jocelynpre

So we've left Lithuania now and have arrived in Poland. We took the overnight bus, during which I eavesdropped on a conversation between another Canadian guy and a girl from London. Turns out, the guy is in the third year of my program at Ottawa U. Crazy, small world.

Right away Eric and I liked Warsaw. Right from the moment we were standing in line to buy bus tickets into the centre of the city and a man asked us if we were in line. Very courteous. This may seem quite normal to everyone back in Canada, but it's very different from the Baltics. I was getting a little tired of having to breath down the neck of the person in front of me in order to keep my place in line. However, I think this must have something to do with communism, and having to wait for hours in line to get even basic things. Anyways, for some reason this doesn't seem to be as much the case in Poland. It's great!

We're staying with a local couple right downtown, and they are amazingly nice. We met them through a website called Hospitality Club, which is basically a network of people willing to put travellers up for free and often show them around their cities/towns. They work so hard here, sometimes up to 15 hour days in order to keep up with city living, but they still seem to be incredibly cheerful and helpful. I can't imgagine myself putting up a couple of travellers if I had as little spare time as they do. I feel incredibly greatful. They've also been giving us lots of advice for less touristy places to see in Poland, and as we hadn't really thought of visiting anything other than the main sights - Krakow and Auschwitz and possibly some mountains in the south, it will probably change our plans quite a lot.

Tonight, when Monica (our host) comes back from work, we'll probably go out to a restaurant for great Perogies. Oh - I have given up being a vegitarian for the time being. My excuse is that a. it's really hard here because everything has meat and i can't read menus to know what does and doesn't, and b. the food is such a huge part of experiening the culture that I don't want to miss out on it. Ok, and c. I was starting to get a bit envious of the meat Eric was eating - it looked really good!

I hope everyone is doing well back home, I love and miss you all!!!!

Take care,
Joce

Hi!!
So I've just set this up in Klaipeda, Lithuania, so I won't try to explain all the things I've done up until now. (Ok, well basically it was just London and then a week in Latvia and it has been soo great!)

Eric and I have been staying in a hostel here for the past three days and have had great fun. It's the first time I've been in a dorm style hostel and I was actually pretty thrilled by it. People are typically super nice and friendly and even if you don't catch everyone's name, you feel pretty instantly connected. There's the aussie girl, the aussie couple, the crazy Irish guy who says 'fook' a lot, the sweet older kiwi couple, the cute Quebec girl with the insatiable curiosity, etc etc.

Today Eric and I headed to the Lithuanium Aquarium Museum and saw Baltic seals and Sea Lions being fed, saw Dolphins, and tons of colourful fish (which I'm fairly certain aren't from around here) as well as some not so colourful ones. I really enjoyed it!

We then headed south down the Curonian Spit to a little village which had this really cool little trail through the woods. It was full of spooky wooden sculptures - witches and goblins and such. I think many of them probably had some sort of story or legend attatched, but of course I had no idea about any of them. Still it was pretty cool to see. Afterwards, dying from heat, we bought some cool beer and found a bench in the shade and relaxed for a while before heading back to our hostel.

Our plan is - one more night here, then tomorrow we head to Vilnius. We have a hostel booked in this weird little part of town that has been "claimed" as an independent nation - full of hippies and drunks, or so we're told. It should be worth a visit, I wonder how well we'll fit in....

Hope all's well at home, and that the summer is as hot as ours is here!

Lots of love,
Joce xoxooxox