Generic blog #909

I Booked a bus ticket last night to Tallinn, Estonia. After being stuck indoors for far too long and not seeing humans, it’s certainly long over due.

I Woke up at 4.30 to get ready for my bus at 5.15 from the stop around the corner from the flat.

My adventure started in the way it will probably continue… lackadaisical with mild panic. I arrived on the stop with 5 minutes to spare, at 14 minutes past I thought it MIGHT be a good idea to check for my coach ticket to Tallinn. What a surprise.. I Had somehow picked it up and put it straight back down.. I text Anna that I had forgotten my ticket and headed back to the flat with 60 seconds before my bus, fortunately she called me and I asked her to find it and throw it out the window. Luckily she found it on the kitchen table?? And threw it out.

It was quite cinematic as i watched my bus ticket flap around in the calm breeze from the 4th story… It COULD have gone anywhere… 30 seconds later i managed to grab it as it got low ENOUGH and immediately “cripple-scamped” my way back to the bus stop, it was now 16 past so i should have missed it. I saw him at the red light, I ran across the traffic in front of him like a right spazz. He pulled away, i felt the fun of travel hit me and by very good fortune he chose to stop when he got to the other side of the lights. Thank you Mr polish bus driver… If you were English, in the capital, I doubt you would have stopped.

I arrive at the international bus station and enjoy being lost, i find my dirty Ecolines stop and enjoy the freezing cold weather for a while. The bus turns up and looks quite pleasant, when i get on i discover it is quite possibly the most cramped bus i have ever been on. Even more so than Russian sleeper trains… People very close to my left,right,back,front and above. They really cram you in… It was ONLY 28 quid though!

The bus has a nice mixture of clientel, a scary looking lockstock chap with no hair, swollen brow minus the eyebrows, a strange colour to his skin and staring at me with a look of pure hatred. A few old people and a few nice looking Europeans ladies with no discenable nationality but definitely eastern!

The bus lady comes and talks jibberish and then responds to my confused look with “English?” i nod and she continues in jibberglish. I dont know what she said but i think she was being friendly.

It’s nice to be back on the road and have no clue what is next.

We decided to leave our hosts yesterday in search for comfier pastures, Not before him and his missus cooked us up a huge Irish breakfast complete with orange juice (and vodka!)

We scoffed it down and rudely legged it out the door to the train station, we had about 5 minutes to buy our tickets to Wroclaw. I bought mine in cash and was ready to go. The damn yank wanted to use his mastercard and the machine died. He tried other cards and by the time it was all sorted it was too late. I returned my ticked and we walked ouside Brno train station to see our train departing. We went to check out buses, then returned to the train station to find out there were no more trains to Wroclaw!

After some sitting and a small amout of laugh-crying I decided I wanted to get to poland asap and we simply had to go north, anywhere. We had made it to the train station so staying in Brno was not an option.

I Have been pretty ill since prague, lots of partying,no sleeping and sharing drinks with a sick bloke wasnt a good idea.

With my illness, exhaustion, bleeding nose and dodgy foot I did what any sensible person would do.

View at Picasa 19-Mar-2011 18:16, Sony Ericsson U20i, 0.125 sec, ISO 200

I went back to the counter and pointed at a map and shouted a bit until I landed us 2 tickets to a little place called Lichkov its just south of the Poland border.

We didnt mind that we had no idea what was there or why we were going but it was closer to Poland! The train would arrive at 7 in the evening with a change at Usti n.Orlici. Perfect!

We had a plesant train ride and after our change we try to communicate AT some locals on the train knowing we have no place to sleep. No joy.

We make it to Lichkov at 7.08 and first job is scouting out the train station for a place to sleep, it was really warm in there and seemed to be deserted.

There was a booze sign up the road so we thought we would go mingle with the locals and take a pint! (Only 65p) We got an interesting reception and as usual they didnt speak a word of English which ensured maximum fun. This place was tiny, only one boozer and 50 percent of the clientel were children. I did some pointing, drawing and a bit of barking and established there was nothing in this place and that we should head to Kraliky! We went to the station and the last train of the day was about 40 minutes away. We explored the nothingness, tried some night time hitchiking and then returned to the station where some non English speaking children laughed at us a bit until one piped up and told us what was in Kraliky!

We jumped on the train and enjoyed our free ride (which is becoming normal) it brought us in at about 9pm and we hiked towards the centre with some help from locals.

View at Picasa 20-Mar-2011 09:44, Sony Ericsson U20i, 0.002 sec, ISO 40

Everyone in that place spoke Czech, German, Russian and a tiny bit of Polish but English was clearly not cool. We found a hotel on the main square which was silly cheap and they didnt even ask for our id! I did my thing and communicated enough to work out the deal. We then went out, to the pizza resturant of course and then I finally got a decents night sleep. Win!

View at Picasa

Before I decided to leave England a wise ginger man gave me a 5 step plan for leaving the country, the first step of which was – “Watch into the wild”. Unfortunately Skype has stolen the other steps away from me but I am sure they were equally as useful. I did watch into the wild and quite frankly, I loved it.

If you have not seen it… the basic story is as follows – A chap goes to uni, for the sake of going to uni and to please his parents, After this he decides to sell everything he owns…Then he sort of travels around like a tramp meeting random people…until he eventually goes to Alaska and lives in the wild for a bit…grows a beard etc and then… actually its a good film so you should watch it!

Anyway, the reason I mention this, 4 people now in recent weeks have made disturbing comparisons between me and this character, I am going to assume it is just because I look like a tramp!

Watch it.