Day 47-48 - Dublin - In transit - Krakow arrival

Saturday 4 September, 23:00 BST

I'm in Dublin, the home of Guinness. It's an interesting place with its terraced houses, old Catholic churches, chaotic streets and happy-drunk pedestrians. And yes, the average pedestrian on a Saturday night here is pretty much blind drunk.

Everyone's told me how easy Dublin is to get lost in. I don't know about them, but I've found it fairly easy to navigate - then again, I did survive Quebec City, which would be impossible to manage without a map. O'Connell Street is huge (three lanes each way with a big median strip) and you can always find your way back to it. As soon as I got here, I headed off to Temple Bar, the cobblestone-paved streets just south of the River Liffey (which honestly looks more like a canal), and walked around the 1600s-era pubs lining the streets and watched the taxis trying to compete with pedestrians and horses. Dublin generally is a great place for people-watching, and it's a pity that this one trip to Temple Bar is about the limit of my Dublin experience this time around. The main reason for coming here was to connect with the big European flights - I was initially going to go to Manchester - but it's hardly the worst place you could connect in.

I'm sharing the room back at the Dublin hostel with two Swiss boys, an Australian, an Englishman and a Spaniard. The middle mentioned spent most of their time either drinking or sleeping it off - which I guess one could expect. The Guinness place here actually offers a certificate saying the holder has "pulled the perfect pint" at the home of Guinness - apparently there's a technique and they teach you how to do it. The hostel is modern and well-equipped but, once again, without elevators.

Sunday 5 September, 22:30 Central European time (GMT+2; Perth-6)

Dzien dobry (good day) from Kraków! I'm now officially in the non-English-speaking world, having journeyed through New Zealand, US, Canada, Britain and Ireland to get here.

I thought Dublin airport was rather large, but that one was rewritten and thrown out when I went to Frankfurt. Flip! More gates, floors, passenger tunnels, inter-terminal buses and overpriced duty free stores than you could shake a stick at. This is one bit of Germany where you don't need to know any German - every announcement is bilingual, and every staff member at the airport seemed to speak it. I now know how to say Kapstadt (KARP-shtart; Cape Town) and acht (eight) like a real German though. I was there for just over three hours before my flight to Poland. I feel kind of bad for expecting a second-rate airline now - the Polish hospitality and food on the plane was really good, and they did appreciate my efforts to speak their language.

Polish words I now know:

dzien dobry (jen Doh-bree) - Hi
dziekuje (je-Koo-yeh) - Thanks
prosze (Pro-sheh) - Please
pan/pani/panstwo - Mr/Ms/All of youse
toalety (toh-ah-Lay-tee) - Toilets
przepraszam (psheh-Prah-sham or psheh-pra-Tsahm) - Sorry/Excuse me/You're welcome

Arrival in Kraków (Krah-kohv) was a bit more chaotic. The shuttle bus I'd been told about was actually a public bus, and I had no idea where my hostel was, even with the 8-zloty ($3) map I'd bought. I ended up a bit east of it and got a taxi back to it for 9zl. Not bad. :) Krakow looks more organised than Dublin - there are marked pedestrian crossings everywhere - every place you ever have to cross a road, there's a marked zebra crossing.

The hostel's cool, a bit old, but I get my own bedroom with shared facilities for 11 euro a night.

Anyway, do vidzenia (doh-vi-Jen-yah) for now.