Arriving in Poznan & Berlin

Arriving in Poznan and Berlin 6.7

Woke up a couple of times during the night just to realize it was still a couple of hours before my wake up call. I had to pee bad, but I coulnd't be bothered to get out of my sleeping bag and the caravan to the cottage, so I just decided to carry on sleeping. When finally my grandparents, my aunt and my cousin Adriana drove me to Ostróda station and I got on my train, it was 7:21. I forgot to write down the departing information on my interrail ticket, but luckily the conductor was a nice man and let it slip. Don't know how strict they really are about this stuff.

I arrived in Poznan at 12 and went straight away to the post office to send off some of the unnecessary items I was carrying with me, such as the gummies I had bought for the rainy day at the festival, my rain poncho (It was annoying to pack each time), my mozzie repellent (it's not like they bite me anyways), my second Spannish book (hey who am I kidding, still haven't had time to even open up the first book), too many pairs of shorts I had taken with me and some other clothes. Cost me like 15 euros but what ever. Now there's space in my backpack again and I got rid of 3kg :)

Headed from there to Maccas OF COURSE. When in need of WiFi, just go there to sort your business out. I was freaking out when I saw the f*cking video Edwina the Aussie girl had posted on my wall. Some dude had been filming at the Deadmau5-show, and got a good 20 second glimps of the gig screen and me and Edwina raving on some guys’ shoulders in are bras .... EPIC :D But yeah, I went to Maccas to sort some shit out. I was tryinna figure out where to stay in Berlin for the night. I was not looking forward to paying for accom cause I had thought that it would be a longer ride from Poznan to Berlin than 3 hours. So I was counting on spending the night at a night train. Looking for a hostel felt so tirying, even more so, cause I was so damn exhausted form the festival. At one point I felt like I could take no more (every hostel was like booked for the night / they were far away form the train station) and felt like giving up and just laying in a starfish position in the middle of McDonalds’ floor. So mentally exhausted. I realized thought that I had no other chance than to carry on and book a freakign hostel.
After all that jazz I reserved my train ticket and started walking to the old square _with_ my backpack (couldn’t be arsed to leave it at the station) in the middle of the freaking zebra pass bumped into Marciano and Joanna ! I knew they were gonna be in Poznan for the Manu Chao concert but it was just so weird yet pleasant bumping into them randomly :) In my sweaty and heavy 20 minute walk to the square I managed to buy new black fake converse ! And they were only 4 euro ! I threw the old hole-y WET ones out and hang my new ones on my backpack. AND I MET BARBARA :)

I went for lunch with her and Natalia joined us too since my train was only gonna leave in 2,5 hours. It was so lovely to see the girls <3 Barbara I had met in 2009 in the Lion’s Youth Exchange in Mexico and Natalia in October in Mission Beach. They were so nice and insisted on payign my bill ”since I was a backpacker” ! :D ridiculous. good karma hey.

I panicked on not making my train but luckily i made it 5 minuted before its departure. I didn’t have to worry about sitting by myself cause right away i nthe corridor I met three good looking Belgians.

”Do you know whether we have to sit in our places?”
”I don’t know, we didn’t reserve a place...”
”Really? :D Well can I just sit with you guys until we get evicted by the conductor.”

And so I met my first travel buddies ! Dan, Peter and Jonas were pretty amaized by my knowledge of Belgian language (well Dutch really but they understand it)... Just as I suspected, I shouldn’t have reserved a hostel for the first night. ”What if I meet nice people on the train?” And the boys asked whether I would like to just stay with them since I was a lonely wolf :D I was happy to ditch my hostel which was god knows where. Don’t really care about the 19 euros that’s gonna be charged on my credit card from the reservation, I just wanted to stay somewhere close. PLUS i was so exhausted.

It also came in handy for the boys, that I spoke Polish because the conductor wasn’t too happy with them not having a reserved seat. I asked whether we could buy them now and things got sorted. I also got rid of my zlotes (polish currency) because the boys lacked them and so they changed they euros for my zlotes! ;)

But arriving to Berlin didn’t go as smooth as sound as we thought. Just as we got out of the train and were standing on the platform we heard an alarmingly loud man voice scream and a shout to STOOOOP STOOOOOP STOOOOP. We turned around to see what the fuck was going on – and the moment froze – as the train had began to move, the door was still open with a lady hanging from the knob. As the train sped up she was desperately trying to get in but could not just make it. The man – her husband assumably – was still shouting for them to stop the train and I was just too scared and in shock to watch anymore. If the woman would loose her grip of the speeding train, she would fall on the tracks and die. A miracle happend and some how she made her way on the wagon. Someone must have helped her in. We were just in full shock standing there and trying to make of what just happened. I was just to happy to see that the woman got in and hear her man screaming loudly at the conductors on the station.

Peter, Dan & Jonas

I believe thought that everything happens for a reason I think this served as a good wake up call to watch out more and not be oblivious about everything.