Road trip to Europe: part 4

Poland, once we were finally there, was really cool. It was nowhere near as cold as I thought it would be. In fact, I think it's possibly colder here. Our first priority was to get in the shower and change our clothes. I was so glad that I had exfoliating soap. I think I shed an entire laying of skin.

Gdansk nightlife doesn't really compare to London's. We'd made a list of all the bars we wanted to go to, and we tried them all out. We were drinking the nicest drink- Zubrowka with apple juice. Two of these drinks only cost 13 zloty (just over £2) and we probably drank about 15 of these on the first night alone. Some of the places we went to while in Gdansk:

- Cafe Mariacka: run by a husband and wife, this chintzy little cafe served up cabbage dumplings (for me) and sausages (for K). The owners gave us a postcard of the cafe, which had a photo of them standing proudly behind the bar.

- another cafe on Mariacka (the cutest street in the world), with quite a cute barman. We got some more food and zubrowka here. I had cheese soup, which sounds horrible, but was actually really nice. If I had a cafe, I'd want it to look just like this.

- Cafe Absinthe: this one took us quite a long time to find, and when we got there, there was nowhere to sit. We perched on the end of a table where some very moody boys were sitting. I can imagine it being quite cool later but it was a little souless when we were there.

- Plastykon: this place was pretty cool. It was quite dingy, and had big comfy sofas. We managed to nab the nicest one, and settled down into it, zubrowka in hand.

- Club 80's: what a fantastic idea, a club playing only 80's music. We loved this one, we danced until five in the morning. This is where we met Magit #1. He was trying- I emphasise the word TRYING- to chat us up, but he was doing a particularly poor job of it. His English wasn't great, so if we said something too quickly (which was most things, to be fair) he would stop us with the immortal line: "again.... and slow". He wouldn't believe that K was from the UK. I asked him if Poland had ethnic minorities and he said that of course they did, they had Ukrainians and Germans. We didn't see any black or asian people the whole time we were there- except at the airport!! At one point, we saw the most blatant prostitute, dancing with quite a smug looking man in a leather jacket. Classy. Oh, and K got hit on by a lesbian.

- Soda cafe: we had some really nice food here. The place was decorated like a christmas grotto. They had possibly the coolest baubles I've ever seen- glass, with a white feather inside. They were gorgeous.

- Yesterday: an indie club, made fabulous by us meeting Magit #2 and Artur. We had a real blast dancing with them. They had a friend with them who wouldn't speak, and didn't even take his coat off. Magit was so funny, when he didn't understand a word he would repeat it, as a question. He asked us where we worked... the conversation went a little like this:

"It's in the government"

"Government??"

"You know what the parliament is?"

"Parliament??"

"Hmmm... where the prime minister works"

"Minister??"

"Like the president..."

"You are president???"

"No no no... Okay, you know the White House?"

"You work in White House??"

"No, but like the British version of that... kind of..."

I danced mainly with Artur, who was so funny. We did lots of comedy dancing.

- Amber shops on Mariacka: these were lovely. There was some really nice stuff. There was also some really tacky, awful stuff. Like model boats made out of amber.

- Matarnia shopping outlet: it was astandard out-of-town shopping outlet... except it had a pet shop! There were the tiniest hamsters I have ever seen, no bigger than my thumb. Better still, there were chinchillas! K was completely hooked by these little furry bundles. She wants to get one, though she did point out that they were the only other living beings with slanty eyes that we'd seen in Poland!

- Green Way: the most amazing vege restaurant. It was ridiculously cheap, for a huge mountain of delicious, filling vege food and salads. Freshly squeezed orange juice, too.

In all, we had a really good time. We took taxis most places, as they were so cheap. We didn't always get Hello Taxis, but we much preferred them, just for the name.

We're going to go back to Poland. I think we're going to plan a week long mini-interrail, with T and other people. That would be a lot of fun, we could have a whole room in a hostel. I'm not sure when that would be though, as I'm completely. I love travelling, I need to do more of it. Next time I won't take so much stuff though. I only had a small rucksack and a shoulder bag, but I could have got away with having far less. If we go in summer, then all I need is a couple of changes of tshirts, and maybe some shorts, as well as my washbag. I'm going to see just how little I can get away with travelling with.

But that will have to wait... I must stop going on the Ryanair website...