POLAND

I am writing this from Gdansk airport, where I have been since 9pm yesterday because I got lucky with my hitchhiking, now the second airport I have visited on my European hitchhiking trip, haha! I am waiting for Tom, who is coming to visit me for a few days to hitchhike from Gdansk to Berlin. 

Since I last wrote I spent a nice few days in Brno, hitchhiked up to John and Ola’s in Sejny, and spent just over a week with them helping with some building work and, interestingly, book editing for John. We spent half the week waiting for the wood delivery to start building a barn to store firewood, so I have promised to go back for another week after Berlin, to help them finish the barn, and a few other jobs before the winter sets in. I’ve been really lucky with the weather up until now, there was a couple of really rubbish rainy days when I first arrived at John and Ola’s, but since then it’s been glorious, 28 degrees and sunny. Me and Lenny, a fellow workawayer from Germany who arrived a few days after me, swam in the lake a few times, and I swam the furthest I have ever swam in my life, to the other side of the lake and back, about 1km!

I’ve been continuously working on my photography portfolio, and am often updating my website. Here’s a few from Brno:

My hitchhiking trip up through Poland was a bit of a mission. I left Brno early afternoon, and camped the first night at a lake in a place called Tovacov. I had decided to take the slow roads, as I didn’t want to stand at service stations and see only motorways the entire journey, so it was a nice afternoon for scenery but it also involved a couple of very long walks with the heavy bag. I had a couple of lovely experiences on the way, one family invited me into their house for coffee and homemade apple cookies whilst they looked at the map and directed me towards Poland. They didn’t speak any English at all and I couldn’t manage to explain that I had google maps on my phone! But they were so lovely that I didn’t mind the little wait and the looking on the map. My last lift before camping was with a man who invited me to eat dinner at a restaurant near the lake, because he was enjoying practising his English. It’s so heartening when people really go out of their way to do their best to help me, or just to be kind, and it’s these experiences that make me love hitchhiking.

I set off pretty early the next day to head up through Poland, but my journey was a bit slow by the afternoon. Lots of the lorry drivers were really helpful with their radios, and I got swapped from lorry to lorry a couple of times after my various drivers made calls for someone going in my direction, but even with this help I knew I wasn’t going to make it to Sejny that day. I ended up in a town called Radom. I was a bit emotionally exhausted so I ended up sleeping in a hotel that evening. I made it up to John and Ola’s by 6ish the next evening, which was Friday the 2nd.

I’ve had a lovely time staying with them. It was great to see the garden in full force and to see all the progress they’ve made since I was last there. I particularly enjoyed sleeping under a roof that I built! I am looking forward to going back for another week or so after Berlin.

Updates from Gdansk and Berlin soon.