As usual, I'm ridiculously behind on these things. And again as
usual, I've decided to try and catch up now that I'm actually on a trip.
I'm writing thing from my hotel bar in Sydney, Australia, because I
can't go outside. There's some sort of crazy storm going on on that is
dumping rain harder than I've ever seen outside the tropics. But in the
tropics, it lasts like an hour. This has been going for 12 hours. The
city is fucking swamped. I've never seen anything like it, and my
clothes are still drying in my room from my brief tour earlier today.
But this hotel bar has beer and wifi, and that's about all I need to
write. So let's roll.
Last time I checked in I was in some serious pain. I had a feeling what was causing it, but I wasn't 100% sure so I was super paranoid. Surfing the net for answers didn't help, as can be expected. I was pretty sure I didn't have a flesh-eating disease, but one or two of the symptoms fit. I wouldn't have really cared if it was that anyway - I'm huge. I would have had at least three months to live.
What I thought I had was a stomach ulcer. All the symptoms fit, but I had no idea about the kind of intense pain they can send into your back and shoulders. When I got to the Munich airport to fly to Warsaw, I went in to a drug store there and just decided to ask a pharmacist chick. She confirmed that it was an ulcer, and gave me pills to completely stop the production of stomach acid. That apparently requires a prescription in Canada, but not in Germany. And they were 10000% successful - within 3 days I was feeling perfect again. But those three days in Poland were kinda rough. Especially the first day.
I arrived at Warsaw and was scooted off to my plush hotel by a cabbie that ripped me off. Shocking, I know. I didn't care though - I just wanted to lay down for a bit. I picked one of the nicest hotels in the city because Poland is cheap. To give you an example of how nice it was, you could order bottles of Cristal to your room. And they had a pet menu for room service.
I was struggling, but I had only had one day there so I was determined to check out as much of the city as possible. The Old Town area is super nice, a lot different than I had expected. It was also packed to the gills with people. I guess the Polish celebrate Boxing Day? I dunno. Anyway, I walked all over the place in the snow and the sea of people, using my tablet as a camera because I had already lost my regular one. Go Tim. Is it embarrassing to use a fucking tablet to take pictures? Slightly. When I got home, Danny christened it the "plywood cam" because that's exactly what it looks like. This is why I hate the Portuguese.
After walking through a massive construction site, I happened across a pond full of ducks. Is this interesting? Not really I guess. But I was amused, because they were the most forward ducks ever. They had no problem walking right up to me. And ON ME. They were like squirrels in Stanley Park. I had no food for them, so all for my trouble was dirty jeans because they were all sitting in a fucking mud puddle before I came along. One of them actually jumped up onto my lap and attempted to take my hat. The plywood cam was their kryptonite though - they scattered like *insert racist comparison here* and I never got a good pic of them bothering me. Come to think of it, that was the most action I got on the whole trip. Whores.
After a nice sleep in my uber-comfy bed, I was starting to feel better the next day. I was on the move again, to Gdansk. No, that's not a typo. Yes, that's a real place. And it's awesome. After not getting robbed by a cabbie for once (he said straight up that he thought ripping off tourists gave the country a bad name and refused to do it), I got into the heart of a fucking beautiful city. It's on the Baltic Sea in the north of the country, and has a nice river running right though the middle of the central area. The walk down the river was super nice (even though it was about -10) and the old town is one of the nicest I've ever seen.
I think I liked the city more than other more popular ones because it wasn't packed with tourists. In fact, there weren't any. My hotel was practically abandoned, and everyone went out of their way to do all they could for what seemed like their only customer. Food and beer were cheap in restaurants and bars, the service was great, and nearly everyone spoke English. It's also a port city, which I think are my favorite cities in the world. I guess it comes from growing up on the water, but for some reason I just like port cities because they tend to be a bit grittier than your average tourist haunt. Gdansk was ridiculously nice, but you could tell that it was a bit rough around the edges too. The vibe was awesome.
I still have 2 weeks left in this Australia trip, so I'll try to catch up as much as possible. This trip wasn't full of ridiculous stories or anything like some of my prior (or more recent) ones, but I got to see a lot of stuff I hadn't before so it was one of my favorites. Lithuania was all kinds of weird, Switzerland was amazing and dumb, and Paris was...odd. I'll get to that soon. Then we can get back to me passing out on the floor of my hotel room after rapping with a dolphin (Mexico), or winning a large amount of money and getting followed to my hotel room by a old-ish married woman with fake boobs (Vegas).
Last time I checked in I was in some serious pain. I had a feeling what was causing it, but I wasn't 100% sure so I was super paranoid. Surfing the net for answers didn't help, as can be expected. I was pretty sure I didn't have a flesh-eating disease, but one or two of the symptoms fit. I wouldn't have really cared if it was that anyway - I'm huge. I would have had at least three months to live.
What I thought I had was a stomach ulcer. All the symptoms fit, but I had no idea about the kind of intense pain they can send into your back and shoulders. When I got to the Munich airport to fly to Warsaw, I went in to a drug store there and just decided to ask a pharmacist chick. She confirmed that it was an ulcer, and gave me pills to completely stop the production of stomach acid. That apparently requires a prescription in Canada, but not in Germany. And they were 10000% successful - within 3 days I was feeling perfect again. But those three days in Poland were kinda rough. Especially the first day.
I arrived at Warsaw and was scooted off to my plush hotel by a cabbie that ripped me off. Shocking, I know. I didn't care though - I just wanted to lay down for a bit. I picked one of the nicest hotels in the city because Poland is cheap. To give you an example of how nice it was, you could order bottles of Cristal to your room. And they had a pet menu for room service.
I was struggling, but I had only had one day there so I was determined to check out as much of the city as possible. The Old Town area is super nice, a lot different than I had expected. It was also packed to the gills with people. I guess the Polish celebrate Boxing Day? I dunno. Anyway, I walked all over the place in the snow and the sea of people, using my tablet as a camera because I had already lost my regular one. Go Tim. Is it embarrassing to use a fucking tablet to take pictures? Slightly. When I got home, Danny christened it the "plywood cam" because that's exactly what it looks like. This is why I hate the Portuguese.
After walking through a massive construction site, I happened across a pond full of ducks. Is this interesting? Not really I guess. But I was amused, because they were the most forward ducks ever. They had no problem walking right up to me. And ON ME. They were like squirrels in Stanley Park. I had no food for them, so all for my trouble was dirty jeans because they were all sitting in a fucking mud puddle before I came along. One of them actually jumped up onto my lap and attempted to take my hat. The plywood cam was their kryptonite though - they scattered like *insert racist comparison here* and I never got a good pic of them bothering me. Come to think of it, that was the most action I got on the whole trip. Whores.
After a nice sleep in my uber-comfy bed, I was starting to feel better the next day. I was on the move again, to Gdansk. No, that's not a typo. Yes, that's a real place. And it's awesome. After not getting robbed by a cabbie for once (he said straight up that he thought ripping off tourists gave the country a bad name and refused to do it), I got into the heart of a fucking beautiful city. It's on the Baltic Sea in the north of the country, and has a nice river running right though the middle of the central area. The walk down the river was super nice (even though it was about -10) and the old town is one of the nicest I've ever seen.
I think I liked the city more than other more popular ones because it wasn't packed with tourists. In fact, there weren't any. My hotel was practically abandoned, and everyone went out of their way to do all they could for what seemed like their only customer. Food and beer were cheap in restaurants and bars, the service was great, and nearly everyone spoke English. It's also a port city, which I think are my favorite cities in the world. I guess it comes from growing up on the water, but for some reason I just like port cities because they tend to be a bit grittier than your average tourist haunt. Gdansk was ridiculously nice, but you could tell that it was a bit rough around the edges too. The vibe was awesome.
I still have 2 weeks left in this Australia trip, so I'll try to catch up as much as possible. This trip wasn't full of ridiculous stories or anything like some of my prior (or more recent) ones, but I got to see a lot of stuff I hadn't before so it was one of my favorites. Lithuania was all kinds of weird, Switzerland was amazing and dumb, and Paris was...odd. I'll get to that soon. Then we can get back to me passing out on the floor of my hotel room after rapping with a dolphin (Mexico), or winning a large amount of money and getting followed to my hotel room by a old-ish married woman with fake boobs (Vegas).
