Kraków - Everyday I'm Shuffling

Previously: despite Ryanair’s incompetence, we made it from Edinbrugh to Kraków. And despite our own incompetence, to our hostel, Greg and Tom’s, which kind of turned out to be the best hostel ever.


Despite being completely wrecked from the previous day’s travel, I awoke very early in the morning, probably because I was stewing in a pool of my own sweat; without the aid of flotation devices I am surprised I didn’t drown in my bunk overnight. I realised that with everyone still asleep, I could while away plenty of time in the über awesome showers without interruption. And this is exactly what I did. I sound significantly better singing in the shower when accompanied by a professional singer and a backing track. I also look a lot better in the shower with mood lighting artfully reflecting off various surfaces and distracting from my naked body. When I walked back into our dorm, I almost passed-out at the aroma: essentially it smelled like a bread factory. You know that shop, Bread Top? You know that sweet, yeasty aroma that threatens to suffocate you whenever you walk past? Well that is what our dorm smelled like. I guess six men baking in a 40°C room with beer leaching out of their pores will have that effect. It was vile.

Kaitlyn was just waking up when I got back so I told her I’d meet her down at breakfast before I contracted Candida from just sitting on my bed. I made my way down to the kitchen and found Marek sitting there, looking a little worse for wear. He was half-heartedly pointing out various breakfast things to me when suddenly he sparked right up. ‘I LOVE this song!’. ‘This song’ was LMFAO's ‘Party Rock Anthem’. Since arriving in Prague three and half weeks earlier, I estimate that we had heard that song at least one hundred times. We then heard it at least 100 more times throughout the duration of our stay at Greg and Tom’s, and three of those were before Kaitlyn appeared downstairs. Marek really, really liked that song. We had decided to do the free walking tour that morning, so after breakfast we grabbed our stuff and headed out to try and familiarise ourselves with the city, Marek wishing us a good day with a little bit of Party Rock to see us through.


You may or may not recall me mentioning that I LOVED Kraków. Loved, loved, LOVED it. It reminded me a little bit of Prague before it became as touristy as it is today. The centre of the old town, where our tour was meeting, is the town square, Rynek Glówny w Krakowie. Dating back to the 13th Century, it is the largest medieval town square in all of Europe, and is home to two impressive city sights: Sukiennice (Cloth Hall), and Kościół Mariacki (St Mary’s Basilica). It is also home to approximately five billion pigeons. Seriously, pigeons are an endangered species in Venice when compared with Kraków. Despite the plethora of pigeons, it is still beautiful, and we had a great few hours wandering around. Unfortunately, the tour was not nearly as enjoyable. The tour was supposed to leave from outside Kościół Mariacki at 11.00am. We thought we’d get there a little earlier to maximise our chances of scoring the best possible tour guide, but there turned out to not be much point because the tour guides didn’t bother turning up until well after 11.00am. I can obviously blame my lack of punctuality on being Eastern European.

It quickly became apparent that at least half of the English-speaking tourists in Kraków that day had also decided to do the same tour, and this was the first problem. The second problem was the guides themselves, who seemed to think we were all engaged in a game of Chinese Whispers. Advice From an Objective Foreigner: The best tour guides are those who have better voice projection than Harpo Marx. I find the protracted introductions on these types of things tedious at the best of times, but given that these guys were already running late, I found it particularly irritating. I don’t give a shit what you had for breakfast, but it seems you are going to insist that I find out that, and your star sign, and divulge my damned life story to you before you will tell me what that building to my right is.

The two guides this day seemed particularly fond of the old group bonding, and so it began, asking how many Americans, how many Brits, how many Australians, etc., etc. Apparently Kaitlyn and I couldn’t possibly be Australian because we weren’t wearing thongs. They were back at the hostel with our kangaroos and surfboards.

As always, there were two people in the group who weren’t one of the ten staple nationalities and, as always, rather than ask these people where they were from, the guides insisted on taking it in turns to guess. ‘Brazil?’

‘Russia?’

‘Colombia?’

‘Ukraine?’

Greece?’

‘Denmark?’

‘New Zealand?’

‘Netherlands?’

‘Scotland?’

‘Mongolia?’ (Seriously.)

‘Hungary?’

They turned out to be from Switzerland, which they actually bellowed out in between ‘New Zealand’ and ‘Netherlands’. With that sorted, we were able to get on with the tour.

They split us up into two groups, one English-speaking and one Spanish-speaking. Given that less than a dozen of the eight thousand of us spoke Spanish, this seemed ridiculous. And despite the fact that both guides were irksome from the outset, we ended up with the one who had made the hilarious crack about thongs. Joy. The tour itself was…well in all honesty it was freaking boring. I have no doubt it would have been a lot more interesting had I been able to hear any of it, but due to my auditory powers not being those of Clark Kent, I was lucky to hear one word per sentence. Considering the tour went for almost three hours, we didn’t really see all that much. The square was glossed over, and we were shown Planty Park and the Medieval City Walls so quickly that I cannot tell you a thing about them. So,  instead of even trying to pay attention, Kaitlyn and I spent our time commentating on the people around us. And by “commentating”, I mean “deriding”. When we weren’t partaking in constructive criticism about our fellow tour-goers, we were perving on Javier. Javier (not his real name) was an absolute dead-ringer for Javier Bardem. At least from a distance. At one point, Kaitlyn and I jostled our way into the pack so we could get up close and personal with Javier, only to find he was not all that much taller than me. Well, he was obviously significantly taller, but he was also way smaller than the real Javier (and, arguably, any male over the age of fourteen).

The highlight, for me at least, of the tour was seeing the “sights” of Pope John Paul II. Poland is completely nuts for the former Pope, statues and pictures of him adorn the city the way posters of Stephen Kernahan used to adorn my room. The tour employeed the term “the sights of Pope John Paul II” which I believe was a bit of a stretch, but it was, nevertheless, amusing to watch an extraordinary number of Poles (and possibly tourists) pose outside some random old building (where the Supreme Pontiff apparently slept) with a painting in the top window of PJP in his heyday and have their photo taken. Keep in mind the photographer would have had to stand about 300 metres back from the building to be able to get both the subject and Popey in the shot. After this we walked up to Wawel Hill to see Wawel Cathedral and Wawel Castle. Everything I know about these landmarks of the city I have since read in books because, as Silent Bob mouthed information about them, I started to doze off in the afternoon sun. After this came the other highlight of the tour - its conclusion.

We spent the next few hours wandering around ourselves until late afternoon when we headed back to the hostel. We were due for a big night out and, given it was a Sunday, the hostel’s pub crawl seemed like a good way to go. Plus, Marek was running it that night, so we knew that we’d be in for some hardcore Party Rocking if nothing else. I think we were only about halfway down Librowszczyzna Street when the honeyed strains of LMFAO could be heard. Sure enough, as we walked in the door, Marek hollered out over the music, ‘SHUFFLE!’ We shuffled our way to the bread sauna where all six of our roomies were already chilling. We all chatted for a bit and ascertained that three of them were travelling together and were sick – had been in hospital sick. Given that our room was fundamentally a life-size petri dish, this wasn’t the best news.

Next thing I know I’m waking up, apparently having dozed off sometime between Pinging Kaitlyn about which one of our roomies was hottest, and Tweeting about the attractiveness of our roomies. I am not a napper, and I felt absolutely rotten when I woke up. I contemplated rolling back to sleep but, upon hearing Marek out in the hallway, ‘PARTY ROCK IS IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT, EVERYBODY JUST HAVE A GOOD TIME!’, I realised there were better uses for my pillow. Also, it was almost 7.30pm which meant free dinner, and all that straining of my eardrums earlier had made me ravenous. As we made our way down to dinner, we passed Marek. ‘MAAAATTTTEEESSSS!’ (He was as fond of that word as he was of LMFAO.) ‘You coming pub crawl with me tonight? WE GONNA MAKE YOU LOOOOOSE YOUR MIND!’ Already losing it, Marek.

Upon entering the kitchen we were greeted with the sight of Javier chillin’ with a whole lot of guys - turned out he was staying at our hostel. It also turned out there was a major female deficiency at the hostel - Kaitlyn and I were the only girls in the entire room. At that point in time, with the exception of Javier, each and every one of them was Australian. And, with the exception of a handful, they were all the vile Australians who travel and make all other nationalities hate Australia. We ate dinner but still had an hour or so before the pub crawl left, and there was no way I was going to be able to tolerate some of these people sober, so we accompanied two of the more palatable guys to a bottle shop around the corner for supplies. These two guys were called Ned and Robert.  Ned was actually called Simon, and I’m about 60% sure Robert’s name was really Mick. However, Ned looked identical to my friend Ned, and Robert looked a lot like Robert Downey Junior.

The four of us returned to the hostel, trailed by Javier who, for the next four days, wouldn’t leave us the hell alone. As we walked back through the door we were greeted with a ‘WE JUST WANNA SEE – YOU SHAKE IT NOW!’ We shook our way downstairs and proceeded to drink a few beers, our little corner of the hostel quickly establishing itself as the cool corner. The four of us (five including Javier) were joined by a couple of really nice guys, and we were having a lovely time until the bogans decided to crash our party. It is next to impossible for me to properly describe just how contemptible these bogans were, but I will try. In fact, this conversation might help me out. Kaitlyn was engaged in dialogue with Robert, and I was talking to Ned and another guy (whose name I cannot remember - which is further proof of why we nickname people, as that way we remember their names), about Auschwitz - a heavy topic when you’re getting ready to party, I concede, but the two had returned from there that afternoon. Part-way through the conversation, this group of five particularly obnoxious bogans came and gate-crashed the discussion. For the moment, I shall refer to them as Bogans 1 through to 5.

Bogan 1: ‘What youse all talkin’ bout?’

Nice Guy: ‘Auschwitz.’

Bogan 2: ‘Huh? What’s that?’

Bogan 1: ‘Is that the club we’re going to tonight?’ Face palm.

Ned: ‘No, it’s…’

Bogan 3: ‘Nah man, it’s that place we’re going to tomorrow. Ya know, the death camp.’

Bogan 2: ‘Ohhhhh….ya mean that Hitler thing.’ Yes, yes. “That Hitler Thing”, dumbass.

Bogan 1: ‘So have you guys been? What was it like? Is it really cool?!’ I was tempted to respond that it was about as cool as the breeze flowing between his ears, but I hadn’t actually been yet so I left that one up to Nice Guy and Ned to respond to.

Nice Guy: ‘It’s not…. “cool”, no. It’s, well it’s quite hard to explain.’

Ned: ‘You do know a little bit about it, yeah?’

Bogan 2: ‘Nah. I know nothin’, mate. Not into history much, ya’ know. I’m more of a live-for-the-present kinda guy.’

Bogan 1: ‘I went to the Communism museum in Prague. That was sweet as, bro! I got to hold a gun! Is it like that?’

Nice Guy: ‘Ahh...No…’

Me: ‘No. No, it’s not like that. Firstly, because that deals primarily with the Iron Curtain and certainly not with the Holocuast.’

Bogan 2: ‘Holla – holla’. Seriously.

Me: ‘Seriously? Okay. Ahh…and secondly, you don’t pose with guns at Auschwitz. You…I give up.’ I was done.

Bogan 4, meanwhile, was still trying to figure out how to open his beer with the screw-top lid, while Bogan 5 sat on a stool next to me and stared down my top. Before these idiots could continue with their inane commentary, a very attractive Asian girl in a very short skirt came down the stairs, slipping on the last one and literally landing in Ned’s lap. ‘Hey! I’m Kitty.’ It was quite the entrance, succeeding in Bogan 5’s vision vacating my chest and taking up residence on hers. Kitty was from Toronto. She was hilarious. Before we had a chance to chat, the lights went out, the music started, and Marek dramatically appeared halfway down the stairs: ‘PARTY ROCK! YEA! Whoa! LET'S GO! PARTY ROCK IS IN THE HOUSE TONIGHT. EVERYBODY JUST HAVE A GOOD TIME! MAAAATTTTTEEESSSSSS! PUB CRAWL IS LEAVING IN FIFTEEN MINUTES. I MEET YOU ALL UPSTAIRS. EVERDAY I’M SHUFFLING!!!’

With the exception of drinking more so I could tolerate a night with morons, I was ready to go. So Kaitlyn and I sat upstairs on the couch next to Marek as we waited for everyone else to join us. Every time a new person appeared they had to ‘SHUFFLE!!!’ Most people gave a cursory little movement except for Robert, who seemed to quite fancy himself as the next Shufflebot. Marek managed to get in three more full rotations of the song before the fifteen minutes were up. Nice Guy commented that this was significantly less than the number from the previous night.

The first stop on the pub crawl was vodka tasting! Now, although I drink a lot of vodka, it is the one thing which I cannot shot; tequila, absinth, agwa – you name it, I can shot it…provided it is not vodka. However, Polish vodka is very tasty and, it turns out, very shottable. The place Marek took us to was apparently his favourite place to drink in Kraków, and was very un-touristy. He also appeared to be excellent friends with the barman, which would work very well in our favour. Now, our $5.00 pub crawl fee was supposed to include four shots of vodka at this place: everyone had six except for Marek and I who had eight. Here is a tip: even if he won’t stop singing LMFAO loudly and off-key into your ear, sit next to the guy who is in charge of the alcohol. When we first arrived everyone, including the dumbass bogans, seemed to suddenly realise there were three girls and thirty guys. It literally went like this: everyone stopped abruptly at the threshold of the bar and waited for Kaitlyn, Kitty and I to pick a seat. As soon as we looked like we were committed to a specific chair, elbows flew and it was like a rugby scrum. I ended up with Bogan 5 on my left, but with Marek on my right, so they kind of cancelled each other out. At least, the extra vodka from Marek cancelled the bogan out. Just.

The vodkas which we sampled were flavoured and tasted more like liqueurs than spirits; the hazelnut tasted like Frangelico, the coffee like Tia Maria, and so on. Somehow, Marek twice ended up with two extra shots and, after promising him that the shots would make my ‘booty move away like I was on the block’, they were all mine. When Marek got up to organise another round of shots, one sneaky guy stole his chair. Spanish, he appeared to be a friend of Javier and somehow came to the conclusion that because Javier was across the table (unsuccessfully) hitting on Kaitlyn and Kitty, that gave him the right to put his hand on my thigh. Incorrect. Between him and Bogan 5, who was equally as handsy and lecherous, eight shots of vodka really wasn’t enough.

Thankfully, Marek soon let us know we only had ten minutes left, so I took the chance to excuse myself to the little lady’s room. As I came out, Javier was standing there. I assumed he was waiting for the bathroom, but he was in fact waiting for me. ‘Oh, there you are.’

‘Yes…here I am.’ Before he could further start ruining my Bardem fantasies, Robert appeared behind him - Robert, who looked even more Downey-Junior-like out of his boardies. Unfortunately, although he had initially presented himself as quite charming, the bogan effect of the hostel seemed to be rubbing off on him. And so he started speaking as if Javier wasn’t even there. ‘Well hi there.’

‘Hi.’

‘So. Be honest with me. On a scale of 1-10, what are my chances?’

‘Chances of what?’

‘With you.

‘Sorry?’

‘Look. You can see the ratio here. Us guys are 10-1. I’m staking my claim early.’

‘Your claim?’ Wow.

‘Look, before you answer, just remember you aren’t gonna get a better offer tonight. So take a moment to think about it.’ And that is how Robert became RDA – Robert Downey Asshole.

I didn’t even bother to sit back down at the table. Instead, I grabbed my bag and told Marek and the girls I’d be waiting outside. It was around this time I started to really feel the effects of my eight shots (coupled with the beer I had been drinking at the hostel). Marek, however, was well and truly feeling the effects of his imbibing. ‘WE PARTY ROCK! YEAH! YOU ARE THE CREW THAT I’M REPPING. ON THE RISE TO THE TOP NO LENNON OR ZEPPELIN! HEYYYYY!’ (To this day I still say ‘No Lennon or Zeppelin’ in a tribute to him.) And so we stumbled our way to stop two: the beer hall. In summary: 50 litres of beer for all of us to share. By this point I was having quite a lot of trouble shaking Bogan 5 who was trying to impress me with the fact he works in the mines – this certainly impressed me more than the fact he ‘hasn’t even been thinkin’ bout the missus and littlies since I left home,’. Wow. What a turn-on.

By some small miracle, Marek managed to navigate himself and us to the beer hall, where we had tables reserved which was lucky because the place was packed. The girls and I managed to find our way to a table with Marek, Ned, Nice Guy, another nice guy…and RDA. Still, at this point RDA was significantly better than most of the others. I had one drink of beer and I think this was the point where all the alcohol hit me. Kitty couldn’t find the bathroom so I offered to go with her. Javier, who was quickly turning into Kraków’s very own Thor, decided to accompany us…..accompany us right into the women’s toilets. ‘Pretty sure you’re not allowed in here.’

‘Oh it is fine. It is Europe.’

‘No, seriously, get out.’ He wasn’t shifting, so I stood there awkwardly "fixing" my hair, while he chatted away next to me about the fact that his ex broke up with him recently and left him broken-hearted, so

he’s come on holiday to - and I quote – ‘sleep her out of my system’. And again, wow. These guys really knew how to talk to women.

When we got back, the tables had kind of merged, so it was near impossible to escape Bogans 1-5. However, the ensuing conversations did manage to yield them each names. (Bogan 5 had, at this point, already become BD – Bogan Daddy.) When I sat back down, everyone was talking about how hot the rooms were in the hostel. I joined in, noting that our room smelled ‘a lot like a bread factory’ and ‘very yeasty.’ Bogan 1: ‘I had a yeast infection once.’ Okaaaay…. ‘Yeah. Thrush of the mouth.’ And stop right there. Oblivious to everyone else recoiling, he went into detail. ‘Yeah, I was with this chick. She was a dirty, greasy Italian. Anyway, I went down on her and ended up with thrush of the mouth.’ He went into a lot more detail, including visuals, of the ensuing conversation with his doctor. And that is how Bogan 1 became Yeast Infection.

Bogan 2 (Dick) earned his nickname when he told us all about his and Yeast Infection’s favourite past-time. ‘It’s called “Dick-to-Face”.’ Call it morbid curiosity, but I had to know.

‘What exactly is “Dick-to-Face”?’

‘It’s awesome.’ I have no doubt. ‘When one of your mates is passed out or sleeping, you drop your pants and put your dick in his face.’ Nothing has ever sounded more awesome.

Bogan 3 joined in, ‘It’s so great. You have to get it on film though, otherwise it doesn’t count. And you get bonus points if it’s a stranger.

I’m usually the cameraman. Actually, I got this great one last night. Youse all will love it. It’s the BEST! I’ll show youse all at breakfast.’ And that is how Bogan 3 became Scorsese.

Bogan 4 actually seemed to be a nice enough guy. I didn’t hear him say a single word that night. Sure, he laughed at the explanations of“dick-to-face”, but he was certainly less vile than his friends, and he wasn’t incessantly pinching my butt like Bogan Daddy. In fact, he was comparatively so nondescript, that he never earned himself a name - instead, we occasionally referred to him as ‘The Other One’.

After the beer hall we headed to the third and final stop of the crawl: the club. That night, it was ‘Prozac’. To be completely honest, a lot of our time at Prozac is quite hazy. Kitty left early on, leaving Kaitlyn and I alone to battle for ourselves. Javier got his ninja on hardcore, materialising in front of you right when you thought you had finally lost him. After the beer hall, RDA really didn’t seem comparatively bad, but he was determined to be an ass none the less. We’d been there for…well I have no sense of time from that night, but long enough to hit the DF. He comes up to Kaitlyn and I, and this is the conversation – verbatim: to Kaitlyn, ‘You’re fat and you can’t dance.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘And your tits are too small.’ Pointing at me, ‘Even her tits are bigger that your’s and she’s a stick-midget.’ Apparently RDA didn’t take too well to us both rejecting his advances. (Can I just say though, I kind of love the term “stick-midget”. I give you all permission to refer to me as that from now on.)

After this conversation went down, I told Kaitlyn I was too sober and needed a drink. Of course, I wasn’t sober at all, but my lack of beverages at the beer hall had me believing all that vodka was out of my system. It only took two vodkas and some ridiculously strong cocktail to make me realise I was still, in fact, very not-sober. I remember going up to the DJ and requesting "Party Rock Anthem" for Marek (and our entire group shuffling like bosses), I remember talking to Nice Guy and us both contemplating pretending to be New Zealanders for the rest of our travels, just in case people we met along the way had met any of these guys prior to meeting us. And then the next thing I remember is sitting in a gutter, leaning up against Ned while he simultaneously fed Kaitlyn a chicken kebab and me a felafel. And then he walked us home. I don’t remember this, but according to eyewitness reports, it was more of a “walk Kaitlyn, carry the stick-midget” situation.

Next time: A USB is lost, Javier watches us as Yeast Infection shares more about his sexual exploits, Javier watches us as we bond with nice, new arrivals, and Javier also goes on a tour of The Jewish Ghetto.

Kraków by way of Ryanair

I’m going to begin by saying that I LOVE Poland. It’s that simple. My first regret of the trip is that we didn’t have more time to spend there. Also, just in case you ever go there and don’t want to offend locals, Kraków is pronounced – crack-of. If you say it like that and manage to roll your ‘r’, you’ll probably score yourself a free shot of vodka…to go with all your 30 cent shots of vodka.

So…we left off in Edinburgh - home of Troy, Haggis and Irn-Bru. Initially we were planning on travelling to Ireland next as, geographically, this made sense. However, whether we went by plane, train or ferry, it was going to cost us £300.00 ONE WAY. EACH. Apparently there was some football game or something…I didn’t really care about the reason because, as far as I was concerned, the only thing I was going to be spending £300.00 on was alcohol, so Ireland was not an option. So, after a frustrating search online, figuring out the cheapest flight back to the continent, we found ourselves heading to the airport and boarding a plane bound for Kraków.

I’m not sure if you are in any way familiar with Ryanair, but they are an Irish budget airline. When I say budget I mean BUDGET; they make Jetstar look like Qatar. Now, if an airline has economical flights, I don’t mind if they skimp on things such as comfort and even service – you get what you pay for. But Ryanair have RIDICULOUS regulations which have NOTHING to do with cost-saving. Take, for example, their rule of ‘one piece of carry-on per passenger’. Initially, this makes sense – one piece of carry-on per passenger. However, the way this is actually enforced is absolutely ludicrous. Firstly, a 10 kg backpack is one piece of luggage, as is a 10cm by 10cm clutch. So if you have one very small handbag, and your wallet in your

hand, think again about boarding that plane – no, you must step aside and let the man behind you with the 10kg backpack board, whilst you cram your wallet into your tiny handbag which can’t weigh anymore than 500 grams. And I saw that happen. I thought that was ridiculous, but it got a whole lot dumber when the man in front of me tried to board with his briefcase and a plastic bag with a bottle of Duty Free whiskey. The Totalitarian Stewardess wasn’t having any of that. ‘Excuse me sir – you cannot board the aircraft with two bags.’

‘Ummm….’

‘We can check that in for you for a cost of £45.00, but you are not permitted more than one piece of carry-on baggage.’ The lady in front of him was sporting a very large bag and, offered to carry it on-board for him. As she went to take it from him, Ms Tyranny started having a coronary. ‘EXCUSE ME – are you TRAVELLING together?’

‘No…’

‘It is ILLEGAL to carry other people’s luggage on-board. Do you NOT KNOW THAT?!’ Everyone in the queue watched on as she took several breaths to visibly calm herself. ‘Now sir, if you wish to check this bag in you can do so for £45.00. Alternatively, you can remove the bottle from the plastic bag and carry it on board yourself.’ WHAT?! So it’s okay to carry the bottle of whiskey on in your hands, but not okay to carry it in a two gram plastic bag? Because that makes perfect sense. Idiots.

Fortunately, I had already been warned of Ryanair’s stupid rule, however, there was no room in either my checked-in backpack, or my handbag for my big camera. Fortunately I am quite creative, and with a bit of work, managed to create quite the faux-baby-bump with my camera bag and tops, resulting in a very authentic looking pregnant sixteen-year-old. I had Kaitlyn closely flank me and obscure me as much as possible from Kimberly Jong Il because I would not have put it past her to demand to inspect my “pregnant” belly in order to ascertain its authenticity and/or ensure the foetus was only carrying one piece of luggage.

Another example of Ryanair’s ridiculousness is their claim of being Europe’s most punctual airline. The reason they are able to make this somewhat false claim is due to their drastic over-estimation of flight times. For example, in a flight between Melbourne and Hobart they would estimate the flight-time as being one hour and 45 minutes when really it is only a 50 minute flight. They would then, inevitably, be delayed a good half an hour but, due to the 55 minute over-estimate, the flight would still land “on-time”. The flight-time between Edinburgh and Kraków is around 2 hours and 45 minutes, but our flight had an estimated journey time of three and a half hours. To no surprise, our departure time was delayed more than a half hour and yet, despite this, as we landed in Kraków six minutes ahead of the scheduled arrival time, this music started blaring throughout the plane. Almost identical to the trumpet at the Melbourne Cup, it was accompanied by a clapping track and an audacious announcement along the lines of: ‘Congratulations! You are a part of another on-time Ryanair flight. Ryanair: the most on-time airline in Europe’. Then the clapping came back in, and 98% of the passengers started clapping along with it. One idiot even wolf-whistled. As we exited the plane, I lazily sauntered up the aisle proudly displaying my TWO items of carry-on baggage. As I passed the stewardesses I gave them a sickly sweet smile and thanked them very much. Sticking it to the establishment.

Prior to arriving, I obtained directions to the hostel and checked out transport options from the airport to the city. The most inexpensive way was by train; the train station was a three to five minute walk from the airport, and trains depart every half hour until midnight. By the time we collected Kaitlyn’s backpack and my shell, it was about 9.00pm when we left the terminal, and it was very dark and a little bit creepy as we started walking. We weren’t too far away from where the station supposedly was when three men standing outside taxis started to yell out to us in English, “No train on Saturday. You must take taxi.” Our shell and pack must have been a giveaway we were tourists. Who’d have thought? I knew that these guys were lying and trying to take advantage of stupid little tourists, but before I could call them on their bullshit, Kaitlyn started to make her way to a cab. I quickly explained to her that these guys were not being truthful and led her away and back towards the train. These men, however, were quite persistent and one of them got into his car and started to follow us down the road. As I mentioned before, it was quite dark and by this point there were no people around. Despite very adamantly telling him that we did not want to enter his vehicle, he kept driving alongside us. Polish and Czech are, essentially, mutually understandable languages, so I clearly delivered a few words I know he would have understood, and we headed back towards the airport where we felt a little safer.

Just before we reached the terminal, we saw a bus and I approached the driver to ask if it was going into the city. Fortunately, it was. We had to buy the tickets from a machine next to the bus stop and this only had instructions in Polish. Despite speaking no English, the driver had been so nice when I shouted ‘MĚSTO?!’ at him and gesticulated wildly at a map, that I asked for his assistance. He was very obliging, but his comprehension of the workings of the machine were about as sound as my understanding of the concept of drinking in moderation. Still, between the three of us we figured it out and soon we were on our way into Kraków. When we arrived in the city, I became aware of one small problem: the directions that I had to the hostel were from the train station…and there was no train station in sight. I asked a few people in the street ‘VLAK?’, and it turned out we were not too far from the station at all. After making our way there, we undertook the simple task of following the directions to the hostel. Except for the part where they weren’t simple. To be fair, the directions probably weren’t that bad, but it was very, very late and we were very, very tired. Also, the hostel’s location was on the corner of Librowszczyzna and Zyblikiewicza Streets – you try pronouncing and/or showing that to a bunch of drunk locals enjoying their Saturday night out.

After a lot of walking around and a few mini-tantrums, we eventually found Librowszczyzna Street (which we may or may not have walked past at least three times before discovering it) and, as we made our way down the footpath, we could see a guy and a girl standing in the distance. They turned out to be Marek and Gosia, two of the people who worked there. And they were standing out the front waiting for us at midnight!! Now, as you read on you will encounter a few comments I make which are slightly negative about the hostel (mainly about the rooms). However, I cannot stress enough how much I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Greg and Tom Junior. It is the best hostel I have ever stayed in and, although the facilities and the heavy promotion of drunken debauchery has a lot to do with it, the overriding element is the staff. As we got closer, Marek bellowed out, ‘Claire Elishka?!’ (as the booking was under my name). ‘Yes…?’

‘We have been waiting for you!!’ Given how excited they were, I momentarily thought they had mistaken our arrival for the Second Coming. Turns out they were just excited to see us, and we later observed that every guest’s arrival is met with an equal amount of enthusiasm. Marek came rushing forward and practically yanked my shell from my back, and they quickly ushered us inside. ‘Where have you come from? It is so late. You must be hungry. We have dinner for you.’ We were completely exhausted, and all we wanted to do was curl up in bed and pass-out. However, they were so lovely, we felt obliged to follow them downstairs. Plus, when have I ever turned down food? As we trudged downstairs, we passed dozens of empty cups and shot glasses, our feet sticking to the ground every few steps. ‘We are sorry it is so dirty. The party has only just left and we haven’t had time to clean yet.’

‘If you want to join the party, we know where they are and we will take you.’ I was about to politely decline for the both of us when I was distracted by the table in front of me. They really hadn’t been kidding about having dinner waiting for us; two plates and sets of cutlery were waiting, with a dozen or so bowls filled with an array of amazing food. Gosia pushed us into chairs, and Marek disappeared, only to reappear a minute later with drinks for everyone: vodka and cactus juice, to be exact. The two sat down with us and asked us all about our trip so far: where we’d been, what we’d liked best, what we’d liked least, where we were off to next, etc., etc…and it was all genuine interest. They wanted to know where we lived in Australia, what we did there, why we’d come to Poland, what we wanted to do in Kraków, whether I was Czech or Slovakian (apparently my name and ‘my eyes’ gave me away), whether we’d met any good looking men yet – I think the only thing they didn’t seem remotely interested in was acquiring any form of payment from us.

Marek went off to grab us all refills and returned armed with brochures and maps. They then proceeded to spend the next HOUR showing us maps of the city, marking on them a multitude of things from ATMs, to cheap clothes shops, to the city’s best ice-cream. They also marked numerous cheap eateries, despite the fact that they provide free breakfast and dinner and, if we ‘happen to be at the hostel at lunchtime, there will be food around’. The whole thing just seemed far too good to be true. I was expecting them to go Eli Roth on us at any moment but, as you can probably gather by the fact you’re reading this, that never happened. (Although if it had, my eyes are big enough to stretch one across two sockets.)

As hospitable and helpful as they were, it was after 1.00am and I was pretty keen to hit the sack. And get my phone from my bag so I could check in on Four Square. As we headed back up the stairs, I enquired as to when they would like us to pay. ‘Whenever’, was the response, as they had two more pressing things to attend to. The first was to "brand" us with fluro orange wrist-bands which we were instructed not to remove until we checked out. Printed on them was the hostel’s name and address, their purpose being for us to flash at taxi drivers or passers by if we found ourselves stumbling through the alley ways of Kraków, or were found passed out in the city’s gutters. The second crucial task was to show us how to work the showers. I was tempted to let them know that, despite most of our population having British ancestry, we do wash in Australia and we are pretty adept at working showers. However, as they showed us the various functions of the showers, I realised that I had never used ones quite like these: lights, music, five different massaging jets, a seat. Coolest showers EVER!

We were staying in a dorm of eight and, due to the rest of the hostel rocking out somewhere in the city, we were able to unpack and get settled without having to worry about waking anyone up. It was pretty hot in Poland whilst we were there (30-odd degrees everyday) and, with a fan quietly oscillating in the corner, we drifted off to sleep. What I imagine was a few hours later, I woke up uncomfortable and completely drenched in sweat. For a second, I thought maybe karma had come after me for my faux Ryanair pregnancy in the form of a surprise birth like my sister, but as I woke up and got my bearings, I realised that there were now six other people in our room, and the fan was no longer working. I assumed that it was broken as it didn’t even cross my mind that anyone would be stupid enough to turn it off in such a sauna-like environment. But, what I was about to learn over the next few days was that a lot of really, REALLY stupid people travel, and the dumbest of the lot were staying at Greg and Tom’s whilst we were.

Edinburgh – Can you ‘sit through this boring shit’?

No matter how much cheaper the tickets are, no matter the traveller’s mentality telling you you’re going to be saving money on a night’s accommodation, don’t ever take a night bus. Just don’t do it. Unless you’re a masochist, in which case go right ahead. We took the night bus from London to Edinburgh for these reasons, and it sucked the will-to-live right out of me. I would rather watch fourteen consecutive hours of Australia’s Got Talent auditions than take another night bus; I’d rather immediately fly home, return to my old job, and write a second thesis than take another night bus; I’d almost rather sit down and watch Isaac Brock exchanging vowels with a woman who is not me than take another night bus (‘almost’ being the operative word in that example).

I’m not going to bore you with the details of the bus journey, as literally, all it comprised of was getting on in London, getting off at two pit stops in the middle of the night, and getting off in Edinburgh very, very early in the morning. There was, however, one good moment just before the bus departed London. The Scottish driver made a few announcements, including the fact that the on-board toilet was for ‘urinal purposes only’. At this declaration, Kaitlyn turned to me quite panicked and said, ‘But what if you need to wee?’

‘Then you use the toilet…?'

‘But he just said you couldn’t use it for that.’ Initially wondering whether she ever took biology at school, I soon realised that Kaitlyn was having trouble with the driver’s thick Scottish accent, and had mistaken his announcement as being that the toilet was for ‘your anal purposes only’. I quite enjoyed explaining the error to her (simultaneously contemplating the feasibility of her fantasy marriages to Archie McDonald and Gerard Butler).

And then, after several tortuous hours, we were in Scotland!

After Berlin, we’d become quite the fans of the free walking tours offered all over Europe. The Edinburgh walking tour had three things in common with its Berlin counterpart: it was “free” but you were encouraged to tip your guide at the end, the heaven’s opened within the first five minutes of it commencing, and there was a member of the group shamelessly flirting with the guide – only this time it wasn’t an annoying red-head with a voice that could crack the foundations of Edinburgh Castle… it was Kaitlyn. Despite the fact we had both promised each other we would not fraternise with any Australians on this trip, from the moment Aussie Troy cracked his first (decentish) joke of the day, Kaitlyn was hooked. In her defence, Troy was significantly better looking than David from Berlin, and significantly less irritating. He also proved to be a pathological liar…but I’ll get to that part shortly.

The meeting point for the walking tour was outside Starbucks, which meant I was £3.00 poorer by the time they split us into two different groups. Considering the other man had about as much charisma as my toothbrush, I was pretty happy we were herded over towards Troy. I don’t know whether it was the earring, or the slightly-too-high jeans, but Kaitlyn was smitten upon first sight. ‘He’s kinda cute.’ You’re kinda blind. Troy wasn’t a bad looking guy, but I found it hard to like the man when he lied to us within seconds of our meeting. As the first few raindrops fell I asked Troy if heavy rain was forecast. ‘Nah, mate. This is as heavy as it ever gets in Scotland. Doesn’t rain here like back home.’ Troy saying that raindrops are ‘as heavy as it gets’ is like watching Rihanna’s film-clip for “Umbrella” and saying that’s as slutty as she gets. Within ten minutes of leaving Starbucks we were needing to take refuge down a back alley full of bins. As I was staring daggers at Troy from between the giant, malodourous skips, Kaitlyn was wildly batting her eyelashes – and not just to remove the raindrops sitting atop them. We waited a few minutes for the rains to pass, but it eventually became clear they weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. Thus, we forged on and continued to take in the sights of the city. I won’t bore you all with the deets of all the old buildings we visited, suffice to say we saw the sights: Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Mile, Holyroodhouse, St Giles Cathedral, etc, etc, etc. And we saw them all with dripping hair and wet feet. Lucky that’s as heavy as the rain gets!

There were, however, a few things you might find interesting. For the nerds out there, we saw Tom Riddle’s grave. Truths. The story goes, J.K. Rowling began writing Harry Potter in a café in Edinburgh. This café overlooks a cemetery from the graves of which our gal Joanne acquired many of her future characters' names. Most of these were merely Christian or surnames (such as McGonagall and Moody), but one name she pilfered in its entirety is Tom Riddle. For those of you for whom this is confusing let me break it down: Tom Riddle is Lord Voldemort...and cease reading this immediately because you’re not worthy! I think it’s probably a good thing that he died in 1806 because it’s likely he was a really nice guy and not a vicious, murderous dark wizard, and his family might have been kind of pissed.

Another thing of less-historical note discovered on the tour was Irn-Bru. Fact bomb: there are only two countries in the world that have a soft-drink which outsells Coca Cola – India, which has its own Coke variant, and Scotland, which has Irn-Bru. Troy explained Irn-Bru with the two comments, the first of which was that it is the “ultimate hangover cure”. As my Eastern-European heritage means I have never experienced a hangover (not for lack of trying), this was of little interest to me, but his second comment was: Irn-Bru is best described as “creaming soda on crack”. When Troy said this, I audibly gasped. This is because, despite semi-severe allergies to artificial colours, flavours and preservatives, creaming soda is a guilty pleasure of mine. Troy, however, mistook my appreciation of creaming soda, to be an appreciation of crack. All I can say is that Troy must indulge in some extra-curricular activities as he was a lot friendlier to me after that. During the morning tea break, Kaitlyn and I sampled some. With its fluro-orange colour, I concede I was tempting fate…although a little anaphylaxis would have warmed up my core-temperature, which was steadily dropping due to my sopping clothing. Lucky that’s as heavy as the rain gets!

We were getting towards the end of the tour when suddenly it started bucketing down. And I mean BUCKETING down; precipitation was occurring at a rate similar to vodka travelling down my gastrointestinal tract. Even though we were all wringing out our clothes and collecting from them enough water to hydrate a large African village, Troy obviously wasn’t too bothered by the chaffing of his jeans as he remembered he was relying on tips and needed to herd us somewhere dry so he could do the final big sell with a theatrical performance. The ease with which Troy managed to find an impossibly perfect location made me suspicious that he had known for some time that the preciptation was going to get a lot heavier than a handful of raindrops. As our motley group huddled together in an attempt to preserve body-heat (me taking great advantage of an attractive German man’s generosity in this regard), Troy went all-out in his re-telling of the legend of the Stone of Destiny. I’ll give it our boy Troy here – he was really very funny and entertaining…not enough to make me fall in love with him, but I could see how Kaitlyn possibly had. In fact, he was so charming and hilarious that, as I looked around at the monsoon swirling behind him and subtly edged closer to Mr German, I found myself being not so angry.

After Troy collected his tips, he invited anyone who wanted to join him at a pub for lunch. Needless to say, Kaitlyn wanted to and, given that my fingers were blending in nicely with my navy jacket, I wanted to as well. Plus, while Kaitlyn flirted with Troy, I would have been more than happy to flirt with German. Alas, we did not end up on a table with either of these people. For reasons that we are unsure of, Kaitlyn and I seem to habitually attract the attention of old people. We’re unsure if we look approachable, project a (false) sense of sensibility, or perhaps have flashing neon signs on our heads saying ‘don’t leave these seats free for attractive people our age, please sit here and deliver boring monologues about your boring holidays’. It has to be at least one of these because it happens to us all the time. And it happened this day as well, and we looked longingly on at all the young people knocking back pints and having fun together, while listening to stories about geriatric cruises where the carrots were overcooked ‘every single night!!!’. The horror. Part-way through an anecdote about…something…I was thinking things couldn’t get much worse…and then our meals were delivered, and it turns out that Mr Elderly had ordered haggis. As you may or may not remember, I’m alergický to meat. Now my understanding is that even people who love meat find the concept of haggis quite disgusting, so I cannot quite articulate just how repulsive I find it and, therefore, just how tortuous it was for me to sit directly opposite someone eating it. Just thinking about it is making me dry wretch so I’m not going to go any further.

Post-haggis and seconds away from post-death-by-boredom, Troy came to the rescue, appearing at our table to talk-up the company’s other services. I tuned out for most of it, and then the magic words ‘Pub Crawl’ were uttered. Sold. Kaitlyn and I had already decided that we’d be doing one that evening, and although the fact Troy would be running it the following night made her hesitate, we still found ourselves sitting in a bar dressed to party. We had been directed inside to take a seat by the man running the crawl that night. I have wrapped sushi rolls in sheets of seaweed with more charisma than this guy. He looked so entirely bored when we arrived, I had to resist the urge to grab his wrist and check for a pulse.

Not long after we sat down, a girl with a striking resemblance to Kate Middleton came and asked if we were doing the pub crawl. Mary was from San Francisco and, despite having a 6.00am flight to Dublin the next morning, was keen to par-tay. I can spot a bogan from a mile off and, when two guys started over towards us, one look at the blonde’s fitted cap, hoodie and acid-wash jeans told me that I needn’t bother shrugging off my cardigan so early. His friend, on the other hand, had me whipping my cardi off faster than Willow whips her hair back and forth. He was Canadian, nice to look at and, I found out later, really quite irritating. We were part-way through our introductions when Mr Personality came in and, with two other people in tow, drawled some bad news. ‘We have exactly the minimum number of people needed to run the crawl so, if you want to go, I’ll take you, but it’ll be shit,”. Way to sell it! I don’t think this dude would be able to sell coke to Lindsay Lohan. It was pretty obvious that this guy would be as much fun to party with as a coma patient, so we decided to come back for the official crawl the next night (much to Kaitlyn’s Troy-filled delight), and do our own.

We were getting towards the end of the tour when suddenly it started bucketing down. And I mean BUCKETING down; precipitation was occurring at a rate similar to vodka travelling down my gastrointestinal tract. Even though we were all wringing out our clothes and collecting from them enough water to hydrate a large African village, Troy obviously wasn’t too bothered by the chaffing of his jeans as he remembered he was relying on tips and needed to herd us somewhere dry so he could do the final big sell with a theatrical performance. The ease with which Troy managed to find an impossibly perfect location made me suspicious that he had known for some time that the preciptation was going to get a lot heavier than a handful of raindrops. As our motley group huddled together in an attempt to preserve body-heat (me taking great advantage of an attractive German man’s generosity in this regard), Troy went all-out in his re-telling of the legend of the Stone of Destiny. I’ll give it our boy Troy here – he was really very funny and entertaining…not enough to make me fall in love with him, but I could see how Kaitlyn possibly had. In fact, he was so charming and hilarious that, as I looked around at the monsoon swirling behind him and subtly edged closer to Mr German, I found myself being not so angry.

After Troy collected his tips, he invited anyone who wanted to join him at a pub for lunch. Needless to say, Kaitlyn wanted to and, given that my fingers were blending in nicely with my navy jacket, I wanted to as well. Plus, while Kaitlyn flirted with Troy, I would have been more than happy to flirt

with German. Alas, we did not end up on a table with either of these people. For reasons that we are unsure of, Kaitlyn and I seem to habitually attract the attention of old people. We’re unsure if we look approachable, project a (false) sense of sensibility, or perhaps have flashing neon signs on our heads saying ‘don’t leave these seats free for attractive people our age, please sit here and deliver boring monologues about your boring holidays’. It has to be at least one of these because it happens to us all the time. And it happened this day as well, and we looked longingly on at all the young people knocking back pints and having fun together, while listening to stories about geriatric cruises where the carrots were overcooked ‘every single night!!!’. The horror. Part-way through an anecdote about…something…I was thinking things couldn’t get much worse…and then our meals were delivered, and it turns out that Mr Elderly had ordered haggis. As you may or may not remember, I’m alergický to meat. Now my understanding is that even people who love meat find the concept of haggis quite disgusting, so I cannot quite articulate just how repulsive I find it and, therefore, just how tortuous it was for me to sit directly opposite someone eating it. Just thinking about it is making me dry wretch so I’m not going to go any further.

Post-haggis and seconds away from post-death-by-boredom, Troy came to the rescue, appearing at our table to talk-up the company’s other services. I tuned out for most of it, and then the magic words ‘Pub Crawl’ were uttered. Sold. Kaitlyn and I had already decided that we’d be doing one that evening, and although the fact Troy would be running it the following night made her hesitate, we still found ourselves sitting in a bar dressed to party. We had been directed inside to take a seat by the man running the crawl that night. I have wrapped sushi rolls in sheets of seaweed with more charisma than this guy. He looked so entirely bored when we arrived, I had to resist the urge to grab his wrist and check for a pulse.

Not long after we sat down, a girl with a striking resemblance to Kate Middleton came and asked if we were doing the pub crawl. Mary was from San Francisco and, despite having a 6.00am flight to Dublin the next morning, was keen to par-tay. I can spot a bogan from a mile off and, when two guys started over towards us, one look at the blonde’s fitted cap, hoodie and acid-wash jeans told me that I needn’t bother shrugging off my cardigan so early. His friend, on the other hand, had me whipping my cardi off faster than Willow whips her hair back and forth. He was Canadian, nice to look at and, I found out later, really quite irritating. We were part-way through our introductions when Mr Personality came in and, with two other people in tow, drawled some bad news. ‘We have exactly the minimum number of people needed to run the crawl so, if you want to go, I’ll take you, but it’ll be shit,”. Way to sell it! I don’t think this dude would be able to sell coke to Lindsay Lohan. It was pretty obvious that this guy would be as much fun to party with as a coma patient, so we decided to come back for the official crawl the next night (much to Kaitlyn’s Troy-filled delight), and do our own.

And so our fake pub crawl began. Members: Mary, Kaitlyn, Bogan, Canada, America, Chile and myself. America and Chile were a couple; he was lovely (and lovely to look at), whereas she would have been better suited to our would-be pub crawl leader. Unless there was a camera on her (and between Kaitlyn and me it’s no surprise this was often the case), she sat on a bar stool with a face which looked more like she was suffering human rights violations under Pinochet’s dictatorship than sitting in a bar in Scotland nursing a glass of red. We spent quite a while in this bar because, as well as having a decent atmosphere, it served a heap of Aussie beers including Cooper’s, Boags, Cascade and VB. Winning. Several hours and many beverages later, we were sufficiently drunk to venture to some clubs.

Chile wasn’t interested and, therefore, America was out also, so the five of us found ourselves at The Hive. We have since found out it is referred to amongst Edinburgh locals as "The Dive", a much more apposite moniker. The average age of people inside the establishment would have been sixteen and a half. At a stretch. There was a bubble machine – A BUBBLE MACHINE – and a whole lot of fluro, but more disturbing than this was when I was hit-on by a seventeen year old. I was standing at the bar trying to get a drink when he approached me with some clichéd pick-up line I failed to commit to memory. He spent a good five minutes talking about himself - then offered to buy me a drink. With beverages in hand, he asked me about myself. Specifically, he asked me if I was in school. I replied that I had just finished. ‘When did you finish? Like this year?’

‘Yep!’

‘So are you like having a year off or like going to uni next year?’

‘I just finished uni…’

‘What? You’ve like been to uni already?’

‘Yeah. I just finished my thesis.’

‘How OLD are you?!’

‘I’m 24…’

‘Oh my GOD! I thought you were like 16! I’m like 17.’ Like 17, or are 17…? ‘You don’t LOOK 24.’

‘Thanks….?’ The poor kid looked distraught, so I had to let him buy me another drink. After that our motley crew of five found our way back to each other and we hit up the DF with the rest of the children and partied hard into the night. Mary, Kaitlyn and I partied so hard we even ended up on the website!

As always, I was feeling brilliant the next morning and bounded down to breakfast, whereas Kaitlyn was feeling somewhat seedy, but managed to drag herself down too. We’d been sitting there for a few minutes when we both spotted who we were sure was Hayden from Masterchef. Long story short, it wasn’t actually Hayden, but a German dead-ringer called Bernhart but, continuing with our European tradition of not using people’s actual names, we continued to call him Hayden. We ended up having breakfast with Hayden and his two friends, Stefan and Martin, and sometime between cereal and toast, talked them into joining the pub crawl that night.

Our culture for the day was a trek out to Rosslyn Chapel. A 15th Century chapel, you may know it from The Da Vinci Code – specifically the part where the chick finds out she is a descendant of Mary Magdalene and J-Chri. Despite the fact I bear a striking resemblance to Audrey Tautou, movie recreation wasn’t the (primary) reason we made the excursion:Kaitlyn’s family has been tracked back to the Sinclair family, and it was William Sinclair who founded the chapel. In other words, it’s her chapel, and so we made the journey out to Roslin. The chapel itself is really quite beautiful, but it was doing its best impersonation of London with scores of scaffolding clinging to its facade. And, as beautiful as its stained glass, pillars and carvings are, the highlight for me lay, not in the striking architecture, but in a crude little old Australian tourist.

Not long after our arrival, they started a tour of the chapel which we decided to join. Just after we took our seats on the pew, a cute little elderly couple seated themselves in the row in front. At least, I thought they were a cute little elderly couple…and as far as I can tell, the gentleman was quite delightful. His wife, on the other hand…well she was something else. Seconds after they took their seats, a young woman from the staff began her tour with a brief history of the chapel. She couldn't have been talking for more than thirty seconds when, not so quietly, the lady demanded to her husband, ‘Move!’

‘Huh?’ Mr Elderly was trying to listen to the tour guide and was not entirely focused on his wife’s orders.

‘MOVE!’

‘Why?’

‘I’m not sitting through this boring shit.’ I wasn’t sure what was funnier – that Grandma had such a mouth on her, or that Grandpa simply ignored her and re-focused his attention on the tour. I decided it was the former when, loud enough to wake the Sinclair family from the crypt below, she repeated, ‘I said MOVE! I’m not going to sit through this boring SHIT.’ Honestly, there was really that strong an emphasis placed on the word ‘shit’. And in a church! Old people these days - no respect at all.

Next came Pub Crawl Version 2.0. Knowing Troy was going to be there added an extra element of excitement for Kaitlyn, and an extra element of excitement for me because I do like to watch a good flirt-sesh. When we arrived at the same bar from the previous night, Troy was waiting to greet us. Now that he wasn’t working for tips, he was a little less personable (but still, according to Kaitlyn, cute). Hayden and co. had, true to their words, turned up, but even if they hadn’t there were more than enough people to meet the seven-person minimum. Still, Hayden and his friends provided us with much entertainment, especially when we YouTubed the opening sequence of Masterchef and made him perfect the Hayden hand movement. He became quite proficient at it. Martin also turned out to be quite proficient at taking the piss out of Troy who seemed to have lost his humour sometime between the pub the afternoon before and that night. Prior to us leaving, he practically barked at us all to stay quiet in the streets because ‘people are sleeping – some people have to work tomorrow’. An hour later when we were walking between bars he was not-so-quietly explaining the set-up of the next establishment when Martin reprimanded him, ‘Shhhhh! People are sleeping – some people have to work tomorrow,'. It was all kinds of awesome.

When Troy informed us early on in the night that we would, at one point, all be partaking in mandatory karaoke, I began perfecting the heartbreaking tale of the nodules on my vocal chords and subsequent throat surgery which rendered me unable to sing. This was before I started shotting like the East-European pro that I am. By the time we arrived at the bar, no one wanted to sing more than me. There were a lot of people in the bar that night, and although there were some impressive performances (including Troy’s rendition of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"), no one could hold a candle to Kaitlyn’s and my duet of "Black or White". For two not-so-sober people, we rocked the SHIT out of that song. And there is no sarcasm in this statement whatsoever – we were strangely really good. In fact, we were so good that after our performance the compere stated that he hadn’t ‘been that sexually aroused by Michael Jackson since he was six years old’. Upon reflection I realise that doesn’t sound all that much like a compliment, but I assure you that it was.

As the night progressed and Troy loosened up, I found myself liking him a lot more. I thought this would please Kaitlyn given that we all like our BFFs to get on with our partners. However, Kaitlyn was too mad at Troy to appreciate my newfound fondness for him. Apparently she had caught him flirting with an American girl a number of times. This night saw the birth of what became Drunk European Kaitlyn’s catchphrase: ‘I’m waaaay prettier than her but, whatever’. And it was true, Kaitlyn was indeed waaaay prettier than this girl (Tori Spelling was waaaay prettier than this girl), so it turns out that Troy was an idiot…although to be fair to him, I don’t think he actually ever realised Kaitlyn was on the table (and I’m not even sure she really was…I think she just really enjoyed me agreeing with her that she was prettier). The rest of the night is a blur of drinks and "I’m waaaay prettier than her but, whatevers”. I know I danced with a guy who was dressed like Neo from The Matrix (and whose attempts at communicating were about as easy to understand as The Matrix); I also know that I got accidently punched in the eye by some over-zealous club-goer who failed to notice me chillin’ down by his elbow…but I got a drink out of that one so, winning!

Next thing I know I’m waking up and needing to pack my shell and leave for Poland. Epic winning!

London 2012: That’s Next Year, Guys - Good Luck With That.

I’ve made no secret in the past of my indifference towards London – I’ve really never seen what all the fuss is about. But it was right at the top of Kaitlyn’s list and that, coupled with seeing it through the eyes of an old local (Ricky), made me a little excited about going. And, if nothing else, I knew we’d somehow make it Sexy.

We were staying at the Smart Russell Square or, as I took to calling it, Smart Russell Squat. And having said that, I think a lot of hobos would turn their noses up at the prospect of squatting there. We were on floor five, the top floor. There was no lift which was initially annoying given my shell and the rest of our luggage, but it turns out the stairs were an absolute bitch even sans-shell; they were obviously a co-design between MC Escher and someone with severe vertigo, as half of them didn’t actually lead to anything other than wall, and the ones which did lead to actual floors were on such severe angles, every time I attempted them, I felt like a clumsy, lumbering alcoholic. (I had the hostility and resentment of a chronic-alcho too.) Once we navigated our way up the stairs, we arrived at our room to discover two things: Andrea Boccelli was the interior designer, and we were going to have the same roomies for the entirety of our stay.

Our roomies were two Swiss girls and one Swiss guy who, it turns out, came to London with two intentions: shopping and partying – with the focus unquestionably on the latter. Until the last night, we didn’t actually see them at all because they’d be getting home just prior to (or just after) we left for the day, then they’d be out shopping when we returned in the afternoon, and then they’d be out partying when we returned back from what we thought was partying (but comparatively was a game of bingo at the RSL). But we did end up spending a bit of time together and they ended up being awesome. Plus, they provided us with a few of our most memorable London moments.

I’ve decided this isn’t going to be a chronological blog as such, primarily because there are several (night-time) moments about which I’m not too sure where they sequentially took place, but also because I’d prefer to get all of the traumatic hostel moments out of the way first. Now, the next morning I awoke quite early – about 6.00am – as our roomies stumbled in, so decided I may as well get up and shower. I managed to shower at about 7.30am. Not because I was accosted by Christian Bale on the Staircase of Stupefaction and let him have his way with me against the skewing balustrade, but because that is how long it took me to get to the showers. Every morning. There were no showers on the fifth floor, or the fourth floor, or even the first floor; there weren’t even showers in the basement. The only showers in the entire hostel were in the sub-basement. To reach the showers from our room involved navigating 244 steps, and seventeen doors, most of which varied so much in height and width, I often felt like Alice in Wonderland. Although, there was absolutely nada wondrous about that shithole.

Unfortunately, journeying through the seizure-inducing fluro blue labyrinth of stairs and corridors to reach the showers was the least traumatic part of the showering experience in Smart Russell Squat. Upon arriving (exhausted, disoriented and dehydrated) to the bathrooms, I found myself in a voyeur’s dream. There were about fifty shower cubicles, only three of which had sheer shower curtains – and this wasn’t the worst aspect. The cubicles were so small, you couldn’t bend over to reach your shampoo without sustaining a coma-inducing concussion; the water had about as much pressure as the spray of juice from someone biting into a juicy corn cob, and only stayed on when you were firmly holding the button in; continuing in the hostel’s fashion of ridiculous slanting floors, the bottom was slanted in from each side causing a ten-inch-deep foot-bath to appear seconds after commencing the showering process.

Despite the bathroom being full, I managed to score myself one of the “curtained” showers. However, within ten seconds of entering, the curtain was yanked back and a crazy lady started yelling at me in Polish. Turns out it wasn’t just me she was yelling at, as she proceeded to make her way down the shower bays screaming at everyone. Newsflash illegal immigrant: you’re in England – NONE OF US UNDERSTAND YOU, and yelling your words at a level which perforates our eardrums isn’t going to change that. It took fifty, dripping wet, naked women staring confoundedly for her to realise none of us understood a word she was bellowing. “OUT NOW. WE CLEAN.”

Advice From an Objective Foreigner: If your hostel has a check-out time of 8.30am, 7.30am is not a good time to clean the showers. If you don’t believe me, check out the fully-occupied showers, and the queue of people you muscled your way past to get in here. Given that I had shampoo all through my hair and soap all over my body, I yanked my curtain back to quickly finish my shower. I was just rinsing my hair when I felt something scratching on one foot, and a semi-severe burning on the other. I looked down, and there was a gloved-hand rubbing steel-wool over my left foot (taking all the skin and a decent amount of flesh with it), and a gloved-hand pouring chemical all over my right. There’s gentle exfoliation to reveal smooth, polished skin, and then there’s chemical scouring to reveal smooth, polished bone. On the plus side, my preliminary fears of contracting tinea were instantaneously quashed.

I came out of the shower burning (but, arguably, with the cleanest feet in the Northern Hemisphere), and changed into the most Londony, hipster-friendly outfit I had. I was just packing my things away when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around expecting to see Kaitlyn, but instead saw a whole lot of boob and an equally large amount of va-jay-jay. This woman was standing in front of me, dripping wet, and asked, ‘Can I borrow your towel?’. Saywhat?! Lady – if you hadn’t gone Playboy Centrefold on me the answer would still have been ‘no’ because that’s disgusting, but the fact that you essentially forced me to conduct a gynaecological exam on you, you can add a ‘hell’ to that ‘no’. Then I went and sought out my Polish friend and asked her to pour her cleaning product into my eyes.

After climbing the Staircase of Calamity (and needing to re-shower afterwards), I was in desperate need of nourishment. Fortunately, the one-hour serving of “breakfast” had commenced. The inverted commas around “breakfast” are not a typo; to describe what they serve as being breakfast is as accurate as describing me as a blonde. I’ve seen homeless men pull more edible food out of giant skip bins. The night before, upon our arrival and check-in, Kaitlyn commented that she felt somewhat like a battery hen. “Breakfast” only exacerbated this feeling. Advice From an Objective Foreigner: I know that you British are often typecast as being, amongst many things, tight. Serving “breakfast” for only one hour in a hostel of 400 people is only perpetuating the stereotype.

As we arrived in the breakfast room, we were rudely herded into a queue, in which we had to wait several minutes to move a solitary step. After ten minutes of shuffling forward, the offerings eventually became visible: slices of stale, white bread precariously piled on top of each other, a giant bucket (yes, an actual bucket) of jam, a giant bucket of butter, and an urn (which, upon sampling, turned out to encase a coffee which made International Roast taste like Goddamn espresso). As the hens proceeded forward, the bread towers shrank, and the slop-buckets of condiments began to empty. I began to worry that it would all run out before we reached the food. I wish it had run out before we got there. Upon closer inspection, there was more fluff and foreign objects than jam in the jam bucket, and more hair in the butter bucket than butter. If I had wanted some protein with my bread and butter, I’d have brought some eggs at Tesco. Or chewed off some of my fingernails – either would have been preferable. Upon procurement of “food”, one then had to attempt to find somewhere to consume it. Normally at breakfast, one would simply sit down at a table. But the Smart Russell Squat must have exhausted their budget on cleaning chemicals and bulk butter, rendering them unable to purchase any furniture whatsoever. Everyone was literally standing all around this room trying to eat whilst simultaneously balancing plates and plastic cups filled with boiling water. 

After “breakfast” we departed the Squat and commenced our London sight-seeing. When Ricky lived in London, he worked out in Clapham (the major site of this year’s riots), and he intended to give us his two tours of London: “The Royal Tour” and “The Riot Tour”. The former was first up, and was to consist of London landmarks: The West End, Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Parliament, etc., etc. The first part of the Royal Tour was to catch a red double-decker bus. This proceeded to be our first problem of the day. As I mentioned before, Kaitlyn was uber-excited to be in London, with it being one of the top destinations on her list. So for the first fifteen minutes of our day, she was endearingly pointing out famous Londony things and squealing. ‘AHHHH! A BLACK TAXI!’; ‘AHHHH! TESCO!’; ‘AHHHH! A RED PHONE BOX!’; ‘AHHHH! A RED POST BOX’; ‘AHHHH! A RED BUS!’ Then it was ‘AHHHH! WE’RE ON A RED BUS!’. It was awesome. And then it wasn’t, because it was tantrum time.

To be fair, this one was slightly more warranted than those about European wasps, cobblestones and British having the right directions back to our hotel in Prague; no one likes to sit in gum and have it ruin their carefully selected “First Day in London” outfit. Still, as much as no one enjoys this experience, I feel that few people would react with such a level of intensity. As we stepped off the bus it literally went from ‘AHHHH! TRAFALAR SQUARE!’, to ‘F$@%. THERE IS F$@%ING GUM ON MY F$@%ING SKIRT. THE  F$@%ING BRITISH ARE ALL DIRTY F$@%ING BASTARDS. I HATE THEM ALL. THIS WAS MY FAVOURITE F$@%ING SKIRT. NOW I F$@%ING HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR.’ At this point she stormed off ahead of us, and Ricky and I Paper, Scissors, Rocked to decided which of us was going to approach her to tell her she was walking in the wrong direction. Fortunately my paper beat his rock. But I did suggest he hold onto his rock as he approached to aid in self-defence.

After she stormed back past me and in the other direction, Ricky covertly inquired as to ‘how long these tantrums last for?’ I replied honestly that they vary considerably, but I failed to mention that I had a feeling she wouldn’t be seeing a Trafalgar not clouded by tears. It turns out over-active tear ducts didn’t really compromise her view, as Trafalgar was mostly covered in scaffolding. And as our Royal Tour continued, it became apparent that Trafalgar wasn’t merely the current London landmark to receive its Olympic overhaul - literally every building and London attraction was covered in scaffolding and/or undergoing construction. So, as I pointed out to her later, Kaitlyn didn’t really miss anything while she was sulking over on the other side of the square. Next stop was Leister Square. Or, I should say, the Scaffolding of Leister Square. We literally didn’t see a single part of it, as the entire area was completely hidden from view as they made repairs. Walking through the West End, we were actually able to see a few famous theatres free from construction, which excited my inner Broadway-nerd. But really, all of these stops on the Royal Tour were actually preparing us for the tour’s climax: Primark. For those of you who don’t know what Primark is, it is probably best described as the Chickenfeed of clothes. On steroids. You know how in movies (and on ACA and Today Tonight) they beat-up the Boxing Day Sales and make them look more dramatic and terrifying than Libyan riots? Well, inside Primark is actually a lot like what I imagine it would be like to be in Tripoli.

Primark is essentially the clothes and accessory sections of Target, with prices which would have allowed me to purchase two of every item in the store and still have had enough money to continue my trip. And if that description makes you want to jump on the next plane to London and high-tail it to their landmark Oxford Street store, you might want to bring protective head gear and a stick, because you’re going to need them. For £10.00 I managed to buy five pairs of 70 denier tights (four black, one turquoise), a pair of knee-high socks, a black and white ruffle-front shirt, a watch, a pair of black flats, and a grey jumper. That £10.00 also bought me a bruised foot, some scratch marks on my hand, a bite mark on my arm, and two cracked-ribs, courtesy of some “minging chavs” (ugly bogans) who felt that they were more entitled to these items than I was just because they were four times my size and had four times as many children than me. The injuries aren’t true, but there were a lot of minging chavs getting pushy in the New Arrivals section. And they were all fat and surrounded by children.

I feel the need to vindicate myself slightly here by saying that every time I adorn my body in any of my various Primark pieces, I say a little prayer for whichever Third-World-three-year-old knocked it up. According to Wiki, there are no sweat-shops involved in the business…but also according to Wiki, my accountant friend is Australia’s foremost scientific mind, and currently working with world-class engineers to develop an underwater channel from Southern Tasmania to Antarctica. Still, my conscience is slightly clearer.

After all that retail combat, we were exhausted and hungry. Next stop on the Royal Tour: Marks and Spencer for some lunch. Now, if anyone reading this is British, I don’t mean to offend – this is an opinion based on observation, and if you have any information or evidence to counteract it, I’m all ears. You should all have better teeth and be considerably cleaner than you are as you have a lot of spare time on your hands considering none of you cook. At all. Every supermarket we went into had a fruit and veg section, and basic supermarkety things…but I never saw anyone even perusing those aisles, as they were all packing out the countless fridges and freezers of pre-packaged meals. And I’m not just talking about the salads and sandwiches we took advantage of everyday, but I’m talking every meal and food group imaginable: pastas, soups, dahls, biryanis, family roasts, side dishes, salmon fillets on potato puree – seriously, if you feel like eating it, M&S will have it in plastic ready for you to warm-up. Gordon Ramsey and Nigella turn me off cooking, so I can understand a kitchen-aversion, but this was extreme. Either the Brits are significantly busier than everyone else in the world put together, or simply the most indolent populace ever. Not that I’m complaining, because the pre-packaged meal thing is perfect for a lowly backpacker trying to do London on the cheap. We literally ate two meals a day from either M&S, Tesco or Sainsbury’s. And on the day of our Royal Tour we did so in Hyde Park, showing off our various Primark Purchases, before hitting the road to see more famous sites. I’m not going to provide a detailed commentary of each for three reasons: you’ve all seen pictures of them, I can’t be bothered, and even if I could be bothered, I couldn’t really tell you much beyond what you’ve all seen in print because they were all under construction.

Imma break this down for y’all: Piccadilly Circus - scaffolding; trees in Hyde Park – scaffolding; back of Buckingham Palace – scaffolding; front of Buckingham Palace – mercifully free of scaffolding, but obscured by enough tourists to make up Australia’s population twice-over; statues outside the Palace – scaffolding; Westminster – visible, but enough scaffolding to ruin every photograph; Big Ben – refreshingly scaffolding-free; Parliament – construction-free, but ruined by the world’s most boring man behind me giving the world’s most boring run-down of the British political system and making my ears bleed; Tower Bridge – scaffolding; every entrance and exit to every Tube station – blocked by scaffolding; Covent Garden – mostly obscured by scaffolding; my entire London Facebook album – ruined by scaffolding.

Now, I remember London winning the right to host the 2012 Olympic Games and, whilst I can’t provide an exact date off the top of my head, I do know that it was pre-August 2011. So I am thoroughly perplexed as to why they have waited all this time to begin sprucing up their landmarks. And not just their landmarks – the entire city is a concerto of construction. Kaitlyn, Ricky and I gave up trying to talk to each other as we walked the streets, instead embracing the Digital Age like all good Gen-Yers and using our phones. Every morning at 6.30am the construction would begin right outside the hostel. Yes, even the Smart Russell Squat was covered in scaffolding…although I feel that this was a structural necessity as opposed to cosmetic. Regardless, London have even less of chance of being Olympic-ready by next year, as I had of being bikini-ready for Bail last year (when I was still eating six Subway cookies a day the week of my departure).

There was actually more to see on the Ricky’s Riot Tour. It probably looked that way because the Riot Tour was conducted after we patronised various bars in his old ‘hood, and my vision was beyond double. We had a sweet night out that evening, visiting the drinking establishments where Ricky worked during his time as an LDN local, and happily consuming the countless free bevvies which were offered. Ricky and I ended up really embracing the spirit of the Riot Tour, creating our own miniature clash on the way home. As a claustrophobic, I have an immense dislike of the Tube and, as a former local, Ricky thoroughly enjoys it. Basically we disagreed on my ability to “embrace the city”, but given that we never argue, it’s safe to say it was really my Jaeger consumption disagreeing with his Sambuca consumption. Still, we made it home without causing any major damage to the city, and without my dying of suffocation.

I wasn’t at all surprised when we arrived home at 4.00am to an empty room, assuming our roomies would still be out partying. However, when I turned on the light, I initially wondered if instead their absence was due to kidnapping, as our room appeared to have been thoroughly ransacked. As our drunken-vision cleared, I realised that our room hadn’t been burgled, but the mess littering the floor was that day’s shopping; apparently the Swiss Franc is going great-guns against the Pound, and these guys were able to buy four of everything in Primark and still have enough money to party ‘til dawn. I literally had to step over bags just to reach my bed, but I must say I preferred the Primark-tiling to the reflective blue lino.

On the final night, we actually spent a fair bit of time with our roomies, but until that point our interactions were as follows: on our second morning, having been woken up by the jack-hammer symphony outside, I was just drifting off to sleep when someone’s alarm went off. I knew it wasn’t Ricky’s or Kaitlyn’s, so I ignored it…to begin with. When I say ‘alarm’, it wasn’t a Top 40 pop-hit, or even a nice soothing melody, but a sound not unlike a forklift reversing. And as it went on, it got louder and louder and LOUDER – it would not have surprised me if the rest of the Squat had evacuated from the building. Each of our beds had a curtain and, whilst the three of us had pulled ours back and were looking incredulously at each other, the other three curtains remained firmly closed, so we had no idea which bed it was coming from. Had I not heard them stumble in, I would have assumed they weren’t yet home, because  I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to sleep through that. After another few minutes, Kaitlyn yelled out ‘Can someone please turn that off?’ In a real role-reversal, I was the one to crack the shits and yell out ‘Turn that off. It’s [freaking] annoying’. When there was no response, I started to worry that they were all unconscious. Or dead. So I got out of bed and followed the screeching to Daniel’s bunk. I opened up his curtain to find he was still very much alive, passed out with his BlackBerry shrieking into his ear. Normally I wouldn’t touch another person’s property, but after twenty minutes of irreparable ear-damage, I had no qualms yanking it off his pillow and turning that piece of shit off. We later ascertained that none of them had any memory of his alarm going off, eventually waking at 3.00pm in time for some High Tea and shopping, before returning to primp and pre-drink. 

Our other interaction – of sorts- was on the third morning, but thankfully involved no alarms. After awaking and pulling back my curtain, I was examining the floor trying to figure out the best plan of attack on the Primark Obstacle Course, when I looked up to find Daniel passed out in bed – which was no different to any other morning, only this time, he wasn’t alone. Lying next to Daniel was an opened packet of salami, little of which remained in its packaging as most of it was either scattered through his bed, or hanging out of his mouth. He skin had a very similar sheen to that of Prosciutto Woman, but I’m fairly certain Daniel’s was a product of rolling over it in his sleep. It turns out that on the way home, Danny Boy had conducted quite the epic purge in some bushes. With his throat and stomach burning from the acidity, he decided he needed something to eat – and what better than a 500 gram pack of Tesco salami?

We eventually cracked it with the Smart Russell Squat, choosing to spend our two final nights at The Generator. I’ve heard nothing but bad things about The Generator since but, after the Squat, I found it quite luxurious. Admittedly, the part where the lady who checked us in - a New Zealander who felt a connection to we Taswegians – gave us two dozen free drinks cards for the bar, probably contributed to my positive feelings towards the place. Even the “Turbine Room” - the communal area with an interior reminiscent of Doctor Who, the acoustics of a wind tunnel, and an Internet connection with dial-up-like speeds – rocked after a dozen vodka sodas.

The rest of our time in London was touristy and, therefore, not particularly blog-worthy. The only thing that might be even vaguely interesting was our visit to Harrod’s. Practically everything about that place is ridic, but the pet section was by far the most preposterous of all. I believe it’s actually referred to as “The Zoo”, but I have certainly  never been to a zoo which sells leopard-print g-strings for dogs. Yeah…this isn’t like my fake Primark injuries…I’m not making this one up. If you want to dress your dog up, I will judge you a little bit (whilst secretly thinking it’s kind of adorable), but if you dress your dog up in a sailor’s oufit, a tutu, camouflage fatigues complete with fake medals, a black PVC bondage-style suit, a toga and head-wreath, or the aforementioned leopard-print g-string, I will judge you and report you to the RSPCA. I don’t know who makes these things, and I don’t know who buys them, but the fact that they even exist is more perplexing to me than the fact Isaac Brock still hasn’t left his fiancé for me. We also took a photo of me smiling in front of the Dodi and Diana Memorial. This wasn’t supposed to be disrespectful but, surrounded by the Egyptian-walls and escalators, even a seasoned-professional  such as myself couldn’t keep the pout in place.

And with some museums chucked in, that was LDN. I’m not quite up to detailing my London-viewing of Carlton’s loss to West Coast. Although I don’t really consider it a “loss” when the umpires all have macular degeneration, and the same level of objectivity as myself. 2012 people – may as well start engraving the Premiership Cup now..


Next Up: a night bus to Edinburgh – the location of a hypothermia-inducing walking-tour, a “sexually-arousing” karaoke duet by Kaitlyn and myself, and Londonesque construction