What better way to celebrate the end of your degree, but by getting the hell outta there and flee to central europe. My fat friend EK is also finishing up her time in Europe, so in order to max out her time here before returning to her home country, she and I decided on the most student friendly travel route in europe to go on, as a nice way to finish off the year. When i say student friendly, i refer to EK’s general passion for cheap things, hence central europe seemed a smart choice.

I just got back yesterday to Bath, very tired and wish to live life as a solitary but happy little hermit in my room, avoiding the godforsaken sun that has revelled joyfully in punishing me the last couple of weeks.

So of course i will blog about my travel. Right now im a little withered, very tanned (a lot of it against my will, watch my mum rant at me for my abnormally dark skin at graduation) but twas great fun, even though at times it was tiring and incredibly hot and stuffy over there. Don’t regret any of it (apart from booking three different things for ‘july’ not ‘june’…and also for deleting over one hundred of EK’s pictures by accident..) so here I live to tell the tale and show off some pictures 🙂 first off, the wonderful and surprising place that is Poland!

Warsaw, Polska 2006

Warsaw was very surprising for me. EK even commented that it seemed even more modern than Singapore, and in some aspects it is. On the right is a pic of me in Stare Miasto which is the old town. its more touristy here than anywhere else, cos other areas are tall commercial buildings, department stores and shopping boulevards. Despite all that, everything remains dead cheap, more so than prague, and you get to eat like a queen on a good budget. Its strange considering that walking through some streets, it feels very upmarket and cosmopolitan, boutiques and cafes teeming everywhere.

A thing that Poles love, is their space. By that i mean they love parks, green spots, places where they can chill and rollerblade or just sit and relax. This park here is one of the biggest in Warsaw if not the biggest, it has a fountain in middle and a walkway bordered by sculptures of people i’ve frankly never heard of.

When we were in Poland, we met and were shown round by EK’s friend Ewa. She took us to the famous E.Wedel cafe, where they have a multitude of drinking chocolates to choose from. That place is crazy, death by chocolate can’t be far away.

Ewa was very keen to show us a typical polish village, so we went to her boyfriend’s place, who’s family were very keen to acommodate us. The great thing about it is that they own a huuuuge cherry farm. Heaven that grows on trees. Unfortunately it was a few weeks too early for us to indulge but hey that didn’t stop us. The family were even nice enough to pick a whole bag of cherries for us to take on our journey!

We finished off our trip to the cherry farm with some homemade cherry wine which we drunk in small shot glasses, sweet and strong but good and warm.

After our little glee on the cherry farm, Ewa let us crash at her place for a night in Radom, an hour or so from Warsaw in a nice little suburb. Her mother cooked us up a huge filling polish dinner with at least three different sorts of meats, which is v popular in those parts. On the left is Ewa, me and Suno, a Japanese visitor who was also a friend of Ewa.

I need to mention the dog. It was an adorable and very excitable dachshund, which thundered around the house on its little stumpy legs. EK, who is not the most eager fans of dogs, said you could hear it bolting across the floorboards towards you a mile away. And it scared her, haha.

Family pic on the right, just before we went to catch the Krakow train. EK especially wanted to stand next to Ewa’s mum, because of the sheer cooking amazingness she conjured up the night before. Check out the sausage dog. Adorable, right?

So goodbyes all around and then off to catch our train to the south of poland, to Krakow, which I have to admit may have been my favourite city of the trip. So, another blog then..