Northern Irishman on Tour: Poland to Frankfurt to Cheatzerland

I write far too many words and articles to ever be published. So much so that I believe that anyone who claims to have “writer’s block” are either liars or never were writers in the first place. I am always brimming with ideas. This is s short report on my adventure out of Poland to Berlin, then to Bad-Harzburg, Gosler and Oker and the Kingdom of Romkerhall. After that, I took an adventurous train to the city of Frankfurt! After a night in Frankfurt, I headed to Switzerland, also known as Cheatzerland. Here is an overview of my adventure:

Leaving Poland: Warszawa to Berlin
Leaving Poland was easy. I booked the cheap Polskibus from Warsaw to Berlin. I left late afternoon on the Friday from Mlociny bus station in Warsaw. I had some snacks for the bus. There was no border check on leaving Poland for Germany. First of all we stopped at Schoenefeld Airport in Berlin, then we headed to the bus station for the final stop. From there, I walked to the nearest U Bahn station and headed for a night out in Berlin.

Berlin Night Out: Reminiscing
I was reminiscing on this night out. I spent many days in Berlin in my earlier years of backpacking and indeed life had gone full circle for me here. As I sipped beers on the famous and notorious Oranienburger Strasse, I messaged some old friends to tell  them where I was – the same places from my 2005 adventure here. On that trip, I had gone the opposite way from Berlin to Warsaw! I found a bar open until 8 am and stayed in it most of the night chatting to locals and reminiscing before my next train…

My trip to the Kingdom of Romkerhall!
As I mentioned I also visited three remote German towns – Bad-Harzburg, Gosler and Oker – the purpose of that was so that I could visited the remote micronation and breakaway country, the Kingdom of Romkerhall!

 

Romkerhall to Frankfurt
After that adventure, I took a simple German train from Oker to Frankfurt main station. Surprisingly, this was the FIRST ever time I had been to Frankfurt, despite being almost 900 cities into my journey!

Sightseeing in Frankfurt
Frankfurt is a great city for churches, architecture and rivers. I spent my time walking round admiring it.

Nightfall in Frankfurt
Aside from eating a mandatory “Frankfurter” in Frankfurt, I was out and about at night seeing the streets. What struck me about Frankfurt was the streets had a lot of strip clubs in the area near my hostel including places like Thai Massage, Escort Frankfurt and Sex Shops. Germany had always been like that for me though. I had a few beers in the city and at the hostel where a crazy coincidence happened. In fact – TWO crazy coincidences!!

First of all a guy at the bar in the Frankfurt Hostel asks me if I’m Jonny from Bangor?! I was shocked – it turns out to be Adam Carr who was managing a rock band from Scotland and he grew up and went to school in Bangor with my brother!! Adam was also on route to Switzerland with the lads for the Northern Ireland match!

The second conicidence was when I started talking to two Italian girls also in the hostel bar. One of them was called Daniella and I told her I lived in Poland. She said “oh my brother went to Poland last year and he also met an Irish guy there!” Oh really, what is your brother’s name? “David”! Seriously, this was David who I met in the Hostel Cycle on in Gdańsk and partied with! What a crazy coincidence. I headed for an early sleep in Frankfurt before my morning train to Basel, France.

Frankfurt to Switzerland
I headed to Switzerland, also known as Cheatzerland for this trip and to support Northern Ireland in the World Cup qualifier. Despite a 0-0 draw on the night, we were knocked out at Switzerland had cheated in the first match by scoring a non-penalty and claiming it was a real penalty and a real goal. It wasn’t – they lied and cheated.