Thumbs Up - Warsova, Krakow and Auswitch

Wednesday 25th

We woke up quite early because of the noice coming from outside. There was some construction work going on in the neighbourhood. After having breakfast and making some snacks for the road, we checked for couches in Krakow and sent a new request to a film producer living there. He had a relaxed profile and a few referenses.

Jan game back from biking practise and Aga left for work. We said our goodbyes to Aga. We started talking about what stuff we still need for our trip. Jan helped us greatly with getting a proper camping matress. He knew the owner of one shop in Warsova and called there at front to let them know that we are coming.

Jan and Matylda gave us a lift to a better place to start hitchhiking than at the center of Ostroda. We went to a Mc Donalds on the side of E77 towards Warsova. Sad goodbyes later and after "threathening" to come back to Jan and Aga we walked to the start of the turning lane. Just after I got a picture of us we got picked up. Jan and Matylda had just finished their icecreams and were waving goodbye as we left. :)



Onwards to Warsova

Sebastian a truck driver was ready to stop his not so properly working truck and take us in. He was going from Ostroda to 100km near Warsova carrying paper rolls 23 000kg. That immediately reminded me of the paper truck accident in Finland. Hope the cargo is attached properly. It seemed to be as we were going 100km/h and suddenly breaking to 30 for the road costruction workers. There was a lot of construction going on on the road to Warsova.


We listened to Polish rap and talked a bit about the routes he drives. He mostly stays in Poland. He didn't speak good english and our Polish hadn't still started to catch on. We drove through the countryside passing by a few autorepairshops in the middle of nowhere. The sceneries, houses, autorepairshops and farms reminded me a bit of our Russia trip last spring with my family to the part of Karjala that was a part of Finland before second world war. Though in Russia the houses and roads were in a worse condition.


Sebastian left us in a gasstation from where we were able to continue hitchhiking. It was funny that we almost didn't have time to put our backbags on the road when one car took us again. He was also a Polish man, but unfortunately we lost his name. :(


Allthough he was helpfull and ready to take us near the sportshop that Jan had recommended. (The sportshop was an import export company and had nice prices but not a proper shop. We wanted to buy sleeping matresses for our trip and then get something to eat.


I think that the Warsova visit was profitable because we got the matresses for a good price and by accident found an awesome Italian restaurant. The food was something that I can't describe, fresh (but this time fried) meat, chicken and pork, vegetables and salty potatoes.

Mmmm. :P

And for desert we ordered Americanos (in here it's not obvious that you get good coffee, sometimes it's instant or just bad). The chef was so lovely, he came by hisself to ask is everything okay and is the food tasty. He also made for us some Italian dessert, for free.


Thank you very much Daniel Popis and the restaurant la Diavola! (If you ever happen to come to Warsova do go Plotka 17 and on the other side of the street you will see the Italian restaurant)


I have never got such a good service. It's so shame that we are not living in Warsova (I would eat there more often than kebab in Finland). I'm afraid that in Italy the food isn't that good, or cheap.

With our stomachs full again we walked like 5km to the road that looked busy and a good place to HH (there were the trafficlights). One Germanian motorcycklist gave us few advise to find the way in there, and one guy took us to a better road to get a lift.


We stood near the Mc Donalds, Mika was rocking our Finnishflag like in the formularaces. I was responsible for the thumb. Apparently, one white car wanted to cheat us. It stopped near by us, but when we started to run towards it it just accelereted and turned back to the road. Hopefully soon after that incident a hippievan desided to take us.


They told us to having saw our Finnishflag and then thought that yeah they have to take us even they are not going the whole way to Krakow. And ofcourse they wanted to save us from the rain.


The girls were from Sweden and the Rastaguy didn't remember from where he came from. The van was a home of one of the girls, and it looked just like I have seen in the movies. We talked for example about going to school and not going to school, how it's so hard to live with routines or how it's so easy. The hippieguy smoked some weed and I started to be afraid of the speed of the van. (Hippie guy was also translating some religious book to one of the girls while smoking another joint. :) I am not judging them for their ways)



We dropped out at a gasstation, about 100km before Krakow. They were thinking of which route their are going to take and we were thinking of where are we going to put up our tent.



So, now we had the chance to test the new sleepingmatresses.

It's so wonderfull in here without mosquitoes or extremely cold wheather.
On the other hand it's so fucking hot, that I can't go and sleep beside Mika as I'm already so ugly sweating, so does he.


Thursday 26th


I slept quite well, but in the morning I really needed the shower. Being almost sure that we wouldn't have the time to find any real shower, I desided to go to the toilet of the gasstation. Mika was a bit embarrased as I managed to make a small lake on the floor and the employee of the station had to go and clean it. (i actually told her earlier that "shower in a toilet" is what I did many times before but I usually clean up after myself)

We ate a small breakfast and wondered where should we go next. I think that we were kind of lost again, because many people came and started to speak Polish and they didn't stop helping even we said in english we can't speak polish. But we understood them (I have developed my bodylanguage) and finally one of the helper showed us to a bus to a better road to lift.



How smart that in the bus I asked "Should we buy the tickets or are we going to act like stupid Finns if the inspector comes and asks our tickets?" Ofcourse one inspector came in immediately on the next stop and started to ask our tickets. Mika got good instructions how to buy tickets in Poland and luckily we didn't have to pay any fines.

Hitchhiking from Kielce to Krakow



I should know, that if a car marked Audi stops and is ready to take us in we should say in a friendly way that we are sorry, but we can't come in. But this time it was too hot in the outside and it was Audi A5 or some sportmodel, aircondition and everything.

The owner of the car was a doctor who was on the way home, when suddenly his car started to complain about the low battery. I remembered that he said it has never done anything like that before, and it must be because of us. As you might quess, we didn't get even near to Krakow with that car. He wasn't ready to try HH so he had to stay in a gasstation to wait for a ride.


For us the carbreakage was like a destiny (dumb luck) as we found a guy, or the guy found us, who was going almost straight to Oŝwiecim, the city where the museum Auswitch-Birkenau is.

Wonderfull I thought because now we didn't have to HH all the day. Before leaving he ate his own food and we ordered some Polish soop and "Finnish" peesoup to take away. I thought that Mika ordered also one Kalakukko (local Finnishfood from Kuopio) when I got one bigbig bread. But it was like a plate for the soup.


His name was Obrocjevits Olkusz and he was working at somekind of art business. We talked about many castles in the area and he told living in the mountains near Krakow.



We visited in Auswitch-Birkenau with a little hurry. Few times I got so scared when I saw some rooms I couldn't go in without Mika's hand. I can't describe the place but it's worth of seeing. (Well I can add that it is definately something that makes you understand the horrific events around The Second World War)







When we were leaving Auswitch we saw some Finnish people, who noticed that we are also from Finland. They noticed us because we were arguing a bit in Finnish. Just a bit. The reason for the argument was so stupid that I'm not going to write it here. They were going back to Krakow and eventhough we tried to imply that we are maybe trying to HH back to Krakow, they didn't get that. What a surprise. (Actually I implied twice about getting a ride with them)

So, another night in a tent. Luckily the town was a greeny one, a lot of trees and a clean river called Sova. (The river was actually according to some locals a dirty one. But I asked a few times and finally when I asked on the morning from a local family biking there they told me its really good to swim and they go there..)

We were looking for the internet at the Old town, but it was hard again as we didn't want to eat in KLF some greasy chicken. So we ate quickly, or atleast tried to eat quickly in a somekind of cafe. We had to wait about 40 minutes for one pizza and one salad.



Finally we found the internet, got some coffee and water. I don't know how I managed to order hot water, but I think I was already sleeping.



"Two big elefants were marching here, dark road forward to find a place for the tent!", and so they found the footballfield and put up a tent.


Againg sleeping dirty in the tent, good night. Second day without a shower for me(Mika) :)