Crossing the borders in Baltia was surprisingly easy and fast. When we arrived at the border of Poland, the queue was longer thn any of us had seen before. In the queue we met some fellow finnish bikers who had been waiting for several hours and weren’t even near to the passport control. Once again life is easier with bikes - we passed all the busses and were in Poland after about an hour and a half of queuing.

The first meal in Poland was relatively interesting, as the waitress didn’t speak a word of english. Me and Rambo took schnitzels, but Bergie ordered just something. This something ended to my plate and we found out that it was some kind of fried fish.

After spending a night in a motel in a place called Lomza we continued to Warzaw. As all of us managed to burn our arms driving in t-shirts the last day, I had my jacket on and Bergie and Rambo used a longsleeved shirts. The 150 kilometers was hot as hell and even more hot was driving in Warzaw tring to find a place to stay. In the end we managed to find a nice hostel with good service. (Youth Hostel Karolkowa, Karolkowa 53a, ed.note) In the evening we met Piotras and Anjushka.

(Piotras is an active member of the Midgard community, and has for example been working on the Debian packages. He works at a computer company developing internal systems on Midgard. He is also a very nice guy who drinks beer and listens to metal music. All in all, the night was quite pleasant. We went to eat in a fancy Spanish styles restaurant, where we were greeted by at least a dozen waiters. Anjushka was expecting a baby, due September, as a new addition to the Midgard famility. ed.note)

The next day, Thursday, we started by looking for a place for Ural maintenance. After calling to a supposed-to-be bike maintenance and receiving a polish message I asked help from the hostel reception. A nice lady called for me to a few places and found a place where I took my bike. The place where we went was kept by a bald, chain-smoking guy (Timo Rautiainen look-a-like, ed.note) who had been repairing and driving Urals for 20 years. They even served us coffee so I can only say positive things about the service. (Ural service Jacek Wiwiarski, Modliwska 217 on the road 61 from Legionowo. Tel +48-503 444 294, ed.note)

On Friday, after uploading the pictures at the internet cafe at the hostel, we continued to Krakow. The driving was nice - the roads were in good shape, after getting out from Warzaw the traffic wasn’t too bad and the landscapes were beautiful. On the downside we experienced our first accident. About 100 kilometers before Krakow a car was turning left on a main road which caused a lock breaking in a car before us. Bergie and Rambo managed to break successfully, but for me the space wasn’t enough so the Ural tipped over and slided for three-four meters hitting Rambo’s Ducati which crashed also. The crashbar from the Ural broke and the Ducati got a small scratches. Other than that, we got off only with a fright and a couple of bruises.

We found a ‘Hotelik’ about 15 kilometers from Krakow. The place didn’t serve any food so we went looking for a restaurant. The only thing we found was a hotel not far away. After hearing that they don’t accept credit cards but do accept euros and signing that we’d like some food we were guided to a cellar disco/bar section of the hotel which was closed before our arrival. We tried to ask why we couldn’t stay upstair where all the other guests were, but the waiter either couldn’t speak english well enough to explain this to us. or simply chose not to. We figured that the only reason was, that our appearance would have propably frightened off all the other guests or we didn’t fulfill the dresscode. Anyway we got our own bar where they played covers of the most awful hits of the eighties and relatively good food and beer.

Tomorrow, if I get my crashbar welded back, we’ll continue to Prague. (After sightseeing Krakow, ed.note)