We were sorry to leave our comfortable apartment suite of Radom but it was time to move on. I took the train to Lublin a 6 am. For once there was a whole train cart dedicated to bikes like me. For the first time, I felt part of a whole.

A couple of hours later, I was at Lublin station which gave me the impression that I had stepped into a clean, safe city.

Chris joined me some 5 hours later and the usual ritual of looking for a place to sleep began. This is never an easy task when you don’t know a city. All hotels were way beyond our budget. Tired and thirsty, we decided to take a break in a cafe on a terrace. It’s when we met Paul that the wind of change brought us good luck. Paul is a polish citizen, a local resident of Lublin who had moved to Warsaw. Paul had traveled in Spain and was about to take another trip to Italy by bike with his girlfriend. You could tell he was very much enjoying meeting different people and cultures. Paul is a very interesting man that told us about Polish culture and language, allowing us to better understand Polish. Too bad we had to wait till the last stop in Poland, to realize who the Polish are. Paul also indicated the address of the university dorm. That was so helpful.

After taking pictures and exchanging web addresses, Chris and I pursued our quest for a home for the night. Thanks to Paul's explanations, we found the university dorm of Lublin.

For 20 bucks, we were given a rather comfortable room with bathroom and shower. Exhausted we passed out on the bed to finally wake up later in the evening to grab a few groceries for supper. Chris desperately tried to find some low pressure gas for our stove but unfortunately, he only found rubbing alcohol. We thought maybe we should try to light it with vodka. It s cheap like borsht after all!

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