Salzburg: the hills are alive with the sound of two girls drinking amaretto

Considering I present as the perfect person, many of you will undoubtedly be astonished to discover I actually have one or two flaws. That is if one considers the necessity of colour-coordinating and categorising the clothing and pegs on the washing line as a “flaw” – otherwise, I have but a solitary fault: an obsession with The Sound of Music. When I say “obsession”, I don’t mean that I know all the words to "Do-Re-Mi" and know all the actions to "So Long, Farewell". Although, of course, I do, it goes much deeper than this. I’m talking asking for a “pink parasol” for my seventh Birthday because that’s what Marta wanted for her seventh Birthday. I’m talking walking around for the better part of two years in a sailor dress, because mum refused to chop up the curtains and make me an outfit from those. (Mind you, I was clearly a trend-setter as I recall the Nautical-look being pretty big in 2009/2010.)

In high school, when we could pick any topic under the sun for our Negotiated Study projects, I chose to do mine on The Sound of Music. Entitled “The Sound of Music: Fact or Fiction? An in-depth analysis exploring whether the film narrative differs demonstrably from the real story of the von Trapp Family” (catchy, no?), I extended the theme from content, right through to presentation. I didn’t just write it up on plain, white paper. Pa-lease! My grandiloquent “in-depth analysis” was presented as a “brown paper package tied up with string”, inside of which various items associated with the film were employed to exhibit my findings: a giant fake rose (complete with glue gun-administered “raindrops”) with differing plot devices neatly scribed on the petals; a pair of (synthetic) mittens from which one could pull out laminated pictures depicting the real von Trapps and their on-screen counterparts; the longer, more detailed passages were printed on paper which held an arresting, yet restrained edelweiss border. Yes, I was that student. The movie still resonates with me strongly - even today, as I briefly contemplated taking up residence in a convent. Although, admittedly, that was probably less to do with Maria, and more to do with the realisation I am essentially living like a nun, and may as well make it official.

Given this obsession, it will be no surprise that I LOVE Salzburg. Fortunately, Kaitlyn also has an appreciation of The Sound of Music, so I didn’t even have to fake an adoration of Mozart or a love of Baroque architecture to explain my fixation with the city. One of the best hostels I had stayed in prior to this trip was Jufa, in Salzburg. I can happily report that Jufa still offer the best hostel breakfast around: eggs – they have EGGS! I can also not-as-happily report that Jufa is still on the other side of the city to the train station. Although I knew exactly where we were going this time, it didn’t make the long trek (90% bus, 10% foot) with backpacks and shell any less arduous, or tantrum-free. “Is this hostel even in f@%$ing Salzburg?”; “Calm down! I’ll let you off the f@%$ing bus when it stops. If I move now, I’ll f@%$ing fall over and break my f@%$ing neck and I refuse to die before you, old woman. For f@%$s sake. F@%$ing Austrian Mozart-lovers.”

Upon arrival, it was immediately evident Jufa had undergone a serious makeover since my last visit, and it was very...orange. The foyer walls were orange, the couches carrot, the counter peach, the vase coral. Just...orange. It was still too early for check-in, so we dumped our stuff in the amber-hued luggage room, and headed into see some sights and eat some food. In reverse order. First stop – Getreidegasse. The Getreidegasse is probably most famous for being the location of the house in which Mozart was born. Whilst this is probably the main drawcard for most people, I simply think it’s the most beautiful street in the world. Each shop has a beautiful wrought iron guild sign (even McDonald’s), and it becomes a labyrinth of balustrades, vaulted passageways and courtyards. Something I had wanted to do since I was first charmed by it at age eleven, was to take a photo of each of the signs. Last time I was there, the times I was sober enough it was raining, the times it was clear enough, I wasn’t sober. I was determined to make it happen this time, and over the length of our stay, Kaitlyn patiently humoured me as I got the job done.

Important thing to know about Salzburg: Amaretto is only €4.00 for a 700mL bottle. We discovered this as we were on our way back to Jufa. I was feeling incredibly flat, and the trek with my shell that morning had left my shoulder feeling particularly tender, so all I really wanted was to have a shower. It turns out Jufa have the best showers in the business. They might not have a radio or a lights show, and the walls were apricot, but they were hot and hard. It might be better if I instead describe it as hot and with a high water-pressure. On the way back from the showers (which were located conveniently close to our dorm), we met two Australian guys who were just checking in. Like 50% of the people at Jufa, Aaron and Dan had come straight from Oktoberfest.

We had big plans for that night – big plans which involved lots of Amaretto and a “girl’s night out” (you can read between the lines). We had the “lots of Amaretto” covered straight off the bat. It may not be as fancy as an Amaretto Sour but, sitting on the floor of our dorm surrounded by the tangerine walls, our Amaretto mixed with Cappy (orange juice) was equally as tasty. We’d been sitting there drinking to some sweet tunes, when an elderly lady hobbled into the room. At first, I thought she was lost (although I could understand how, with the decor, she could have easily mixed the place up for a retirement home), but as she collected some possessions from under a bed, I realised she was actually staying there. When she shuffled back in and, freshly washed, hopped into bed (at 7.00pm), we decided it was time to take our party elsewhere. We channelled 16-year-olds and made strong “Amappy” concoctions in our Sprite bottles and took them with us up to the bar on the premise of “socialising” before we bounced.

We hadn’t been sitting in the pumpkin-coloured bar for too long when Aaron and Dan saw us and came over. With them was another Australian guy, whose name I can’t remember as I don’t make a habit of remembering the names of people I don’t like. He was completely vapid and beyond irritating. Despite the fact we had been very vocal about our impending “girl’s night out”, Australian Guy Whose Name I Can’t Remember invited himself to come along. We quickly departed under the guise of going to get more alcohol from the supermarket to bring back and pre-drink...and just never came back. 

First-up, we visited an Irish pub I had been to previously. It wasn’t exactly cranking, but it was ignoramus-free and, therefore, a good place to knock back a few bevvies and quietly mourn the sixty wasted minutes listening to Australian Guy Whose Name I Can’t Remember we were never getting back. After this, we stumbled upon a bar which was almost heaving with life. Not particularly intelligent life, we later discovered, but we were liquored enough to be open to non-genius options. As we approached the bar itself, a decent-sized group of guys immediately left what they were doing to also make their way over to the bar. Very subtle. Without delay, one of the guys assumed the role of spokesperson, going through the motions of introduction for each and every one. At first it seemed odd, but we quickly realised that only this guy and one other from the entire group spoke any English. Oh, and they were German Army guys on some kind of week-long sabbatical, so you can imagine they weren’t going to let a little thing like lack-of-ability-to-communicate get in the way. Or a little thing such as lack-of-interest-from-the-other-person.

The two with the English-speaking ability latched themselves onto Kaitlyn, while I got stuck with two very affectionate Neanderthals who between them spoke about fifteen English words. I say “between them” – one of them spoke all fifteen, while the other hadn’t a clue. The second guy also didn’t seem to have a clue about personal space and manners, and no matter how many times I forcibly removed his straying appendages from my lower back, upper thigh and gluteus maximus, he didn’t seem to get the hint. He disappeared momentarily to chat to his friends, leaving me trying to explain that English is the de facto language of Australia (they were all very impressed with the quality of our spoken-English). He sauntered back over looking quite pleased with himself, reattached his hand to my upper thigh and said, ‘Excoose me. I em viiry beautiful.’ I completely lost it, my hysterical laughter instantly wiping the smirk right off his face – clearly, this was not the reaction he had been anticipating. Maybe he thought I had misheard him, because he tried it again. ‘I em viiry beautiful?’ I will concede that he was, in fact, not at all an unattractive specimen and this, coupled with his blatant vanity, made is possible he meant to say what he said. Through tears of laughter, I saw him reapproach the two guys with Kaitlyn, and he obviously relayed to them his line, because they too exploded into laughter. He came back over and tried again, ‘You are virry beautiful.’
‘Thank-you.’ On two counts, thanks for the compliment, and thanks for giving me my new abs. Definitely my favourite ever pick-up line.

We had so much culture to get through in a short space of time, so we started off early the next day. We left Jufa Granny snoring soundly away, filled ourselves up with eggs (EGGS!) and other tasty delights, and hit the city. First stop: Mirabell Gardens. Several scenes from The Sound of Music were filmed here, most notably the closing moments of “Do-Re-Mi”. Did I want to skip around the fountain? Yes. Did I? No. Did I want to march past the sculptures and touch them on their heads? Yes. Did I? No. Did I want to find six other people so we could perform a co-ordinated routine ascending and descending the steps? Yes. Did I? No. Did I want to bolt down the along the pergola and jump at the end clicking my feet together? Yes. Did I? Yes.

Food-wise, Salzburg is probably most famous for its Mozart chocolate. Personally, I think it should be apple strudel (or Jufa breakfast). As you can imagine, with my heritage I have eaten a lot of strudel (štrúdl) in my time. The best I have ever eaten was from a tiny little cafe off the Getreidegasse a few years ago. And I was determined to find it and take Kaitlyn there to try proper apple strudel. I found it, and we ate strudel, but I’m not entirely sure Kaitlyn will be eating it again in a hurry. I’m fairly sure she did enjoy it, only apparently there was “waaaaay too much” of it, and she felt sick. (My wog tapeworm may or may not have finished hers off as well.)

I knew of a sweet little spot which provides a great vantage point for panoramic pictures of Salzburg, so this was where we headed next. Problem? It’s up quite high. Actually, this means problems – plural: ‘I need to STOP. F@%$! How do your little legs walk so f@%$ing fast?! Can you carry me up this f@%$ing hill?’; ‘It’s really quite f@%$ing high, isn’t it?’ I got some great photos, but I am unsure as to how greatly Kaitlyn’s were hampered by her crawking. From the lookout, it was possible to walk along pathways around the hill and eventually end up at the Festung Hohensalzburg. As impressive as the 11th Century castle is, we considered the rope swing we discovered amongst the foliage even more exciting.

Although our days in Salzburg were resplendent with a multitude of memorable moments, some of my favourite things occurred after dark. On our second night, we ventured out with Aaron and Dan. Dan had been told by someone of a sweet rooftop bar in a hotel across the river. It was not unlike the Salzburgean version of Prague’s U-Prince. I’m not sure what I liked better – my Mozart cocktails, or the blanket the attentive staff draped across my lap as the temperature decreased.

On our final night we walked past an Irish pub which appeared to have at least half the city’s population crammed inside. With that many people, we figured the chances of there being some good-looking boys amongst them were quite high. And we were right as, immediately after entering, we spotted two genetically-blessed guys amongst the crowd. In a moment of fortune, a table right near them was vacated as we walked past, and we pounced as it was far preferable to enjoy cheap pints and vodkas while seated at a table. Especially a table with such a fine view. We quickly discovered a down-side to our arrangement – everyone except us was smoking. And this bar had poorer ventilation than my old cubby house; sitting in there was what I imagine sitting inside a flue would be like. Yet, despite our immense discomfort, we continued to sit there, just because there were some pretty men smiling at us and making constant eye-contact. I’m surprised they continued to do this, as I don’t imagine my wheezing was in way attractive. Or perhaps, in Austria, emphysema is a sought-after trait in the opposite sex.



Oh, Salzbug! So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye.

Vienna

Overnight trains: they’re not overnight buses, but they’re also not great. On a scale of sleeping-on-a-bus to sleeping-on-(and with)-Ryan Gosling, I imagine a sleeper train falls somewhere in between...although Ryan Gosling is mighty fine, so it’s probably a little closer to the former. Regardlessly, this is how we got from Krakow to Vienna. Our little compartment slept three people, its configuration consisting of three beds on top of each other. My absolute worst nightmare behind Isaac Brock pro-creating with a woman who isn’t me is to be buried alive, and this is what sleeping on the top bunk would have been like. Fortunately, I was on the bottom. They also gave us breakfast – a really gross, cardboardy, fake croissant-style thing, filled with really gross, floury chocolate stuff. They were disgusting. We still ate them.

Vienna, Wein. I have always had a soft spot for Vienna – family connections, childhood memories, etc. And I now have even more fond memories to add to the collection – they merely don’t extend to Hostel Huttledorf (although, I concede, they had excellent breakfasts). Not moments after we booked in, a friend of Kaitlyn’s, who had recently been to Vienna, commented that we'd ‘better not be staying at Huttledorf’. Why? Is it horrid? ‘No, it’s fine…if you like Grade Five camp.’ And it is impossible to think of a more apposite description. The average age of guests at Huttledorf was twelve, eleven if you took the teachers, Kaitlyn and me out of the equation. It certainly lacked the party-hostel feel of Greg and Tom’s, but it also eliminated the over-share of vile sexual exploits. Although, on some level, being exposed to such painful (and painfully visual) dialogue is a lot less disconcerting than being pointed and giggled at.

By the time we made our way from the train station to the hostel – a trip which involved swapping metro lines approximately 2,000 times – we arrived at the hostel at about 7.00am. Before we even got to the door, we had to ascend a hill which I am quite confident has one of the steepest gradients in the world. I’m serious: it’s on an angle of at least 80 degrees. Probably more. We successfully dodged the crèche gauntlet, only to find ourselves at the front desk and face-to-face with the most crotchety, churlish woman I have ever had the displeasure of meeting. I asked to store my luggage, not for your kidney – drop the attitude. Forget “service with a smile”, we were just hoping to avoid “service with a slaughter”.

We couldn’t check into our room until 2.00pm, so we decided we’d hit the city and find some coffee, first taking a moment to brush our hair and try and look a little more presentable. And it was here, in the hostel bathrooms, we had our first Viennese tantrum. Kaitlyn dropped her hat in a small pool of water, and it got a bit damp. Although, you'd be forgiven for thinking someone had gone to it with a pair of scissors, and then attacked me and broken my jaw. 

‘F@%$!’

‘What? What’s wrong?’

‘I just dropped my f@%$ing hat in the f@%$ing water. For f@%$’s sake. And now I can’t f@%$ing go anywhere because my hair looks like shit and I don’t have a hat to wear. So I’m just going to f@%$ing sit here all f@%$ing day. But you go. Go out and have fun and see this f@%$ing city for me.’ She turned around, slammed it down into the rubbish bin, and made to leave. As was often the case, I could see there was a fairly easy (and, I thought, obvious) solution to the problem and decided to take my chances and proffer it. ‘You could always use the hand-dryer...?’ She brushed back past me, snatched it back out of the bin, and made her way over to the dryer. ‘Whatever.’ Then we headed off to see the “f@%$ing city” of Vienna.

It was as we made our way into the city we first became aware of a weird Viennese phenomenon: creepily staring at Claire. I am used to people staring at me. I used to think it was because I’m so freaking attractive, but I’ve come to think it’s more likely to be because I am so tiny, and also because pale skin, dark hair, light eyes are an usual combination. Also, I fall over a lot, which is eye-catching in its own right. So, while people  look at me everywhere, I was unprepared for the level of scrutiny I received in Vienna. And it wasn’t just once, but constantly people would just stare at me. As we sat on the train heading into town, a man hopped on and sat in the chair opposite me. And stared. At first I was too embarrassed to even look at him because it was incredibly awkward. Instead, I chose to look out the window, occasionally looking around the compartment and seeing that his gaze was still unblinkingly fixated on me. After a few minutes, I looked at Kaitlyn. ‘Are you seeing this?’

‘Yeah. How can I not?’

‘I don’t know where to look. I’m scared if I look into his eyes, I’m going to wake up somewhere else. Like a windowless-room in his basement.

‘Do you want to move? Do you want to get off?’

‘I don’t know. Yes. I think...’ I had no idea whether or

not he could understand us, but I really didn’t care at that point because it was incredibly creepy - sinister almost. Fortunately, at the next stop he got off. ‘That was f@%$ing weird.’

‘Do I have something on my face?’

‘Nothing that wasn’t there yesterday.’

That evening, however, what I did have on my face was Super Dickmann's! When foraging the supermarket shelves for dinner supplies, we found our beloved Berlin sweet-treat. We may or may not have polished off an entire box with our Mozart liqueur.

Vienna is full of amazing sights: Schönbrunn Palace, Belvedere Palace, Stephansplaz and St. Stephen's Cathedral. I, however, have two absolute favourites, the first of which is the Prater amusement park, specifically the Wiener Riesenrad – or Giant Wheel. My love for the Wheel comes from my love of The Third Man – both passions I have inherited from my dad. I can’t imagine many people reading this will have seen The Third Man (which is a shame as it really is one of the greatest movies ever), but all you really need to know is that the Wheel features prominently in the film. The first time we went to Vienna when I was little, I distinctly remember my dad being so excited about seeing it for the first time, he nearly wet himself. Kaitlyn has never seen The Third Man, but has spent so much time with my dad, probably feels like she has seen it in its entirety countless times, and could probably spout off a Wikipedia-entry-like description of the structure. Despite her fear of heights, Kaitlyn was determined to ride the Wheel to make me happy (and probably because she would be unable to ever face dad if she didn’t). While the Wheel definitely dominates the Prater (dad would argue it dominates the entire city), the whole place is pretty rad. And with all those rides, attractions and bright, colourful lights, it was the perfect setting for a wanky photoshoot.

My other favourite thing in Vienna is the Hundertwasserhaus. Designed by artist-turned-architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, it is an apartment complex constructed around

Hundertwasser’s notion that architecture should be designed and built in harmony with nature. I have mad love for Hundertwasser, and have been in love with his work for as long as I can remember, particularly this complex.

There’s also another place I love in Vienna – Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery). A cemetery probably sounds like a really odd place to like, but Zentralfriedhof is not a normal cemetery. One of the largest in the world, it’s almost two and half square kilometres in area. In what I think is the greatest “Cemetery Catchphrase” ever, it is referred to as „Halb so groß wie Zürich - aber doppelt so lustig ist der Wiener Zentralfriedhof!“ – which translates into English as “half the size of Zurich and twice as much fun”. How great is that?! All cemeteries should have catchphrases. Many people visit Zentralfriedhof because several famous people are interred there, including Strauss, Schubert and Brahms. And, no doubt, because it’s twice as much fun as going to Zurich. We certainly had fun, especially enjoying some of the most ridiculous headstones you could possibly imagine.

So we did a lot of culture which, of course, needed to be balanced out with some partying: pub crawl time. The meeting point for the pub crawl was an Australian bar and, as we were the only people of age in our hostel, decided to head there early for some adult conversation. In hindsight, we could have definitely had better conversation with the minors at Huttledorf. The combined IQs of the people at the bar might have just managed to enter double-digits, although I make that observation with considerable reservation. Not long after we turned up, one particularly nauseating individual approached us. He claimed to be Australian, but he had a really bizarre accent which made me highly suspicious.

We talked for a few minutes about Australian things (so, basically, just the footy), and then our respective travels. We mentioned that we’d come to Austria from Poland and, completely out of nowhere he went, ‘I have a joke. Do you want to hear my joke?’ Kaitlyn can’t explain why she thought to ask this, but she enquired, ‘It’s not about the Holocaust is it?’ Completely unabashed, he replied, ‘Yeah...?’

‘Then no, we don’t want to hear it.’

‘Why not? It’s really funny.’

‘Nothing about the Holocaust is funny.’ We bluntly told him where he could take his Holocaust jokes and, thoroughly unperturbed, he wandered off to offend some other unsuspecting people.

Next we were approached by a group of American guys who were drawing on fairly limited stores of intellect. They were also incapable of saying a single sentence without adding the word “dude” onto the end of it. Before Vienna they had been in Budapest, dude. And before that, London, dude.

They couldn’t tell us all that much about what they had done in these places, because they had been ‘so, like, completely retarded’ the whole time, dude. I’m quite certain they were using the word “retarded” as a (fairly offensive) synonym for “drunk”, but I couldn’t help but (fairly offensively) consider it an ironic acknowledgement of their mental underdevelopment. We managed to get away from them, and headed over to the bar where we struck-up a conversation with two British guys. Much like us, they had become apprehensive about doing the pub crawl and being forced to spend time with the cretin in the bar. So, the four of us decided to ditch the official tour and conduct one of our own.

We successfully (although slowly) navigated our way around the city and to a number of establishments that had been recommended to us, the evening passing pleasantly by. Luke, one of the English gentlemen accompanying us, and I shared a mutual love of Twitter, so we had great fun hashtagging our tipsy conversation, a lot of which was (justified) mockery of the fellow patrons. We also shared another mutual love, this one of Michael Fassbender. Not quite sure how this even came up in the conversation, but I remember us both gushing about him during our hashtagging interludes. In one of the bars, I went to the toilet only to discover there was very limited toilet paper left. Of course, I took all that remained and put it in my bag, proudly displaying it to Kaitlyn when I returned to the table, reminding her to grab some from me if she need to regulate her kidneys at any stage. #goodfriend #experiencedtraveller.

As much as we were enjoying our Amaretto Sours, we had always planned to head back to the Australian bar as they had a 1.00am Happy Hour and an abundance of shots we wished to try. It was quite hard to pick from their extensive menu, a number appealing to me, including “Snickers”, “Black Forrest Cake” and the “Pan Cake Shot”. I also can’t pretend I wasn’t tempted by “Pink Shit” or the delicately named “Red Headed Slut”. However, hands down, the award for best-named shot would have to go to the “Cock Sucking Cowboy - in memory of Heath Ledger”. Inappropriate and, probably, a bit too soon, but highly amusing nonetheless. #rotfl

Not long after we returned, the legitimate pub crawl reappeared to take advantage of Happy Hour. It didn’t take long for the Brains Trust to see us and mosey on over to engage us in more riveting conversation. ‘Where have you beeeeeeen, dudes?’

‘You, like, totally missed out on seeing the hottest Swedish chicks ever, dude.’ How devastating. More inane commentary followed, and then the Anti-Semitic Oxygen Thief spotted us too. He sauntered over and, without even waiting for a lull in the “conversation”, launched straight into his horrifically odious “joke”. I’m never at a loss for words, but I had absolutely nothing to say to this moron. If my glass hadn’t have been empty, I am almost positive I would have thrown the contents all over him. Except that would have been a perfectly good waste of alcohol. #wastenotwantnot

Thanks to Happy Hour, that’s about all I can recall from the night. Although, there is one thing which I still feel a little bit guilty about it. Andrew, the non-Tweeting Brit, was either the weakest drinker ever, or had imbibed a lot more than the three of us had because, by the time we arrived back at the travellers' bar, he was completely trashed. It didn’t take too long before he wasn’t even able to stand up unassisted, so we found a stool and plonked him on it. A somewhat older lady – who seemed completely out-of-place in the bar – started to engage him in conversation, so we left them to chat.

His inability to stand eventually progressed into an inability to stay conscious, but he seemed quite content slumped over with his forehead on the table. I noticed the older woman go over to him and try and make him drink some water. He was attempting to push her away, so Luke and I went over and tried to talk him into drinking it. He was slurring things to us which sounded like “too much”, “no more”, “be sick”, but between the two of us we managed to get him to have about two thirds of the glass. As I went to put the glass down, I noticed that it looked a little carbonated. I took a sip, and it turns out it wasn’t water at all – it was a G&T. And it must have been 95% gin, 5% tonic. This lady was totally not a friendly, concerned fellow-drinker, but a Cougar hunting for some younger prey. When she realised we were onto her, she disappeared very quickly. And it was at this point we all decided to call it a night. #terriblepeople #hopehewasok

Advice From an Objective Foreigner: if your city has a population of almost 2 million (plus tourists), you should probably have more than four supermarkets open on a Sunday. Yes, the wonderful city of Vienna has only four supermarkets which are “allowed” to operate on a Sunday. We discovered this ridiculous fact the day after the pub crawl. We had a pretty easy day that day. Tourist-attraction wise, hardly anything operates on a Sunday, but it was a beautiful day so we spent it wandering the streets. I am terrible when it comes to water consumption (unless it’s “Czech water”) and, as a general rule, often don’t realise how thirsty I am until my mouth and throat are drier than my sense of humour. We had lunch at McDonald’s (curly fries - they’re amazing) and then, I realised I was really quite thirsty. We were making our way towards the train station to check the timetable situation for our journey to Salzburg the next day, and I thought I’d just wait until we got there.

By the time we were walking through the station I was parched as (bro), and I commented , 'I don’t care how much a bottle of water is. As long as it’s less than €3.00, I’m buying one.' In what I can only assume was bad karma from my forcing Andrew to scull pure gin the night before, the cheapest bottle was €3.00. This outraged the backpacker in me and I refused, saying that I would wait until we got to the supermarket later. From our research, we knew that the supermarket near the Prater was open on a Sunday, and we had planned to fetch dinner supplies from there.

By the time we arrived, I was so thirsty I was starting to feel quite ill. I had to stop myself from pinching the juice box from a toddler in a pram I walked past. As we walked into the supermarket, I was aware it was busy, but it wasn’t until I snatched a bottle of water from the fridge and went to pay for it that I realised just how busy it was. I could exaggerate and say there were a million people in the queues waiting to pay for their groceries, but I won’t. There were, however, at least 200 people dispersed across the queues in front of us. And this is not an exaggeration. It took us over 45 minutes from the time we joined the queue until we were served. I was feeling so sick and dizzy, and very nearly passed out. Much like I imagine the guy in front of us would have later, seeing as he consumed an entire magnum of wine during our wait.

After I re-hydrated, it was time to conquer the Wheel. Even though it was my third time riding it, I saw things I had not seen before, namely the myriad facial expressions of scared Kaitlyn, and her bizarre half-crouch-half-walk (crwalk). She is apparently of the opinion that if she crouches down and makes herself shorter, she isn’t up as high. Or something. It was quite hilarious to watch, as she made her way around the compartment looking like she was in labour or had just emptied her bowels. One gentleman was watching her and asked me, ‘Is she okay?!’

‘Yeah! She’s fine!’

‘Vat is vrong vid her?’ Oh, where to begin? #jks #lol

As you’ve probably assumed, we both survived the Wheel. And we both survived Vienna.

Precipitation-covered petals, feline facial hair and fawn-hued parcels fastened with twine await – next stop: Salzburg. 

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Okay. I ummed and ahhed about posting anything about Auschwitz for several reasons, primarily because any musings on the experience will not in any way fit in with the tone of the rest of my tales. However, upon reflection, I decided that there are a number of reasons why I should definitely write something. First, and possibly foremost, for catharsis as, even after all this time, my visit still plays on my mind a lot. Also, I suppose it demonstrates that there is more to my travels than drinking and nicknaming people. Furthermore, because I strongly believe that everyone from my generation should visit Auschwitz (a blanket-statement I will address in a second), and yet obviously not everyone will have the opportunity so, at the very least, they should read about it. I’m not arrogant enough to think that a short blog entry about my own visit will in any way function as a piece of informed text on the subject, but perhaps it will prompt people to want to read more. 

When I say that everyone of my generation should visit Auschwitz, what I really mean is that everyone should have the opportunity to visit a facility like Auschwitz or a site of genocide; be it another Nazi concentration or extermination camp such as Belzec or Treblinka, the Killing Fields in Cambodia, or Kigali in Rwanda. Why? Well there are countless reasons ranging from education to remembrance but, ultimately, it is to put things into perspective. A phrase, a thought-process I frequently use is “it’s all relative". Often, yes, it is all relative, and comparing your own circumstances or predicaments to others’ would be a futile exercise. However, there are occasions when saying “it’s all relative” is simply a cop-out.

As I write this, I am suffering from a cold. It’s a bitch of a cold – my head hurts, my throat is on fire, and I’m fairly sure my eyeballs are about to burst out of their sockets and shatter the computer screen. And yes, I could easily argue that “it’s all relative” because it would be pointless to compare my cold to, say, having chemicals injected into my uterus to glue it shut, because you can’t compare a cold to that, and because I feel freaking miserable. But that’s just it – my cold isn’tan excruciating sterilization experiment, and while I may feel poorly because of it, it isn’t causing me agonizing pain and increasing the chances of a premature death. Still, I’m going to continue to feel sorry for myself, and I’m going to continue to Tweet requests for flowers (which people are going to continue to ignore), because I have a horrible cold which is making me feel like shit… and it’s all relative, right? Wrong. Or, at least, I think it is wrong. Myself and people my age have had it easy. We whinge and moan when we can’t get 3G connectivity, or we have a 9.00am lecture at uni. I say “we” – you know you’ve done it. At least once. And that’s because for our generation, these are things to moan about. And this makes us incredibly fortunate. And this is why we should all have our comfortable, undemanding, blessed lives put into perspective so we can properly appreciate them.

People might disagree with me on this notion. Whatever, it’s a personal opinion. I also imagine there are people who would question why I would look so far afield when, in Australia we had the degradation and eventual destruction of an entire race through the genocide of Australian Aborigines. I have several answers to this, many of which would probably showcase my naivety and ignorance of Australian history, but the most relevant response is that Nazi-occupied Europe is my heritage. Auschwitz is somewhere I have felt the need to visit for a long time. As I imagine is the case with many people whose family survived World War II and the Nazi-occupation, I have for a long time felt an obligation of sorts to go to Auschwitz. Whether this “connection” informed my experience in any way, I do not know, but it is the reason I found myself there, and it certainly caused many a pause for reflection.

I’m not going to make this a fact-filled essay, but a little bit of background for those who don’t know...

Auschwitz, the German name for the Polish town Oświęcim, is about 70km from Kraków. Auschwitz was originally built as a Polish army barracks, and the camp at Auschwitz was initially established in 1940 to house Poles who had been arrested by the Nazis after the invasion in 1939. However, by 1942 it had been developed and extended into an enormous complex of camps, three on or very near the main site - Auschwitz I, II (Birkenau), and III (Monowitz) - and a further 35 sub-camps. No exact death toll is known, but estimates put the deaths at somewhere between 1.1 and 1.5 million people, most of whom were deliberately, methodically gassed to death and then incinerated.

We took a tour from Kraków because, during the summer months, you must be part of a tour group to gain admittance to the site (whereas in the quieter winter months people are able to wander the site on their own). The bus trip took around an hour and a half, during which they played the same film which is screened at Auschwitz for visitors. A combination of footage from the camp and footage filmed in the first moments after its liberation, the harrowing images certainly set the tone for the visit. We first arrived at Auschwitz I, the original camp, which housed prisoners, was the location of medical experiments and is the site of Block 11 (a place of extreme torture) and the Black Wall (a place of execution).

The day we went was incredibly hot, sunny and slightly breezy – essentially the perfect summer's day. Honestly, my initial impressions were that it was really quite picturesque, beautiful even. That I could even think that probably sounds exceedingly sick and depraved, but the initial moments didn’t present to me anything like what I had been expecting. Considering how harrowing the experience did become, I am grateful that I did visit there on the day I did, in the conditions I did, but I do sometimes wonder how the experience would have been if I had gone in the dead of winter, with snow and a biting wind. I daresay it would have been very different. Despite these first impressions, walking under the “Arbeit macht frei” sign sent shivers down my spine.

Auschwitz I is almost perfectly preserved, and what little restoration work has been done is very clearly labelled. The site functions fundamentally as a museum and as well as the aforementioned Block 11 and Black Wall, you will see the following very literal sites: the electrified fence, the roll-call square, crematorium and gas chamber. As well as these there is the permanent exhibition which includes, amongst many things, photographs, documents, prisoner garments, prisoner bunks and items seized from prisoners. Our tour group was led by a man who would have been about my age. He led us through the camp and through the many rooms of the exhibition at a very rapid pace, all the time firing off statistics and numbers relating to the camp’s operation. He was incredibly clinical in his delivery (which I imagine you would have to be in order to do that job), but the hurried, detached nature in which he reeled off information, coupled with the sheer scale of the exhibits we were seeing, made it all that much harder to process. You would think that being confronted with seven tonnes of human hair which had been cut off the corpses of women in the gas chambers (and was to be used for things such as being turned into socks worn by Nazi soldiers) would elicit a barrage of emotions, but it didn’t provoke much of a response from me at all – at the time, that is.

When we visited the Holocaust museum in Berlin, I was incredibly emotional, and I had expected to feel even more emotional at Auschwitz. And yet, all I really felt was numb. A quote which is usually misattributed to Stalin – to the point I am actually unsure as to whose words they are – probably best sums up how I was initially feeling: ‘The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.’ It’s a controversial yet fascinating quote I had always considered merely another example of such dictators’ batshit lunacy, but I find myself almost agreeing with it now – not as a demission of large-scale death, but as an accurate observation of a person’s inability to comprehend that level of loss and destruction.

The tour then took us to Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, which is about three kms away. I had done a lot of reading on Auschwitz over the years, seen a lot of photos, and I always knew that Birkenau was big, but I was absolutely stunned by the sheer size of it. Birkenau was the real “killing centre” of the Auschwitz camp, and it was here the infamous “selections” took place as people arrived into the camp by train. Almost three quarters of prisoners were executed upon arrival at Birkenau, and to stand by those train tracks was another of those truly harrowing moments.

Unlike Auschwitz I, Birkenau was mostly destroyed by the SS in the days leading up to the arrival of Soviet forces. A few of the original barracks survived, and original materials were used to reconstruct a few more, however mostly it is a 425-acre grave site. I found Birkenau a lot more confronting than Auschwitz I. In a way I cannot explain, from the moment we stepped through the entrance, I felt as if fear, powerlessness, pain, suffering and sadness were all palpable; I genuinely felt as if I was surrounded by death. 

We were taken to a few of the barracks and to the ramp where the selections took place, but otherwise we were free to wander around on our own. I cannot tell you how long we were there as I had no sense of time whatsoever. In the same way I was at Auschwitz I, I was momentarily taken by the – and I hesitate to say it – beauty of the greenery. And yet, it didn’t take long for me to look past the green grass and the flowers, and see the crematorium and realise that it was ash from the bodies burnt in there which had fertilised the grass and made it so green. A realisation which left me feeling nauseous and yet, strangely, faintly heartened.

The whole way back on the bus to Kraków, I slept. That night, and even the next day I still felt quite numb towards the entire experience, but eventually I started to feel troubled and even distraught, in a way I expected to from the outset. To this day, the images still play on my mind. It is one thing to learn about what happened, but I don’t think you can truly appreciate the atrocities from simply reading about it in a book or watching a documentary. The horror can never be entirely conveyed, but Auschwitz stands as a chilling monument to human idiocy, malevolence and senselessness, and it will stay with me for as long as I live.

Kraków– Have you seen my USB?

Previously: the ultimate Australian bogans were schooled in the differences between nightclubs and death camps, I discovered that I can shot vodka, and a Javier Bardem-lookalike rapidly became less like the Spanish heartthrob, and more like the psychopathic hitman he played in‘No Country For Old Men’.

As became habitual in this hostel, I woke up feeling like I was in the tropics - only this time a beach as, coupled with the sweat, I was covered in what felt like sand. The sweat was, of course, courtesy of the "bread sauna" masquerading as our dorm, but the gritty substance covering my body was courtesy of the remnants of the giant packet of biscuits I had devoured when I collapsed into bed hours before. I didn’t actually remember this, but Kaitlyn informed me that, after being essentially carried to bed by Ned, I made him rummage around my shell because, ‘I simply cannot even contemplate slumber until I have eaten some biscuits’. At least I am an articulate drunk. It was quite late when we awoke and, by the time I had washed the biscuit beach from my bruised body, breakfast would have been well and truly picked-over, so we decided to cut our losses and hit up the supermarché.

Having not had to pay for food since arriving in Kraków (with the exception of the early-morning kebab), we quickly discovered that, while the local grocery stores are resplendent with grog, unless cured meats are your thing, they’re not awash with food. So we decided to embark on the semi-ambitious trek to hit up the Carrefour. If you aren’t familiar with Carrefour, I feel sorry for you. They’re a chain of hypermarkets across Europe and Asia and…welI I was going to describe them as Costcos where you don’t have to buy in bulk to save, but that is a horrible description which doesn’t make any sense. They are HUGE, have everything you could ever want, are dirt cheap and, perhaps best of all, have the greatest slogans of all time. I first became aware of Carrefours' ridiculous phrasing years ago when I was in France and, since then, have become an avid Googler of their campaigns. (How on earth am I still single?) I used to think that, given they originate in French, the translation might be what makes them so bad. It’s not – they’re ridiculous in every language. My current favourites are “It’s good for you”, “Energy Wise”and “Nobody does better than the first” (because that makes sense). The Polish one is quite amazing also: “Positively every day”, which I guess is significantly better than “Negatively some days”.

Anyway, we spent about an hour in the Carrefour browsing the aisles and filling our baskets (and scribing the signs so I could translate their slogans), eventually heading back to the hostel. By the time we got back, most of our pub crawl crew had emerged and were nursing sore heads and guzzling water downstairs. Javier was the first to speak, asking us if we’d ‘had a nice walk’. I can only assume he followed us at some point. Creep. We joined everyone and commenced the always-enjoyable Morning After Debrief. I was particularly looking forward to this one as there were several hundred minutes of my night unaccounted for. Unfortunately, no one else was much help in this department. Robert Downey Asshole commented that he left us all dancing when he departed the club with ‘A stunning Polish lass’. I think he said this because he wanted us all to know that he left with a woman (who I still believe was as real as Pamela Anderson’s boobs), however it backfired because it gave Kaitlyn a chance to call him on his assholery regarding her dancing. ‘I wasn’t dancing.’

‘Huh?’

‘You said you left us all dancing. But I wasn’t, because according to you I “can’t dance” and I’m “fat”.’

‘Ummm…’

‘That’s what you said – that I’m fat, can’t dance and,’pointing at me, ‘my tits are smaller than her’s’.

‘Well that’s true! They are.’  IDIOT. Even Ned looked at him with an expression of disdain.‘Look, I tend to say the opposite of things. So, if someone is ugly, I say they’re pretty.’ Logical. ‘Look. I just wanted to bring you down a peg.’

‘Why? Why did I need to be “brought down a peg”? It wasn’t as if I was telling everyone how hot I am, or what an amazing dancer I am.’

‘Everyone needs to be brought down. Even you.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Even so, what you’re saying is that I’m not fat, and I can dance?’

‘No, you can’t dance. At least, not as well as me. But mum and dad made us all take dance classes when we were younger, so it’s not your fault I’m better.’ Foot in mouth.

Speaking of one body part in another, this was about the time Scorsese and Dick-to-Face appeared. Lucky for us, he had not forgotten his promise of showing us an “awesome” clip he had taken the night before. 'Youse all ready for this?'

‘Not really.’ And nice to know your grammar is just as terrible when you’re sober. I don’t think a person with an IQ in double-digits could ever be ready to experience a visual depiction of “Dick To Face”. It really is the most literal “thing” ever, and still to this day, sometimes when I close my eyes I can still see Dick hovering over some poor man, his appendage agonizingly sharp and well-lit thanks to Scorsese’s practised camera-work and his iPhone 4’s camera.

‘Isn’t that SICK?!’ He obviously meant "sick" not in the literal sense, but as a synonym for "tremendous". I was honestly able to agree that it was, indeed, very sick. Literally. “But this is NOTHIN’ compared to the shit I got this morning. Youse are gonna DIE.’ Certainly possible, yes. Apparently the two of them along with Yeast Infection went even harder than the rest of us on the crawl and hadn’t arrived home until around eight o’clock that morning. While I assumed this had given them hours and hours to seek out faces to “dick”, it turns out they actually have a few other skills in their repertoire. Not surprisingly, this one also involved them dropping their pants, but it had a somewhat karmic end from which I must admit I derived a sense of satisfied pleasure.

‘We was in the square this morning and there was this hobo passed out near the clock. We was gonna try to Dick-to-Face” him, but he (Dick) was scared he was gonna catch something from the dirty hobo.’ Somehow, I think the “hobo” was just as likely to catch something too. ‘Anyways, we didn’t do it.’ Shame.‘But we did do something!’ Yay.

‘We realised it was like mornin’ and people were everywhere walkin’ to work. We couldn’t really Dick-to-Face them, but we could Dick them.’ I was going to point out that ‘dick’ isn’t actually a verb, but I realised they were unlikely to appreciate a discussion on the syntax of modern English. I am unsure whether Dick loses interest in dropping his pants when it doesn’t involved hanging it in someone’s face, but in the video he seemed not overly interested, and instead we were subjected to the naked bottom half of Yeast Infection. I have to give props to Scorsese here, because, despite the gratuitous nudity, the clip was first-class. In broad daylight in the middle of the town square, Yeast Infection drops his pants as several people walk by. Suddenly he mistakes one for a cop (it was actually a garbage man) and, takes off running. Only, in his inebriated state (one could argue he is dumb enough to do it sober), failed to pull his pants up first. So he starts running but only makes it a few metres before he trips, tries to right himself, and he nearly does, only to stumble into this huge pile of garbage bags where he ends up doing a spectacular backwards somersault and skids a good six metres across the concrete on his bare arse. And keep in mind this is a square dating back to the 13th Century – no smooth, sealed concrete here, people. Slapstick and naked men (with the exception of Ryan Gosling and Christian Bale) are not things I go out of my way to watch on film, but I watched this clip at least a dozen times. I haven’t even noticed The Other One (Bogan 4) sitting there, but his quiet observation of ‘Sucked in,’ reinforced that he was definitely my favourite.

While we were watching the clip for the sixth time, Yeast Infection hobbled his was into the kitchen. I thought he might be a little red-faced over the whole incident, but he squeezed himself onto the couch in-between Kaitlyn and me and watched with as much enthusiasm as the rest of us. ‘I haven’t seen it yet. Is it good?’ His reaction coupled with his vigorous high-fiving of Scorsese suggests that it was one of the proudest moments of his life. ‘Fuckin’ stellar, mate.’ Then, without any warning whatsoever, jumped up off the couch and dropped his pants, showing us all his “battle-wound”. I never hated being short more in my life that at moment, where my eye-line was perfectly matched up to his very bare, very bloody, very disgusting arse. Fortunately, the pants went back up pretty fast because, “We gotta get going. Off to that place today.”

'Where?'

‘That one youse were talkin’ ‘bout last night. Ost-witch’

‘Auschwitz?’

‘Yeah. Goin’ there with my shorts rubbing on this thing–at least I’ll be feeling the same kinda pain what those guys felt.’ Yes, because a self-inflicted buttock-graze is definitely comparable to starvation, forced labour, infectious disease and medical experiments. My GOD. And with that, they were gone. (In case you were wondering, Bogan Daddy was absent as he was ‘upstairs Skypin’ his missus’. Small mercies.)

We had to take our leave not long after, as we were going on the Jewish Walking Tour. Turns out Ned, RDA, Kitty and a new guy, who had just checked in called Matt, were also heading there. So was Javier. Surprise, surprise. Unlike the walking tour of the old city, this one was excellent. The district of Kazimierz was, hands down, my favourite part of the city, and we ended up heading back there a few times throughout our stay in Kraków. The tour took us to several synagogues (of which only one is still active), the Jewish Ghetto and Schindler’s Factory. I’m not going to write much about the tour because, as fascinating as I found it, it was incredibly sobering, and completely out of place being discussed here. While we were on the tour, the guide pointed out several places in Kazimierz which she considered might have been of interest to us later, including a bar which was nicknamed "Narnia", as you actually had to go through a wardrobe full of coats to reach the tables. We obviously tapped that one for future exploration. Javier was mighty keen to pencil in an exact time to explore, but we left it up in the air.

The tour was really quite long, and we didn’t end up getting back to the hostel until dinner time. Our arrival coincided with the arrival of The Bogans. Auschwitz was discussed, but I am not going to write about any of their comments as most of them lacked any decency whatsoever. Having said that, it was during this conversation that I came to realise these guys weren’t trying to be arrogant, obnoxious bigots – they were merely gross, juvenile guys who simply didn't get it.

The next day we were going to Auschwitz and, given that we were going to have to get up around 5.45am in order to make it to the bus in time, we had intentions of an early night sans-alcohol. Instead, we decided to walk into town after dinner for ice-cream. Ned and Robert Downey Asshole had an early train to catch, and decided to join us. I was more than happy to spend time with Ned as I loved him, but RDA’s presence was less than desirable. Having said that, he was on his best behaviour, and I would estimate only 50% of what came out of his mouth was rude and insulting. (The other 50% was narcissistic, but it was an improvement.) We returned home as the pub crawl was leaving, running into Javier who had apparently spent the last ninety minutes wondering where we had gone. ‘I would have come with you!’ This is why we didn’t tell you where we were going. Unsurprisingly, Kaitlyn and I found ourselves in a completely empty "bread sauna" at the early hour. Looking forward to a decent night sleep we crawled into bed and set our alarms for 5.45am.

However, it was not my alarm which woke me up, instead a Goddamn solar eclipse. At least, that’s what I thought it was when I roused, only to realise one of our roomies had come back in and turned the main light on. Looking at my phone I realised it was only 1.30, so I rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. That’s when I became aware of an irritating female giggle. Kaitlyn and I were the only girls in our dorm, so my interest was momentarily piqued. Just before the light was turned back off, I managed to get a glimpse of the trespasser, and recognised her as an American girl I’d seen around.

I didn’t really care that she was in our room (it’s a hostel…and people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones), but I DID care that she was being so freaking loud. Especially because she had a reallyirritating voice – think Janice from Friends crossed with Fran Drescher. ‘Oh my GOD! It is soooooo hot in here.’ Then leave. ‘Ohhh!!!! Are you on a TOP bunk?! I think I’m too drunk to get up there! Hehehe.’ Then leave. ‘Oh! There are people in here.’ Yeah, and we’re trying to sleep. LEAVE! She wasn’t even trying to be quiet, even after she made the Sherlockean observation that there were people in the room. To his credit, the guy did try and get her to be quiet…and not just with his hand, if you know what I mean. Yes, this was my first experience of hostel dorm sex. (Regrettably, not my last.)

The girl was loud when she was talking, so you can imagine she wasn’t exactly quiet in the throes of passion. At first I was thinking, ‘It’s okay, just let them do it, and go back to sleep,’. This is hard to do when it sounds like there’s a sumo wrestling match going on and one of them is in the midst of a heart attack. Still, I let it go. When I checked my phone and saw it was 2.00am, I started to toss around as loudly as possible, hoping they would suddenly remember there was someone there and just STOP ALREADY. Nope. Also unsuccessful was my coughing. When it hit 2.30am I was done, and turned on the light next to my bed. I sat up, and looked over, and the two of them paused mid….the two of them paused, looked at me, and then got right back to it. Seriously. What I still find mesmerising is that not one other person in the dorm was aware of this. Each and every one of them slept through it, including Kaitlyn who was on the bunk directly below them.

It took me a long time after that to get back to sleep, but I swear I was just drifting off when I was again awoken by something which wasn’t my alarm. Again, it was a voice, only this time a male one. You know when people – usually drunk ones –are trying to be quiet and “whisper”, only their whisper is no softer in volume, simply of different tonality to their loud voice? Well that is exactly what this guy was doing. He went up to one guy in the dorm and shook him awake, ‘HAVE YOU SEEN MY USB?’

‘Huh?’

‘HAVE YOU SEEN MY USB?’

‘No?’

‘OKAY.’ He then reached up and shook awake the guy on the bunk above. ‘HEY. HAVE YOU GOT MY USB?’

‘What?’

‘HAVE YOU GOT MY USB?’ Guy number two also hadn’t seen the USB. No worries, maybe guy number three had. ‘HEY! HAVE YOU GOT MY USB?’

‘HUH? WHAT? NO.’

‘HAVE YOU SEEN MY USB?’

‘NO. PISS OFF.’ Not evenly slightly discouraged, he tried guy number four.

‘HAVE YOU GOT MY USB? HEY!!’Guy number four was proving hard to rouse. More vigorous shaking. ‘HEY.MAN. HAVE YOU GOT MY USB?’ Number four did not have his USB. Next, he came over to me and started shaking me.‘HAVE YOU GOT MY USB?’ I had several things I wanted to say, including the fact he probably didn’t need his USB at five in the morning. Instead, I stuck with the obvious, ‘I don’t know you.’ He stared at me for a second.‘YEAH. BUT HAVE YOU SEEN MY USB?’ The guy on the bunk above me told him in no uncertain terms where he could stick his USB if he were to ever find it. Then it was Kaitlyn, who told him similar things. I’m not sure if he tried Shaggy and Janice, because I astoundingly managed to fall back asleep.

The next time I woke up was to my alarm. As we made our way out of the hostel to walk to the bus, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised to find Javier shadowing us. ‘Oh! We all going together! This will be fun.’ As with the Jewish walking tour, I am not going to write anything here about Auschwitz. I will be writing about it, because it’s part of our trip and something I want to write about and feel I should. However, it doesn’t fit in here in the middle of this.

That night drinks were definitely in order, but a small group of us decided a pub crawl didn’t really seem appropriate, and instead decided to head to Kazimierz. Over dinner at the hostel, those of us who had been to Auschwitz were quietly discussing our reactions when, with their typically impeccable timing, the Bogans came in. Yeast Infection quickly realised there were people who hadn’t seen his graze and immediately dropped his pants and shoved his butt into peoples’ faces. ‘D’ya reckon it’ll get infected?’ There were several new faces in the room, and Scorsese wasted no time in showing them all his back catalogue, while Dick eagerly explained the “rules” of Dick-to-Face. Not one to be left out, Yeast Infection decided to regale the newbies with tales of his various sexual exploits. ‘Yeah. There was this one chick in the Indian Ocean. She was loving it, but salty water stings like a bitch, ya know?’ On that note, our group headed to Narnia, doggedly avoiding Javier who seemed eager to come.

And that was Kraków. Only one other thing of note happened before we left. As we were checking out the next morning, Yeast Infection came swanning past reception wearing nothing but a towel slung low on his hips. I’m not entirely sure why he bothered with this piece of modesty as everyone there had already seen everything underneath. Repeatedly. He came over when he saw us. ‘Where are youse going? Are you guys leaving?’ Genius.

‘Yeah…we’re off.’

‘Oh! Well come ‘ere then.’ His arms were outstretched and he was coming closer. I was thoroughly confused. ‘You weren’t gonna leave without giving us a hug, were you?’ Yeah, actually – we were. I’m not quite sure when, but sometime between the graphic retelling of the story which gave birth to his name, and examining the bleeding graze on his butt under duress, we kind of grew to sort of like each other. So it was a lovely sentiment. Still, I no-rinse sanitised the shit out of my body afterwards.

Next time: An overnight train takes us to Vienna. Overnight trains are horrible.