DAY 16 – Got up early first day in a new city usually means a lot of walking to be had.  Of course there is yet another big ass castle

Krakow Castle

in the middle of Krakow’s old town so figured might as well make a stop in there.  On the walk there I passed in and out of some old churches with nothing that was really all that impressive before coming to the base of Krakow Polands massive castle.  The line to get into this place was ridiculous I must of waited close to a hour no exaggeration and sadly there was probably only like 20 people in front of me.  I am not sure what the hold up was because when it was finally my turn to get my ticket I seem to be in and out.  There is an old myth that  at the bottom of the castle is a dragons lair.  So I made sure to check this out.  I am not sure what it was really meant for maybe a prisoner cell they could not have used it for storage back then cause it was wet.  Like cave wet as it literally was dripping water everywhere.  After that little lair I circled back up to the top to enter inside the actual castle walls.  It took you into all these fancy rooms. Which to be honest I thought were boring as shit.  Each room was fairly empty it would have a few art pieces int here huge ass rooms and a big ass carpet.  So I kinda cruised

i thought these were intersting

through one thing I thought was interesting was the ceiling and if its a ceiling that interesting its got to be boring but how it was designed was impressive. Last stop was not the armory museum so things got better quick with a bunch of old killing shit.  Now I been to so many war armory type of museums but I never saw he cross bows like what they had in this museum.  After the castle I made the 2 mile walk to the other side of the river to go to Schindlers museum.  This museum was actually really impressive on how well it was done.  Some reason I

inside schindlers museum

had to wear gloves in the damn place I guess cause of touching shit.  It was a lot of reading in the museum but all the different stages and rooms they built was really cool. It was very very well done.  Next door to the Schindlers museum there was a contemporary art museum.  Hell yeah I like art lets check that out.  Well the museum only cost 2$ and I should of guess that the art could not of been all that great and low and behold it was not.  It was all that stupid ass art (stupid to me) of just paint splatters and piece of circle salt just really dumb shit.  Needless to say I didn’t stay long at all before back on my legs and heading 2miles back to the hostel to catch the free dinner again.  Dinner once again was incredibly impressive the hostel was pack so since I finished first I got up so others could sit down and I just called it a early night.

Day 17 – got up semi early to make the trip to auschwitz concentration camp.  Well when I asked the front desk girl to the hostel can I just show up or should I buy tickets in advance.  She informed me I have to go with a tour guide and there limited the amount of people per day so you will need to go online and book a tour.  I head back into the room to look this shit up and next

the infamous gate into camp 1

one that was available was 2.  It is now 11 but its a hour and half drive so I figured I would just take a relax cruise there.  Well nothing was relaxed about that after I exited the freeway and head actually towards the camp it started to rain and the weather dropped 15 degrees.  So I now I’m about 1 and 20 mins early and I see the good old usa embassy gold arches ( aka McDonalds).  I pull in I know they have free wifi and get some hot chocolate or something and might as well grab a sandwich.  I am only 5mins away from the camp so I just kill time for about a hr jump back on the bike now at this time it stopped raining.  I arrived at the camp get checked in and notified it is a 3 and half hour tour.  Visiting both Auschwitz camp one and camp two where we will have to get on a bus to take us to the second camp.  The first part of the trip I thought was more interesting the buildings we got walked into and several different ones had different collections of the people who were sent here.  The second part of the trip was just a massive field which I guess probably had more power but was just empty.  It def had some power behind it but I have been to killing fields in Cambodia where there is literally human bones in the ground visible to see and last year when I visited the city of saravejo I think that was even more powerful.  The guy who does the tour literally lived through cause it was only 20yrs ago.  You can see the damage from bullets and bombs all over the city constantly.  Anyways after went back to the hostel grabbed my one meal of the day that is free to grub down and went out on a late night of partying with two guys I met at the hostel.  One dude from Turkey and the other Denmark.

Day 18 – well since the night before we went hard on drinking I was glad I had no plans to do anything.  This was the first time Iactually went out and actually drank more than a beer or two.  So I was lazy and blah all morning.  Well I couldn’t let the day go

down in the salt mine

to complete waste so I did finally get up and head towards this salt mine.  Now this is my second salt mine I have visited first was in Pakistan and is consider the 2nd largest in the world.  This one is the 5th largest in the world but this one was like a damn museum.  It was really bad ass had churches

the crown jewel of the mine

art history of the mine but had sections where it explained the history of the mine.  I took a polish tour cause English was sold out so I don’t know about the actual history just got little facts here and there but I couldn’t believe how far down in the earth we kept going.  I guess total we were 443ft deep into the ground before we actually came back to the top and the tour ended.   Afterwards made the 30min drive back into the city had that free dinner once again and called it a early night cause tomorrow I was heading north to Warsaw to meet up with my friend Kyle.

Day 19 – got on the road by noon and made the 4hr drive north up to Warsaw.  My boy Kyle has moved to Munich Germany a few years back.  Kyle was literally the first guy I met before even moving to LA.  I met him one time when I was visiting from Pennsylvania  found out he too was from pa and he also rode bmx.  We instantly came friend and drank the night away.  Year later I finally made the move to LA and we hung rode bmx and have visited several countries together as well.  I met up with him about 9yrs ago for his bday in Spain to do the running of the bulls.  So here I am again now in Poland meeting up with him for another bday week.  Got together shortly after I arrived and straight to the bar to catch up with each other. We bar hopped grabbed some food and by midnight we found like the only club open (it was sunday) but it was 13$ all you can drink whiskey and cokes and of course they didn’t just serve whiskey vodka came flowing for free I felt like every hour.  Around 4 I think we called it a night his gf and him headed to there hotel my phone was dieing so I tried to head to mine.  Needless to say I didn’t make it I was about to give up and just sleep on the street cause I figured if I kept walking I am just going to get deeper lost.  I asked a 24h market if they could charge my phone they said no. so I was like fuck it sleeping on the street it was. Finally I asked a guy if he could guide me into the old town he asked sure spoke good English and took me straight to my hostel.

Day 20 – I think I finally got in at 6 that morning woke up around ten realized I didn’t have a charger in my room it was still on my

bike I zombie walk my ass down and outside to my bike grab my backpack with all my electronics get back in the room plug my phone see it says 1035 and fall back asleep.  Around 1 I finally woke up and didn’t hear from Kyle yet. So just laid around but think

Bday Boy Day Drinking

at 2 he finally got ahold of me.  Now today is Kyles actually bday July 6 he says lets meet up for lunch he picks a damn baked potato stand 3miles from me so I take a rental scooter over there just to drink a lemonade cause I was no hungry for a damn potato first thing that be the last thing I would want.   We said well its bday boys day what’s the plan well he said lets have a beer so next stop go to this Middle East take away bar area.  I go into this place called Beirut and get my ass a tuna burger and it was fukcing delicious.  We walked we rode scooters we drank till about 9 where Kyle wanted a good steak dinner.  We go to a steak house all grab a fancy steak and drink (only cost 32$ but most expensive meal yet I dont even spend 30$ on food in the usa).  Afterwards Kyle had food coma so we called it a early night.

Day 21 – Kyles last night and my last night in Warsaw so we actually tried to do something today.  He grabbed some lunch on his way to me cause I was not super hungry.  He also found out its 5$ all you can ride on the scooters at 30 min increments.  So we decided to make the long journey to the other side to check out this punk rock bar.   It took us 28mins to get there on the scooters.  We went inside we thought it was closed and were the only three people in the bar.  I mean the place probably only sits 15 people though.  We had our one drink talked with the owner guy on where to go.  He suggested there is a old vodka factory that closed down but to check out cause there’s a bunch of bars and other shit now inside.  So grab the scooters and cruised over there.  The factory was obvious running but they did have a vodka tour.  So we paid the 14$ for the premium tasting tour and got a little run down of what use to go down in this building and in the country of Poland as a whole.  After words we got our free shots and decided to

rooftop in the old vodka distillery

check out the rooftop bar of the vodka tour and have a cocktail.  Mine for some reason was some crazy obnoxious girly looking drink but it was so good I sucked it down in seconds.  Now I was starting to get hungry but We made plans to have one last good dinner so I saw there was a Thai place near by and thought o ill just go there grab soup or Thai salad.  They had soup so perfect ate soup and then we carried onto the next place.  We bar hop and rode the scooters back to the other side of town around sunset. (Which is like 9:45). So the first night we talked about eating polish food we haven’t really ate that so I said lets find a typical polish place.  We came up on one like a block from my hostel the lady suggested th one dinner plate and that they had vodka shot samplers.  So we order exactly what she suggested and the shot sampler as well.  Vodka was flavored and pretty tasty but that meal was so god damn good.  I am going to be craving it for awhile.  Again Kyle entered another food coma and called it a night we said our good byes and I went back to the hostel.  When I got back there were a group of like 6 guys in the lounge area all drinking vodka.  The one asked if I would like some vodka I said sure can’t pass that up didd some drinks with

funky cool building in sopot

those guys they went out into town and I called it a night.

Day 22 – had to be checked out by 11 so I got up and packed the bike back up since I also gotlaundry done there and had a 4hr ride north to the Baltic Sea.  The ride was miserable it was 63 windy and of course it had to rain on and off the whole damn time.  It was a 4hr ride I got there around 430 my great friend Ashley hooked me up with the Sheraton on the beach but did absolutely no good since it was ugly out. I did walked around town there for a bit took some photos which may look like it was a nice day but it really was not.  So back to the hotel and Thankfully though its a full service Marriott hotel (yes Sheraton is Marriott) where they have everything and means if your a gold member in there lounge they have free food and booze.  So around 6 is when the social hour starts and the food comes out.  So I filled up on the free food there so I wouldn’t need to buy anything.  I updated the blog went to the gym since they had a rowing machine to get some rowing done and called it a early night.

Sopot, Poland and a rainbow on a cold rainy day

Day 23 – woke up to another ugly day but I thought I got to do something I drove here.   So I made a 30 min drive south to the city

world war 2 museum

of Gdansk to the world war 2 museum they have.  This thing was massive I think it took me 2hrs to walk through it and I don’t even read all the shit.  I pick and choose so probably read about 40 percent maybe less lol and it still took that long.  It was interesting to know how fucked Poland really was back then where there attacked from both sides and some how today still are a country.  Also interesting to find out usa partner with Stalin back then.  Afterward I wanted to take a stroll through the town but weather was not looking good so I said fuck it and rode back up to my hotel. Got in a about a hr before the free food again so grabbed my free meal went back to the room relaxed for a bit and just repeated the cycle rowed on the gym machine and called it a night.

Day 24 – so the plan is to camp today I have-not camped yet this whole trip and the weather does not look like its ideal but its 2 and hrs away where I planned on going and the weather man never really knows shit anyways.  So I got to this lake I was told about to camp but its literally a city.  Well since I was here I drove around down to the lake and they had a carnival going on.  So I stopped in ate a sweet walked around and thought I best go hunting for a camp site cause no idea how long that will take.  I made my way north from the city I was in to these other lakes.  This area literally has 100 lakes no exaggeration.  I got up to the lake on the main road and decided to turn off a dirt road and head towards the water.  I cruised for a bit till I actually saw a area that went to the water.  It was a open lot looks like a camp site maybe it was maybe its private I didn’t know but I said fuck it and set up shop right on the water.  I bought subway sub cause I was not sure if I would be able to make a fire to cook and wanted something that would fill me up. So I grubbed down my foods and started to collect wood for a fire.  Killed some time walking around and what not and around ten I decided to attempt luck on starting this fire.  Since its been raining on and off for awhile now al the wood I found was a bit wet so I didn’t really know what to expect.  But I did manage to get it started and continued to burn throughout the night till I went to bed.  I didn’t drink in the beach hotel so I snagged 6 beers from the lounge while I was there and brought them with.  I killed the 6 beers and called it a night.