus station, buy a ticket for the bus to Berlin (because you were supposed to get one the day before, but didn't bother to check the opening hours of the ticket office), and get on your way. That was the plan. About 9 a.m. I started walking towards the train station; supposing that the bus station would be somewhere around. It's only logic, just not so common in Poland. On my way I ran into this situation. The reason for all my misery the day before. And also blocking my way to the station. Finally when I got there I had to find the actual bus station, which was located, well, not there. At this point I still felt cheerful and didn't mind walking around some more. Anyway I did actually get on the bus after some trouble with english, polish, tickets and timetables. I sat on the bus, waved Poznań goodbye and we were on our way to Berlin.