Vibe of the moment: chaos and trains. In a flurry of European espresso and vyvanse induced productivity, I decided that it would be awesome to go to five European countries in five days by train. Awesome, I tell you!! And it was great. But it was also exhausting, and I was fighting off a touch of sickness for the first few days. I’ll go through each country in turn.

Poland: After I left Germany, I took a seven hour train from Berlin to Krakow. Unfortunately, I was feeling a bit sick so I did not get to explore the city as much as I would have liked. Krakow is beautiful, though, and full of history – so I fully plan on coming back so I can see more.

I did get to spend several hours (against my better judgment) wandering around Krakow’s streets, especially in the Jewish quarter, and taking photos. I stopped in a nice cafe. I ate pierogis for three different meals. I think that they healed me. The architecture is stunning, and the city has an edge to it kind of like Berlin in a way.

Snack of the moment – pierogis: I’ve had pierogis before. Back in the states once or twice. But they are next level in Poland. They are DELICIOUS.
Elite. As I write this, I crave pierogis.

Here’s some photos from my brief wander around Krakow, plus some pierogis ❤:

Slovakia: I only stayed in Bratislava for one night and I left in the morning, so I really didn’t get to see much of it. I was also still trying to make sure I didn’t get fully sick. I wandered around in the evening, and then some in the morning. Slovakia was fancier than I expected. The city was nice and felt safe and I have heard that the bars are fun, but I just stayed in and read a book after my brief walk. I continued to absolutely house electrolytes.

My AirBnb was really lovely, and very cheap. I may come back when I return to Krakow/eastern Europe later next summer. Also, I took my first international bus from Krakow to Bratislava. It was only six hours, so not too long on a bus However, it was hot as hell on the bus. This is one of my big complaints about Europeans: they keep everywhere way too fucking warm. They are also really dramatic about the cold and are wearing these giant coats, even when it is not even that cold.

Here’s some photos from Bratislava:

Austria: this was my second repeat country, after Germany. However, I have only been to Vienna and that was in the spring. This time, I went to a different part and took a train from Bratislava to Innsbruck, Austria. I thought that it was bigger, but it was not. Tiny place. It was absolutely stunning though, and I was finally feeling better. I still took it easy though, and mainly just wandered around and took photos and took in the mountains. It was cold, but not too cold.

The train to Austria was also glorious. I booked first class because it wasn’t too much pricier, and it was pure luxury. It was also so pretty, and I spent a lot of the train ride alternating between writing and staring at the Austrian mountains.

Here’s some photos from Innsbruck:

Liechtenstein: I decided if I was in the area, I would be silly to not check out this tiny country. It was a great couple of days. Since I got there earlier in the day, I still had several hours of daylight (which is rare in December in Europe) to explore the country. I was able to see and walk around most of it and stopped at a nice local winery (see below for winery picture). They have a fancy bus system that makes it really easy to just hop on and it takes about an hour or so to get from one side to the other on the bus, which stops a lot.

I stayed in an AirBnb with a local lady in her beautiful house. Her name is Hedi, and she is an artist, a photographer, and overall just a very cool person. She told me stories about prior guests that she’s had, including one British woman who carries around a teddy bear wherever she goes and takes pictures with it as a bit. What a bit to have. Damn. Hedi also had an adorable cat, who is blind and just appeared via the cat distribution system at her door a couple of years ago. The cat and I vibed. She took a picture of us (see below) to print out and put in her guestbook. I miss Hedi and the cat with no name. I want to go back in the summer.

“You have a cat, don’t you?” Hedi asked.

“I sure do,” I told her, and then proceeded to show her several photos of Kendrick. My cat is thriving with my uncle back in Tennessee and I know that she is happy and well taken care of, but I miss her dearly nonetheless. If it weren’t for her, I probably would be gone for ever longer.

Here’s some photos from Liechtenstein:

Switzerland: I will talk more on this in the next post, as I’m just including my first day here. I took a bus from Liechtenstein to Sargans, Switzerland, then from there a quick express train to Zurich. It took less than two hours and was really easy to figure out, even for a directions idiot like myself (I’m getting better, though).

Zurich is so fancy…and so damn expensive. They charge you $5 for tap water. $1 to breathe. Close to $40 for some cheese fondue. It is truly diabolical. I became best friends with Migros, an affordable grocery store where I was able to get cheap salads, dips, snacks, and fresh sandwiches.

I went on a pub crawl the first night in Zurich since I’d been mostly alone with my thoughts since Berlin and battling sickness. I figured I’d get back out there. I sat down at the meeting spot and ended up at a table full of Gen X Swiss people. They were hysterical. John, a Turkish-Swiss guy who was the life of the party, told me that him and his friends went on one of the pub crawls last year as a joke. But they had so much fun, they decided to go back. Most of them worked in some kind of tech job. It was nice to hang out with some people who were older than me, and they were all so inviting and friendly. We had a time.

In classic European fashion, at one point John said to me, “sorry my English isn’t the best, it is my fourth language.”

“Your English is better than most Americans,” I laughed at him. Eye roll. Again, Europeans are dramatic and their English is almost always perfect.

After a couple of hours at the first bar, we were walking to the next one and I ended up chatting with a sweet Colombian guy. He was working on his English, and I was working on my Spanish, so we basically talked Spanglish at each other the whole walk. The next bar was karaoke, which I do not enjoy, so I decided to just dip out of there and go watch Mexican soap operas in my hotel and work more on my Spanish. It is good that I did, because I was about one drink away from staying out too late and asking the Swiss folks why they were neutral in WWII.

Here’s some photos from Zurich:

I will be posting more Switzerland photos in my next post, which covers my trip to Zermatt to snowboard and my final lap in Europe (for now) in Budapest.

Song of the moment:

Espresso – Sabrina Carpenter

Why? Because this trip was planned on, and fueled by, espresso. Very literal.

Featured lyrics:

I can’t relate to desperation
My give-a-fucks are on vacation
….THAT’S THAT ME ESPRESSO

Listen to it: