You'll never guess what I lost...

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).