Hostel etiquette gone pear shaped

Trip Start Jun 15, 2007
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103
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Poland  , Central Poland,
Friday, October 10, 2008

We took the train from Vilnius to Warsaw on Wednesday. We met a girl at the station who is entering Miss Intercontinental as Miss Lithuania and so was on her way to Warsaw for the competition. As she was only 17 her parents were a bit concerned at her travelling alone and so they asked us to help her with the train change if she needed help, which it turned out she didn't as it was very straightforward, but we all sat together anyway. She was telling us all about the competition and Ed and a Mexican guy were teasing her about the size of her suitcase just for a couple of bikinis! She took it all in good fun and we swapped details so we can keep track of her progress in the competition. By the time we arrived in Warsaw it was 10pm so we just had time to go for dinner, no sights that day!
On Thursday we set out walking along the river and ended up in the Old Town of Warsaw, which was very similar to Vilnius, with lots of cobbled streets, outdoor cafes, old style cottages and apartments and a centre square. The atmosphere was also very similar to Vilnius and we liked it a lot. Near by we came across a museum dedicated to Marie Curie so we went inside. It was a small museum but really good. We didn't know that Marie Curie actually died from cancer, caused by her exposure to radiation as she worked all those years founding and developing radiotherapy for the treatment of cancer. Her husband worked with her but I am not sure how he died. The museum had lots of pictures of them at work and chronicled their family tree. It was definitely worth going to.
After the museum, we walked all around the city, heading into the more built up area which was not as nice as the Old Quarter. We found a really nice vegetarian restaurant though where we had a very late lunch before heading up to the top of the tower to wait for the sun to set. As it was only 4.15pm we had a long wait but it was fine as there was a science exhibition on at the top of the tower so we got to play on all the experiments while we waited! From the top of the tower we could see the Old Quarter of Warsaw in the distance and we could track how far we had walked that day. It turned out to be a very long way! We watched the sun set but unfortunately it was a bit cloudy so not as beautiful as we had hoped but we did get to see a lovely pink sky, so it was worth the wait I guess.
When we came down from the tower we decided to walk back to the hostel rather than get the bus so we could see Warsaw in the evening. It was quite a long walk but we enjoyed it. We met some nice people in the hostel that night who we were chatting to for a long time so the night went quite quickly.
Friday morning dawned with us both feeling pretty cranky. Some people just have no idea about hostel etiquette. We were in bed last night when some girl came back at 2.30am and put the "big light" on, completely oblivious to the fact that the rest of us were asleep. I mean why would you do that at that time? But as if that wasn't enough 2 guys came in at 5am, completely drunk, but they had forgotten their key so one of them was banging on the window and yelling to be let in while the other was banging on the door. What is wrong with these people that they couldn't go to Reception to borrow another key, I mean come on, it is 5am and we had to be up really early to catch our train to Berlin. As you can imagine we were really not happy, especially as once they had come in they weren't even quiet and continued to bang and clatter around with the light on yet again. Eventually we had to tell them to shut up and turn the light off, although we were both very close to physical violence! Maybe I should write a book on the rules of hostelling.....
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