Poland

Leaving from Ukraine to Poland we took a 10 hour overnight bus. It was actually quite funny when we went to the bus station to catch our bus and saw all of the fancy, big coaches going by and assumed we would be going on one of them. Mom literally said, as we were walking up "It better not be that ugly thing in stall #3!" Sure enough......it was. OH well, it's just our luck. I've definately been on worse and thinking of what we were on not that long ago I'd say it was an improvement. We arrived at the borders at midnight and it took us three hours to get through. The worst nights are definately the ones where you're aching to just put your head down for 5 minutes but you can't! UGH! As soon as we arrived at 8:00 a.m. in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, we loaded ourselves up and started walking barely awake, stiff and half alive. It was roughly 4KM to the train station but I was too full off happiness to really care how sleepy or heavy my pack was. I just couldn't help myself from leaning over and saying " We're in Poland! BRE, we're in Europe!!" all day long. I just wish I could share this feeling with you guys. As it is, I'm sure any of you (other than the people who already live here) would be excited just to go to Europe but it's a totally different level for me. Imagine just coming from a bunch of third world countries after 14 months, to THIS. I'll give you just a light example of the drastic change. Not even 2 months ago we used/had fly infested, poo piling, rickety, half closing, wooden outhouses in the backyard that almost made you gag just going near them to gorgeous, (YES! A bathroom can be gorgeous) sparkling clean washrooms with hot running water (rather than a cold bucket of water), good lights and doors!! After spending a year in a dirt infested world (I am totally not complaining and I would never take back the experiences) it's a nice break to have. In other words....it's nice to have a shower that doesn't leave the water black!!! Hahaha! Our clothes even went into shock when we sent them swimming in a real live WASHING MACHINE (after a year of tender loving hand washing)! The hardest part now is trying not to get too comfortable or it will surely be hell going back to real backpacking. I can just imagaine what Africa is going to be like!
We went to the brand new uprising museum in Warsaw for our field trip. I actually found it really interesting and never knew museums could be enjoyable (which I'd hate to say about a war museum) . We spent hours in there and came out feeling so gloomy and upset. 40,000 innocent civilians died in Warsaw in only 2 days! All for one man's greed and retardedness!!! Argh! Some of (well, actually most of) the stuff in there is real footage and photos that really disturb you. So it was kind of cool to go to the rebuilt Old Town after just seeing clips of when it was completely reduced to rubble! I couldn't help picturing the tanks, screaming women and children, soldiers and barracades on the exact same streets of 60 years before, as I was walking down them. The Old Town is like an endless walkway of building paradise. I'm already shocked by how perfect it all is but Ammon says it's only the beggining. It's like a scene from the movies with the violinists, singers, sidewalk cafes everywhere, center squares and pedestrian cobble stone streets with a few horse and buggies, and all the different color combinations and statues on the buildings! I must admit that when Ammon said we were going to the Old Town my first mental images were of pictures #32 and #42 in folder "India With Sandra" at www.watkinstravel.myphotoalbum.com on album page 3. I thought of the muddy/dusty, smelly, narrow streets with cows, carts, padestrians, cars, dogs, tuk-tuks, chickens and kids all shoving their way through the crowds, crap, chaos, noise and markets!! I am on a completely different time zone or something because it wasn't even close to being like that. It's more of a stroll through these ones, something not possible to do in India, Pakistan or Afghanistan etc. I also just have to mention how practically everyone has "Inski" somewhere in their name.
Just a quick funny story. The other morning in the hostel I was down stairs waiting to go onto the computer and when Bre came down the guy behind us asked "Are you guys twins?!!", we always get that question and simply said "Nope! Just sisters." "OMG! I thought she (me) was you (Bre) the whole time I was sitting here!!" The funny thing about it was that Bre had been talking to the guy the whole night before and he must have thought she (I) was really rude to not even say "Goodmorning" to him the next day. We've considered buying the same clothes and trying to get a room for 3 people and sneaking one of us in and just never be seen together. It would totally work if they thought Bre and I were the same person, ahhaha.
We just arrived in Gdansk on a 5 hour train ride. Beautiful scenery and very different from the other countries we've been in. I think we'll be chilling here for a bit and do a couple side trips to see a castle and go to the Baltic Sea (I'm pretty much guarenteeing you we won't sail across that one, haah! But then again.....).
We'll keep you posted,
Savannah
P.s. I am proud to announce that FINALLY my best friend in the whole wide world, (I've been to a lot of places around the world and haven't/won't find a better one ever!) that I haven't seen in over a year, is flying into Warsaw to see us on August 5th!! I am soOoOOo excited. You have no idea!! TEEERRRRIIIII.........