The next evening we took the overnight train to Kyiv, capital of Ukraine, and before checking into our hostel overlooking Independence Square, walked around the city seeing most of the sights - the Golden Gate, the Red University and golden topped Orthodox churches, as well as looking over the river Dnieper and visiting one of the many islands. Transport in the city was again incredibly cheap, with a single ticket on the metro costing 2 Hryvni...

Having spent all day in Krakow, we took the overnight coach to Lviv in Ukraine, which despite only a 5 hour trip by road, involved more than 3 hours crossing the border - half an hour to queue, 45 minutes to check our passports on the Polish side, another half hour in no man's land, an hour checking passports in Ukraine, and then just when we thought it was finally time to go through, half an hour to search the coach. Even more fun was when the military style bo...

The coach to Warsaw (which was going onwards to Minsk) took 12½ hours and crossed the Czech-Polish border through the Krkonoše mountain range (where despite being 20˚C and in the sun, snow and frozen lakes were still easily seen), and then across the Polish countryside and through the cities of Łódź and Wrocław before finally reaching the Polish capital. Whilst at the border, our passports were checked (despite both countries be...

On 13th March I flew out to Prague, and met my friend Marketa, whom I had lived with last semester, at the airport. The next day we went into the city and saw almost everything in a single day, to which Marketa exlaimed "Prague in a day - Unbelievable". We went and saw Vyšehrad (a pretty park in the south of the city), Wenceslas Square, the Old Town (where the clock models were being replaced), the famous Charles Bridge, followed by a wal...