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Showing posts with label Filip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Filip. Show all posts
Friday, August 28, 2009

You can ask - why Sweden? Before departure the answer was just one. We found very cheap flights to Stockholm. But actually there was always something encouraging to come. The reason has blond hair, cute appearance and big, beautiful... eyes ;) Yes Swedish girls are magnetic and probably that's why Sweden attracted two young boys made from iron(y), who later we call Rys and Filip.




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Finding place to sleep in Stockholm would be very easy, but it doesn't work with us. Unluckily some minor band, called Coldplay decided to perform on that weekend in Swedish capital and all the hostels were pre-booked with 4 weeks notice. That's why we decided to find Hostel in Uppsala. Yes, there was an option to sleep under some bridge, but that was already taken by Coldplay fans. But let me grab things together.

Stockholm

You need 1-2 days to see everything important in that city. All the most important objects are located on the islands, but one really impressed us and I think both of us can sign under this statement. The most worth seen place in Stockholm is Vasamuseet. I am almost sure that for Swedes that is kind of gift from the sky, or rather in this case from the sea. What am I talking about? Actually about the old, wooden proof of Swedish rubbish engineering. In 1961, Swedes salvaged the biggest warship in the history of Vasa dynasty, which sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. Chapeau bas! for Swedes for reconstructing and care of that warship, which can impress everyone indeed. But shame on them that they didn't succeed in 17th century, I am almost sure that then they would succeed in war with Poland and today you would be reading the Sigbjörn's routes.
The best way of sight-seeing is to take one of the cruise boats and go for a daily trip. Don't be surprised if suddenly you will discover that you have seen everything. Instead of complaining simply get off on one of the islands and really chill out. With piece of good weather Stockholm's panorama is really adorable.
Oh, you are not a "resting-type" of traveler? Nothing lost! Swedes neither, almost near the every significant monument you can rent a bike and bless the one who decided to create the net of bike routes. By the way, there are also several jogging paths,which in Swedish form(s) are very attractive. At a pinch you can go for Swedish approach and wait for gifts from the nature.


Uppsala


Some say, that there was the oldest University in Sweden. I won't argue about that, nevertheless the first view which comes when I think - Uppsala, are thousands of bicycles parked just by the train station. Actually hard to generalise, perhaps part of them was left by workers commuting by train to the capital, some left by students... every bike finds its place not only in legal place, as my friend said - last spring few of them were gotten out from the river. We have chosen Uppsala for a place to sleep and actually that word - sleeping - really can express how the life looks in that town. And although we came to Sweden in the mid of August and students should be coming back to campus, the streets were empty. Anyhow we had a chance to taste the Swedish way of education. For 4 years now, my old friend from Wroclaw lives in Uppsala and gains next grades at local university and eventually he will become a rector, I believe. "A" took us for short trip in Uppsala, showing the town from the local point of view and what's the most important he gave us few very useful tips about life in this country. For example about the Systembolaget - Swedish approach of limiting alcohol purchases by underaged. And since we are about alcohol, there is something, I have to show you...


Just 3 words - Frisky bison + CO2 (dry ice). That's what happens when you drink with a chemist. Skål!

Lulea (North Pole Circle approach)

Now comes the time to explain why I've chosen such a title. My trip-mate, had the only one dream to realise in Sweden. And no, nothing with these sexy blondes. He made clear statement - unless we eat steaks from reindeer meat, we wouldn't leave Sweden. No deers in Uppsala, neither free-running in Stockholm, we could just try to attack the North Pole Circle. The Night train with company of Hungarians brought us to the most northern town of Sweden - Lulea.
The appetite was even bigger, because Lulea was the first place, where I was willing to go for ERASMUS. God bless the day when I got to know about the EGEC. Lulea doesn't exist in the end of summer indeed. Even the inhabitants hide in their nests and don't go out before 12. To be honest we had big hopes related to this place. But none of them turned to reality. Neither boat cruise among the islands, nor hunting on mooses and reindeers can be classified as accomplished. But at least, thanks to really kind, friendly and very helpful people we found the way to Gammelstad, an old village which stands for one of few Swedish World Heritage UNESCO monuments.

Was it worth to cross all the country? Yes, for great experience to not to do this again... at least not in that season. However Filip can count trip to successful ones, only because in the city centre he found the love of his life... Even though she was so drank, that in next two hours she couldn't remember that meeting, my mate can feel satisfied :)

To be clear, I am very glad that we made this trip to Sweden. Stockholm, but also the countryside and smaller towns charmed me by their beauty and openness. People living there were very friendly. Sweden turns out to be exactly how I imagined that before. I agree this point of view can be a bit curved by weather, which was just great for all the stay. Might be that staying there longer, living there I would look at all the country and people in other colours. But it won't happen, Bahamas are waiting! ;)

TACK SJÄLV! Filip, Adam, Sweden, Swedes and Reindeers! :)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The actual post is just being created, but to give rough idea about last week, I uploaded pics on picasa.
Link on left >>>
Tuesday, June 2, 2009




Bo gdzie jeszcze ludziom tak dobrze, jak tu?
Tylko we Lwowie!

This song written in the begining of 20th century has been an athem of people charmed by Lviv. Since the last weekend at least 4 more people can sign under that sentence. Lviv is charming, international, old and young, surprising, unforgettable...






Arrival

We came to Lviv without any serious obstacles on Saturday at about 12 am (GMT+2). The booked hostel presented itself surprisingly well (we paid 5 Euro per night) and the receptionist - Marichka - astonished us with her Polish language. The only problem which appeared in the begining was, that we had to climb on the 4th floor to get to our room. It seemed to be impossible to be done few hours later. We were awared that in many hostels in Lviv the hot water is available just at certain time - so it was in our hostel as well. Clean and sated we moved to the city. This time - as opposed to my last visit in the city - we had great weather and nothing could stop us from exploring this town.


First impressions? Our money was double worth as in Poland, girls were two times prettier than in our homeland, but the city was much more neglected than our domestic touristic destinations. From the visual point of view, Lviv seemed to have a bit of Cracow, Paris and Oslo at once. You can easily notice the big heritage of the city - Polish, Soviet and finally Ukrainian history stamped significantly in Lviv's architecture, urbanism and people's mentality.



I can't say that inhabitants who we met were hostile, but they weren't too much friendly as well. That can suprise if we consider, that in 3 years Lviv will be one of the EUROCup hosting cities.




Evening



Although during the day, we couldn't complain about weather, in the night it started raining. However that couldn't be a reason to not to enjoy Lviv's nightlife. We stayed in the hostel, where were coming the other guest. Really international company - Poles, Americans, Canadians, Chinese, Russians, Cubanians and Ukrainians let me feel again as on Erasmus. I won't go to details about numbers and quantities... but that night surprised us in many aspects. First of all our stupidity and immaturity - it's a shame to confess, but we did it and left all the prescious stuff - including passport with visa in the centre of the room on the shelf - fortunatelly all our hostel-mates were good people and our mistake dispense with consequences. Second - more glorious was getting to know our new city-mate - Patrick from Hong Kong, whose polish language was sometimes better than our. We just remember that the evening finished about 1 am because of two Americans who were so kind to ask receptionist to quit the party. The morning was the last surprise of that night, because we woke up without hangover and in quite good shape. As a result of our evening in that hostel appeared such a picture:






Sunday





On the last day of our visit in Lviv we premised to fullfill the touristic duties and see the key-places in Lviv. For a kick-off we run our legs to the Old Town to verify if entitling Lviv as "Three Cathedrals City" isn't an abuse. It is not. There are Latin (Rome-Catholic), Uniate (Greek-catholic) and Armenian cathedrals. What's more there are dozens of other temples which on Sunday seemed to be half-filled.
By the way - I owe you a complementation. On Saturday the Old Town was dominated not by tourists, nor by cadet corps (usually you can see many of them in every big Ukrainian town), but by the newlyweds. Whereever we went, there were many couples taking the memorial pictures with their guests and beautiful, skyborn and astonishing maids of honour. Lviv is the second place - after Belgrade - where we got an impression that Angels came to Earth. Gorgeous girls!

But to recur - later we went to Lychakiv, where among the others are located the memorials - the tribute to Polish soldiers defending Lviv in the begining of the last century.
Eventually the departure time has come and with fulled up with delicious dinner we moved to the bus station. *here I am going to skip few words dedicated to person who misinformed us that we lost quite a sum of money...




The come back



You can get the impression that every return journey from Ukraine is jinxed and I am overdrawing some situations. You can belive or not, but it really happened.
We came to the border with a coach (marshruta) at 9pm, ready to wait long in a queue for the passport control. But unbeware the border was empty - no more smugglers binded up with tapes of cigarettes - there were just few people waiting for check-in and that's why the custom officers where very pedantic with control.



It took over an hour to cross the border and when we came to the parking to take a bus we got a cold shower. The last bus went away 4 minutes ago. It was 10:10 pm and really noone wanted to take us (4 boys anyway) to Przemysl where we was our train to Wroclaw. Of course there are advantages of tightening our eastern border and strengthening the country security, but in such situation we saw just the drawbacks. Because while you stop smugglers, you stop all the business around them - not only trade, but also the means of transport (before joining Schengen Zone buses were running untill 1 am), what affected us in that moment.
We had no choice, but to walk 13 km from the border. And when in 3rd kilometer hopelessly we waved to hitch-hike, suddenly a jeep stopped. "Great!" we thought... but then the lights flashed and a masked border guard with machine gun jumped from the car. "Great" we thought again, but this time it had nothing with enthusiasm. He questioned us and wished safe noctivagation to Przemysl. "Oh, thank you very much, but maybe you could give us a lift?! " "We don't work as taxi drivers" he replied.
Sentenced to walk at 11:30pm we entered Przemysl, but our GPS disillusionized us - there were still 6 km to the train station. We decided to stop and take some rest.


Here is place for short comment: The picture's quality is at it is, and I would never publish that, but it's significant situation and there was no time to take the second shot, because...
... then a car stopped and man speaking with such an eastern accent decided to drop us to the station. Sent from heaven or just directed by profit - he brought us to the station, where we had to wait untill 5:50 am for train to Wroclaw.




Conclusion?

We don't regret anything!

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