My sleeping bag! After all the effort I went through in Melbourne to keep it with me, you would think that I would be more careful with it. And for a while I was more careful. At the hostel in Wroclaw I lovingly strapped it onto the outside of my backpack before Kevin and I set out for the train station. Then I spent some quality time with it in Wroclaw Glowny waiting for the train to Warsaw. Then when my backpack didn't fit onto the luggage rack because the sleeping bag stuck up too far I gently unstrapped it and placed on the rack as well. It seemed happy there and wasn't having too much trouble making friends with the other bags, so when our train arrived in Warsaw that's where I left it. I remembered just in time to run back to the platform and see the train rolling away. Farewell little red sleeping bag! It was fun while it lasted.
Since we are on the subject of trains in Poland, I have to say that things could have gone better. First of all, Poland doesn't participate in the EuRail Pass, but we didn't figure this out until Kevin and his pass were already in Poland. This meant lots of buying train tickets in a country where most people don't speak much English. In one instance I had to buy my ticket twice. I asked for a ticket on the next train to Krakow, took the ticket I was given, and got on the next train for Krakow. When the official came by and looked at my ticket, he informed me that my ticket was for a later train (in Polish, so it took a while for me to understand what was going on) and that I would have to buy another one for this train. I tried to explain what had happened (in Polish, so I'm not sure if he ever understood what was going on) but he wouldn't budge and I didn't really have a choice so I bought another ticket. Kevin and I couldn't get student discounts because we aren't students in Poland. None of our experiences with the Polish rail system were easy, so traveling to Germany, the land of efficiency and punctuality, has been a welcome change. I love Poland and have ever since I lived there last summer, but the rail system could use an update (and hopefully will before Poland hosts the 2012 Euro Cup).
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Back in Poland!
From Istanbul I flew into Warsaw, where I was met by Ola, my host sister from living in Poland last summer, and her mom, Anita. When I was planning my summer and decided to do the last part of my project in Berlin, it seemed ridiculous to be so close and not see them, so I worked in a four day visit to Makow. We spent a day in Warsaw and then a few days in Makow just having a good time, and I got to meet this year's Makow WorldTeach volunteer, who seems great. After around 7 weeks of traveling on my own (except for the week with Courtney in New Zealand), it was fun to have someone to talk to who actually knew me. One thing I've loved about this summer has been meeting all sorts of people and the completely new feeling that I can be fairly certain I will never see any of them again, but it's also nice to be reminded that I have actual friends too.
On that note, my plan for the rest of my summer has changed a little. (This bit is for Mom, who worries when I don't update my blog and wants to know where I am, and Dad, who keeps asking me for an itinerary which I have been unable to provide because I don't really have one). I met up with Kevin in Krakow on July 1, and we're traveling around Poland until the 10th. Then we are spending a week in Berlin with Ola, Marta, and Justyna, who are friends from Poland last summer. Then we have four more days in Germany (Hannover and Munich), and the next firm plan after that is going to Croatia on the 26th, spending a few days in Split and Hvar before heading to Dubrovnik on the 31st. We'll meet up with Alex (a friend from UNC) and Eleanor (from SPS) there, and head back to the states on August 7th. That leaves July 20th-25th with no plan, but we're thinking either hiking in the Austrian Alps or doing a quick trip in Italy (clearly there are no bad options here). Phew. That's all I've got so far. I'll have a more fun entry soon, I promise.
On that note, my plan for the rest of my summer has changed a little. (This bit is for Mom, who worries when I don't update my blog and wants to know where I am, and Dad, who keeps asking me for an itinerary which I have been unable to provide because I don't really have one). I met up with Kevin in Krakow on July 1, and we're traveling around Poland until the 10th. Then we are spending a week in Berlin with Ola, Marta, and Justyna, who are friends from Poland last summer. Then we have four more days in Germany (Hannover and Munich), and the next firm plan after that is going to Croatia on the 26th, spending a few days in Split and Hvar before heading to Dubrovnik on the 31st. We'll meet up with Alex (a friend from UNC) and Eleanor (from SPS) there, and head back to the states on August 7th. That leaves July 20th-25th with no plan, but we're thinking either hiking in the Austrian Alps or doing a quick trip in Italy (clearly there are no bad options here). Phew. That's all I've got so far. I'll have a more fun entry soon, I promise.
I'm allergic to a city...
My last four days in Hong Kong were spent like this:
Monday: I went to the Chinese University in Hong Kong to work on my project, but retreated back to the air conditioned hostel when I felt something on my face start to itch. By that night the whole bottom half of my face was red, bumpy, itchy, and a little puffy, which means that I was having an allergic reaction to something. I took a good dose of Benadryl and passed out.
Tuesday: I woke up to find that the reaction had taken over most of the rest of my face, my neck, and the backs of my hands, breaking my previous record for amount of surface area covered by an allergic reaction. I decided to go on an experimental excursion outside to see the effect that the Hong Kong weather would have on my face (also to talk to a pharmacist). My face blew up like a blowfish, and my hands and arms fully broke out as well. I retreated back to the hostel once again.
Wednesday: Spent the entire day in the hostel, hoping that air conditioning, Benadryl, and will power would deflate my face. It didn't get any worse, which was good, but it didn't get any better either.
Thursday: Spent the entire day in the hostel again, before I darted out to the nearest pharmacy, to make sure that nothing too bad could happen while I was flying, and then caught the bus to the airport at around 4:30, even though my flight wasn't until 11:05. Normally I'm not one of those people that likes to get to the airport six hours early (as demonstrated by my experience trying to get to the airport in Melbourne), but when I've been in self-imposed quarantine in a tiny room on the 16th floor of a smelly building for the better part of four days, six hours at the airport was looking pretty good.
So the real mistake in all of this was that I didn't take any pictures. Now, looking back through normal sized eyelids and clear skin, I wish I had taken a picture every six hours to document the completely ridiculous progression of the reaction. At the time, however, a picture of me sequestered in a tiny hostel reading an 850 page book and looking like I had been on the wrong side of an argument with 8000 very tiny but very angry mosquitoes just didn't seem like fun. So there is no documentation of what I looked like. But I can promise that I barely looked human.
Now for the good news. My reaction started feeling immensely better during my 12 hour flight to Istanbul. When I got off the plane and went to look in a mirror, I could see something that resembled my usual face shape emerging. In hour four of my five hour layover there, I braved a glance in the mirror again and saw that some patches of skin were even returning to their normal color (although texture was still way off). The second pharmacist I talked to in Hong Kong had told me that it was possible, once something little had set me off, that the heat and air quality in the city were what I was having trouble with. It seemed ridiculous that I could be allergic to the entire city, but since going outside in Hong Kong made it worse and leaving started an immediate turnaround, I have to admit that it seems like the most plausible explanation.
Then I made a little kid cry. I was sitting at the gate in Istanbul, when a little girl who was running around stopped right in front of me. Forgetting that I barely looked human (I had just woken up from a nap) I smiled at her. Her eyes got wide, she burst into tears, then ran and hid behind her mother's legs. I felt kind of bad, but it was also pretty funny (since the reaction was finally retreating, I could see the humor in the situation).
Monday: I went to the Chinese University in Hong Kong to work on my project, but retreated back to the air conditioned hostel when I felt something on my face start to itch. By that night the whole bottom half of my face was red, bumpy, itchy, and a little puffy, which means that I was having an allergic reaction to something. I took a good dose of Benadryl and passed out.
Tuesday: I woke up to find that the reaction had taken over most of the rest of my face, my neck, and the backs of my hands, breaking my previous record for amount of surface area covered by an allergic reaction. I decided to go on an experimental excursion outside to see the effect that the Hong Kong weather would have on my face (also to talk to a pharmacist). My face blew up like a blowfish, and my hands and arms fully broke out as well. I retreated back to the hostel once again.
Wednesday: Spent the entire day in the hostel, hoping that air conditioning, Benadryl, and will power would deflate my face. It didn't get any worse, which was good, but it didn't get any better either.
Thursday: Spent the entire day in the hostel again, before I darted out to the nearest pharmacy, to make sure that nothing too bad could happen while I was flying, and then caught the bus to the airport at around 4:30, even though my flight wasn't until 11:05. Normally I'm not one of those people that likes to get to the airport six hours early (as demonstrated by my experience trying to get to the airport in Melbourne), but when I've been in self-imposed quarantine in a tiny room on the 16th floor of a smelly building for the better part of four days, six hours at the airport was looking pretty good.
So the real mistake in all of this was that I didn't take any pictures. Now, looking back through normal sized eyelids and clear skin, I wish I had taken a picture every six hours to document the completely ridiculous progression of the reaction. At the time, however, a picture of me sequestered in a tiny hostel reading an 850 page book and looking like I had been on the wrong side of an argument with 8000 very tiny but very angry mosquitoes just didn't seem like fun. So there is no documentation of what I looked like. But I can promise that I barely looked human.
Now for the good news. My reaction started feeling immensely better during my 12 hour flight to Istanbul. When I got off the plane and went to look in a mirror, I could see something that resembled my usual face shape emerging. In hour four of my five hour layover there, I braved a glance in the mirror again and saw that some patches of skin were even returning to their normal color (although texture was still way off). The second pharmacist I talked to in Hong Kong had told me that it was possible, once something little had set me off, that the heat and air quality in the city were what I was having trouble with. It seemed ridiculous that I could be allergic to the entire city, but since going outside in Hong Kong made it worse and leaving started an immediate turnaround, I have to admit that it seems like the most plausible explanation.
Then I made a little kid cry. I was sitting at the gate in Istanbul, when a little girl who was running around stopped right in front of me. Forgetting that I barely looked human (I had just woken up from a nap) I smiled at her. Her eyes got wide, she burst into tears, then ran and hid behind her mother's legs. I felt kind of bad, but it was also pretty funny (since the reaction was finally retreating, I could see the humor in the situation).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)