Polan!

First off I want to introduce you all to my favorite political internet comic. It's called Poland ball, or sometimes Polan ball. It's great, trust me. 

I am writing this entry while sitting in the isle of a moving train. It's a long story, I'll begin from the top.

In terms of trains, Poland is a weird and mysterious place. In most countries I have encountered, the train system is pretty much the same. With my pass, you get onto all of the regional trains and that's that. But, Poland decided that it needed to be different. For example, with my train from Prague to Warsaw, I needed a reservation for a seat from the Czech border to Warsaw, about a two and a half hour journey. The rest of the trip, From Prague to the border, (about six hours) was totally reservation free. Keep in mind I was on the same train, in the same seat the entire time. I paid three euro just to sit exactly where I had been for the past quarter of a day.

Fast forward to today.

I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed expecting the train ride from Warsaw to Krakow to be a two hour breeze.

This is when the Polish transportation system decided that it hated me

I hopped on to a train going in the right direction, as my pass entitles me to, around eleven. Around an hour into the ride, the ticket guy informs me that my pass does not cover this train and that I had to get off at the next possible station. That station was in the middle of nowhere. Great, no biggie, I'll just catch the next train, all I need to do is get a reservation. Boom, the lady at the counter gave me a reservation that didn't cover the entire trip from northern Poland to Krakow for some reason. Still no biggie, although by this point I was really, really annoyed. I was now back in Warsaw and had to either, wait until like nine o'clock, or just buy a ticket that would get me to where I needed to be. The ticket counter made sure to warn me that the train I was buying a ticket for probably didn't have any actual seats but I was welcome to sit in the aisle. So that's where I am now. The train is so full the aisle is packed to the brim with people and every seat is filled. We're all here for the next two hours.

Nice.

It's all for the experience. 

When In doubt, find an Australian.

In my these past few weeks I've come to realize something, the best resource for any situation is to find your current hostel's Australians and bother them.
It's a really solid plan, Aussies tend to know everything and are generally pretty solid people too. Need to know a great bar? Australians.
Need a new group? Australians.
Hungry? Australians.

Wait, don't ask them about food, they have Vegemite.

I actually ended up extending my stay in Hamburg by two days just so I could spend some more time with a group of Australians (and one French guy) I had met up with. The one guy is also a blogger, so in an attempt to gain karma, here's a shameless plug for his blog:

stumpedsincebirth.com

The title is funnier if you read the blog. It'll all come to you after a while.

On to my current whereabouts!
I'm in Warsaw Poland! I got here late! I haven't done anything yet! The city is cloaked in a bank of some of the thickest fog I have ever seen. Everything has a weird ominous feeling to it as a result. I've actually started to wonder if it's smog, I've never seen smog before. It could also be a result of methodical chain smoking. I have never seen a person actually three finger a cigarette before and had chalked it up to seedy looking gangsters in movies. I can now assure you that weird variations of ingesting cancer sticks are alive and well in Poland.

This. They smoke them like this. 

Tomorrow looks good. I have like six museums to go see and a plethora of Polocks to hang out with. 

Really hoping they have kvas here. It's good. Look it up. 

Tourists

I want to make a post now about something near and dear to my heart.
Tourists.
By now you are all thinking to yourselves "Hey wait, isn't Max himself a tourist?"
The answer to that is, yes, But not as much as some of the mega tourists you see everywhere. I only take my large camera out some of the time and have not worn khaki shorts once.
I bring up this topic because of my experience the past couple of days in Prague. European cities are most of the time designed for foot traffic, as that was the way to travel back when the city was in infancy. They now have the problem of adding in car and train traffic which at times can make things very crowded. Especially if it's a touristy area.
It seems that most tourists have no idea how to walk in any sensible fashion as soon as they arrive in the place they are looking to tour. People slow to a shuffle, walk on the wrong side of the path, and at seemingly random intervals just stop where they are to form a phalanx. That's right elderly Germans, I'm looking at you.

Realistic representation of tourists stopping in the middle of the road for a chat. 

All in all, I really didn't mind the crowds. It kind of added to the majesty of the place by suggesting that it's almost a pilgrimage for some people. I even got to hang out with a New Yorker that showed me the key is to just walk fast and not worry about bumping into people. I let him walk in front like an ice breaker. If I lead I began to feel bad and apologize for every little bump. You can take a boy out of Minnesota, but you can't take the Minnesota out of the boy. 

Next stop: Warsaw. 

Wanna see a dead body?

Yesterday I spent most of my time seeing the sights of Prague with a guy named Kevin that I had just met the night prior as he was a room mate of mine. I really do have to say, Prague is exceptionally beautiful. It seems like every other building is historically significant in some way. At home, a lot of people said that it is their favorite place in the entire world, and I don't blame them. It really is an incredible city. Some of the better aspects are that everything is cheap, the city is beautiful, and the people are friendly. Although the city does have it's charm, I also feel like it's rather dirty and not very progressive. I began to think that being a tourist here is the way to go. living here is another story. For instance, I couldn't find a supver market that sold healthy food or had any real variety.
But, I digress from my main point.
Prague is a great city. I can't imagine a person would run out of things to do if they lived here for fifty years.
On to today.
I woke up a man without obligation. The day prior I had seen a cool looking museum and had decided that I should go there. I had no idea what it was as I can't read Czech, but it looked impressive and national museum-y. I got my ticket with my student discount. Which is awesome because I'm not actually a student anywhere. I just kind of have a Northland Community and Technical College I.D. handy.

Turns out it was a museum about death.

Yeah, It came as a shock to me when I walked into the first room and it was a pretty obvious preamble to a larger exhibit on cultural practices of death and dying. I hadn't woken up with a large desire to see a bunch of human remains, but damn it was interesting as hell.

"Oh look, a skull rack"

The majority of the exhibit was dedicated to what dying is, why dying happens, how humans have seen dying throughout the ages, and burial practices. The last part was all about unnatural death (Murder, Suicide) and seemed to be a little kitchy in comparison to the rest of the content. It took a swing to "This is how people buried esteemed elders in ancient Rome" to "HEY LOOK THIS IS A REAL GALLOWS OMGOMG LOOK AT THAT NOOSE HAHAHA".

If you're ever in Prague, I'd recommend finding this place for the death exhibit. It's right at the end of Wenceslas square. You can't miss it, people are just dying to get there. 

AAAAACCCCHHHHHTTTTUUUUUNNNNGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!

In Hamburg I had some time to aimlessly wander without anybody while the rest of my group went to an attraction I had already been to . I decided to follow the pier to wherever it would take me and see if I didn't end up at the fish market. While strolling about I came across what looked like a submarine in the distance. When one sees a submarine, one tends to get closer to further inspect.
It turns out it was a museum...with access to the submarine. Whipping out my student I.D in record time, I quickly bought a ticket from the lady at the counter and prepared to be amazed. I'm a huge fan of the movie "Das Boot", so seeing a U-Boat in the Fatherland Germany was really epic. There were also no other tourists there so I had unrestricted access to the boat.

I will not be ashamed, I had visions of the movie plying through my head the whole time. I may have even whispered ACHTUNG a few times.

Das Boot. 

Also Das Boot. 

The ship itself was amazing. I had no idea how cramped they are. I'm pretty convinced that a tour on one would leave me with a disfigured spine. 

"Okay, not too bad. Kind of annoying"

This is the second nicest galley on the ship. It's meant for noncoms. Seriously. 

I geeked out so hard here. 

........Ping..........Ping........

Torpedo room. Nice and comfy. Pretty sure there were a few beds in here. 

All in all, I'd give it a ten out of ten. I can imagine it would have sucked if you weren't at all interested. It is so far the only tour I have ever been on that required me to lift my body weight and crawl in order to get into the different rooms. 

Prague

Yesterday I woke up with full intentions to go to Copenhagen and begin my adventures in Scandinavia. That plan fell through when I looked at the hostel prices and booking fees for my trains. So, in about ten minutes I picked Prague sort of randomly and just...went there.
It wasn't a bad decision at all.
Prague is Beautiful.
When people talk about going to Europe they always say Prague. Like seriously I think most people told me that when I was preparing to leave. I had always kind of felt that it was maybe too touristy or something of that nature. It is actually tourist central, I won't lie it's terrible. But It doesn't matter when the whole town looks like a fairy tale. So, without further stalling, have some pictures. You've been good. You deserve them.

The whole city is just gorgeous. 

Got hot chocolate. Was actually just melted chocolate. Was not disappointed.

What eastern European city is complete without a mirror maze?

More Prague. This time river style. 

I haven't forgotten! I swear!

At the time of this writing I am sitting in my Hostel in Hamburg. I had no real intentions of actually staying in Hamburg. I was originally going to go directly from  Amsterdam to Copenhagen. But, while sitting in the Amsterdam train station I quickly changed my mind when I saw the amount of time I would have to spend in a train and saw the reservation fee. Hamburg is closer and in that respect a much more appealing stop. I also did not intend to stay here for four days. It was just the place that I was to stay for the night to make the trip more bearable. I will now be here for four days. It's really funny how hostel friend groups work. Every single one of them is the absolute best. You'll probably leave them feeling a little sad and that there couldn't possible be anyone else you would like to hang out with in this entire continent.

But,

At the next hostel, you will definitely find more people that are also super cool and you want to spend time with. That simple fact is why this trip has been one of the best experiences of my life and I've only just begun.

Anyway, the next post I do will have pictures. I promise.