The plan was simple - go from Kraków to Berlin to see two friends, one studying there and the other who was doing an album launch.
In the past there was a direct train from Kraków to Berlin but this has been replaced by a bus, which is better as it takes two hours less than the train used to take. An eight-hour journey still seemed to long, so my friend and I decided to get to Wrocław early in the morning and then hitch a ride into Germany. We thought that by getting there so early, we would have plenty of time to make it, and even if hitch-hiking proved to be ineffective, there would still be enough time to catch a train or a bus and make it to Berlin in the evening.
Everything started out fine. We took the bus at 7:40 in the morning and arrived in Wrocław at 9:20. Since my friend had never seen the city, we took a walk into the centre with the aim of taking a quick stroll around, take in the impressive Market Square and then get out of town and onto a road leading towards Germany.
We had a coffee, walked around a bit and then set about finding a way to get to the edge of town. Two girls at tourist information helped us out. It seemed unfortunate that a friend of one of the girls was actually driving to Berlin that day and could have given us a lift but it just wasn't to be. A little bit of bad luck but we didn't think too much of it.
Getting to the edge of town can be difficult but we managed to do it after a few setbacks. Then we had to find a suitable place to stand in the typical hitch-hiking pose with our sign and hope that a good soul would help us out. Despite waiting for three hours in pretty cold temperatures, breathing in car fumes, hoping that one of the hundreds if not thousands of cars that went past us, only one person stopped but she was going in the opposite direction.
With cold feet and hands and deflated hopes, we retreated into a shopping centre to think about another course of action. With the help of my friend's fiancee, we got the number of a guy from a car sharing website (www.blablacar.pl) who was going to Berlin. We called him and he said he was leaving at 5pm and was going to arrive in Berlin at 10pm. It was a bit late for us but seemed like the only option, so we agreed to go with him. A Thirty-minute delay became one hour. Add another half an hour onto that and our patience was running low. This guy was driving a bus but was not registered and was using a car pooling website to basically run an illegal service so we decided to scrap that plan and go back into the centre and check the train connections. We knew there was an early morning train thanks once again to my friend's fiancee but we had no idea how complicated it would be to buy a ticket for it. We could buy a ticket to the town across the border to Gorlitz but not from Kottbus to Berlin. We couldn't understand why. Surely in the European Union there is communication between train companies to allow for the smooth movement of people from country to country. Evidently not, judging by the problems we had at the train station. The cashier was very helpful and even phoned a colleague to try to get us a ticket. The major problem was that there was so little time between connections that there was no way we would have had time to buy the ticket and make the train. She did manage to work something out for us despite the overly-complicated system but it all seemed too complicate and expensive so we decided to get a hostel for the night and review our options.
The first hostel we went to had no free beds. The people working there almost seemed surprised by this fact and it seemed that normally it was not a problem to book a bed for the night. For us, it was just another slap in the face. They did help us to find another hostel, which had two free beds, was wonderful and located above a nice bar in an interesting area in Wrocław.
Having checked in, I went online and found another guy from the car pooling agency who was leaving the next day and could take us. With this in mind, we went out and enjoyed a few drinks in Wrocław before going to bed knowing that the next day we would finally make it to Berlin.
At 5am, my alarm went off for some strange reason. I had set it for that time the previous day but not that night. I turned it off and got a text that our driver cancelled his trip and was not going to Berlin. I responded by writing 'szkoda' and he responded back. According to him, the reasons were beyond his control and he was really sorry but I was wondering what he was doing awake at 5am and found it hard to believe the reason was out of his control.
The next day, I got up early and did some more research but there was nothing affordable going to Berlin so we decided just to give up and accept that fate was against us. It was nice to spend time in Wrocław but we both felt defeated. We were having coffee when the driver called again and said he had changed his mind. Perhaps he was sober then and this had influenced his decision. I don't know but by then we had already booked a ticket back to Krakow and had given up on Berlin.
What came out of this whole trip are three main things:
- that hitch-hiking is not so easy in Poland
- car sharing has many flaws especially when people are so unreliable
- sometimes it is better just to buy a ticket with the assurance that you will get to your destination
