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15.08.2004 Krakow (POLAND)

Sky Hostel again! The legendary Wictor welcomes us! The atmosphere is the same as always! But the Roscio and I, tired and frozen to death, soon shut ourselves in our sleeping bags, surprising even Wictor himself... but it's only the first evening!

16.08.2004 Tarnow (POLAND)

Tarnow is a Polish town.. but truly Polish, without tourists, without Italians, without the English language...

17.08.2004 Krakow (POLAND)

I note with regret that here it's no longer like last year... Takx is right when he says that beautiful things shouldn't be repeated, and Paganini was right never to grant an encore!

18.08.2004 Krakow (POLAND)

[Marco di Stefano from Palermo]: Your teachings will not be underestimated. We will conquer Jelenia Gora and then, from there, every town that comes our way!

[Giovanni Romano from Palermo]: In the end the call of the train prevailed and here we are travelling again. This is the spirit of the interrail, right?

Tomorrow we'll go and visit our dear friends Iwona and Kasia, whom we met last year!

19.08.2004 Rybnik (POLAND)

The train transfer was a calvary but the welcome made up for it... From Katowice to Rybnik we travelled with the doors open... The height of safety! Rybnik is a sweet and quiet little town set in a forest, unknown even to the Poles themselves! Kasia, Iwona and their sister Wioleta were lovely. How nice to stroll through the streets of the little town chatting with them under the curious gaze of other people, as if to say: "Look, they know three foreigners!", a thought confirmed when in the evening, chatting with a friend of theirs, she suddenly says triumphantly: "You know, I have a friend in Hungary!". Well done! What fun, then, to drive around the city in Wioleta's super 126, half broken and occasionally losing a part or two!

In the evening, at the disco, with a bus that looked for all the world like Mangiafuoco's caravan leading Pinocchio, Lucignolo and co. to the "Land of Toys", we reach our destination: "Magic", that's its name, a small room but packed with kids dancing wildly!

At 2.30 we go back home by taxi with Kasia and Iwona, who tenderly did nothing but wave to their friends (they'd never taken a taxi to go home!) Half an hour later everyone at the table, because our good chef Sergio prepares us a nice plate of spaghetti!

[Luca]: I think we are enchanted by the way they are happy with nothing... those eyes full of wonder at our stories are fantastic...

20.08.2004 Rybnik (POLAND)

While Wioleta changes a thousand outfits and does her make-up, we try to "doctor" the tickets to try to prolong this beautiful trip a little longer!

[Luca]: I used to think: "A holiday like this only we could have built!"

21.08.2004 Krakow (POLAND)

I feel really bad... Headache and sore throat... It's Saturday evening and I'm bundled up in my sleeping bag...

Yesterday I was very ill and in the various moments of delirium, alone in the room and half-asleep, various flashbacks of the past came to me; I saw myself as a child, spoilt and impertinent, in bed with a fever and my sweet mother looking after me... whereas here I was alone, in a foreign country thousands of kilometres away, without medicines and thermometer... thank goodness my two travel companions were tremendous, guys I thank you from the heart already now, that's friendship too!

23.08.2004 Krakow (POLAND)

This morning the great Wictor almost moved us to tears! He not only keeps us in the room even beyond check-out but even gave us this last night just past, since I wasn't well. Dziekuje Wictor! Once again our brothers from Eastern Europe teach us something!

In a couple of hours we set off again... as I write, a young Spanish couple goes by; what a shame, the girl was very ill... in hospital, here in Krakow, they diagnosed a brain tumour, but luckily it's not 100% certain! Tomorrow they return home and there they'll see... or rather someone very, very high up should see for them... Buena sorte! And I was complaining about a silly fever...

[Luca]: This morning I experienced a beautiful moment... In the centre of Krakow, with the sun enveloping us and Sergio and I enjoying some local sausages with a nice Polish beer! I thought: "This is my life...nobody else's... mine and to hell with everything and everyone...!"

[Sergio]: Surprise, to reach Bratislava we'll have to travel in a couchette! It's beastly hot in here together with Otto, a gay German from Bavaria, a "very sensitive" guy!

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