As of about Sunday morning I started filing my t-shirts into groups. Reasonably smelly, pretty damn stinky and holy-sh*t "are you a tramp" smelly. As of yesterday I realised that 75% of t-shirts were falling into the latter two categories. So I went in search of a launderette.
Having asked at the hostel reception where the nearest one was I was told to show her my map of Krakow. She placed the map on the desk and proceeded to point at a street just a few minutes away from my hotel. "Great", I thought. She then proceeded to run her finger along this street, moving further away from my hostel, her finger then slid off the map and onto the desk and continued to travel another 2-3 inches off the map. She then looked at me and said, "Here, you turn right onto this street" and she wrote the street name down for me. Joy.
So my trek began and I was pleased to realise the walk was nowhere near as bad as her finger slide led me to presume. She had no idea of scale. Or she decided to ignore the maps scale and create her own. Either way, it did not matter. She was helpful and I found the launderette.
Inside I was expecting Pauline Fowler. Instead I got a 6'5", well built, Polish man jogging around the washing machines. I filled the washing machine up with my stench, gave the guy the equivalent of £18 (seemed very expensive to me, especially as Krakow is relatively cheap - but I know nothing of launderette prices so I did not query) and as I left he told me that he would drop my clothes off at the hostel that evening. I wondered if I'd ever see my clothes again.
Fortunately I did and I feel like a boss walking around with wonderfully smelling clothes again. :)
When solo traveling it is inevitable that you will have to go to a restaurant by yourself. For me, this was the toughest part of the day. I would spend ages walking around trying to find the perfect restaurant where I wouldn't look weird sitting by myself. I'd make excuses not to go in one, even though I would be ridiculously hungry. Too busy, too quiet, too expensive, too exotic, too posh, that one is part of a hotel, too much fast food, not a good view. The list goes on. There becomes a time though when you stop making excuses (or at least most of them) and now I just do not care about sitting in a restaurant by myself.
In fact, once you get over the slightly awkward beginning where the waitress'/waiters are unsure if you are by yourself then it becomes quite an interesting experience. You get to see restaurant life from a new angle. You look around and notice, quite often, but not all the time, that the customers who look most relaxed are the ones on their own.
Of course sometimes you want that extra person for company but sometimes it's nice just being by yourself. Solo travel forces you to become independent. It makes easy situations, such a getting food, a lot harder but when you do it, by yourself, you feel good and you improve. So, what if you get sick of being by yourself? You're own thoughts start annoying you? Well, in your next city book a more sociable hostel (one with a bar and pub crawls) and force yourself to get talking to other solo travelers in the bar. That's my plan in Warsaw but for now, in Krakow, I'm enjoying my own company - it's something you don't get that often in "normal life".
(P.S. - I'll do a separate post on what I've been up to in Krakow some other time and photos will be uploaded when I get home).
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