Polska!

Today I added another country to my trip, though it wasn't on purpose. I'll start from the beginning...

This morning I got up, tip-toed around my sleeping roommates yet again, and headed the Berlin Hauptbahnhoff to catch a train for my admittedly quite random day trip. I felt like going somewhere a bit different and after some Internet searching last night I decided I would take the train to Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. This is by the Frankfurt you are all thinking of. Frankfurt (Oder) is a small city (well town really) near the Polish border. I hopped on the train heading to Warsaw around 9:30am and made the short journey of about 1h15m. When I arrived in Frankfurt I quickly realized my big mistake: I read that it was a nice place to visit, but I didn't look to see where I should go from the train station or exactly what I should do terr! Oops! So I began my day by aimlessly wandering through a town in which I knew next to nothing. It was quite a nice little place and was quiet and clean. I found a nice park, some cool buildings, had a yummy pretzel, and strolled along the river Oder a bit. During that stroll is when I spotted the bridge!

I had seen that Frankfurt was near the border, but for some reason I thought there was no chance it was actually within walking distance. Once I saw that the flag of Poland was flying on the other side of said bridge (see my seemingly useless knowledge of every world flag is good for something!) I made a mad dash (that was more of a leisurely walk) to the bridge. It was a bit of a disappointment that there was no border control, and thus my passport was void of any stamping love, but I was in another country! I have a sick passion for adding places to my list of visited. I even once made my mom drive an extra two hours out of the way in the middle of the night just so we could cross the state line between Idaho and Montana (we were staying in Washington) and I could say if been there, so getting a whole new country was like heaven.

So, I walked over the bridge and officially entered Słubice, Poland with absolutely no pomp and no circumstance. Regardless I was pretty happy. I strolled around another town that I literally nothing about. The building were pretty and there were different things to look at, but I quickly learned that Polish was a whole new obstacle. In other languages I can sort of get by reading some signs and stuff and I know a few words such as "thank you" or "hello," but with polish I literally knew squat. All the menus were only in Polish or German as well, which made getting lunch difficult. I eventually decided that to get some food I needed some of the local currency and found an ATM. I took out 40 PLN (which is about $11.50) and figured that should be good for lunch. I highly overestimated the prices in Słubice. Maybe I should be hanging out in Poland more cause crossing the border sure made everything MUCH cheaper. Anyways, with that 40 PLn I got a delicious lunch of pierogies and the best 7up I think I've ever had, a small ice cream cone, a trip to the WC (which apparently thy charge for in Poland), and a tank top to spend the rest since I still had just over half left! Pretty good for less than $12 I think. Had I known the conversion was so good maybe I would've done a little more shopping there! After I was done spending time in Słubice, I bid adieu to Poland, walked back across the Oder river, and took a long walk to the train station.

By the time I got to the train I was exhausted from being on my feet for so long and I was way ready to sit. The train back required two transfers, but I got some reading done (currently reading Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and it's actually quite interesting). I did some laundry, had a delicious pizza near the hostel for dinner, and I am now attempting to plan where to go next. I'm hoping to leave Berlin tomorrow and I better caused I'm not booked to stay here tomorrow night!

Slubice, Poland

The Polish Kitchen where I had lunch

My yummy pierogies