Day 11 – Border Hopping and Secret Police.

Our final day in Berlin, we leave the hostel to make arrangements for our next leg. The working plan evolved last night quite quickly, the initial idea being that we head to Belgium to eat all the chocolate. Not a bad plan, but like so many, it did not survive contact with the enemy: ie timetables and expense. We could do Belgium, at a cost of 100 euros each, on a 12 hour train trip...and then not actually have a way back to London. (Ryan Air, the domestic/international european version of Jetstar and Virgin Blue, doesn't leave from Belgium for London!) Or...we could look elsewhere. We settle on Poland, it's new territory for the three of us, and it's also blessed with a way back to the UK. Buying our train tickets, we figure we have enough time to see some more of Berlin.

After learning about the struggles and political strangleholds that have afflicted Berlin, I was really curious to learn more about what was going on within the city itself. By now our knowledge of the Nazi movement, WW2 and the East/West Berlin scenarios are pretty good, but they are quite large-scale. Life within the city during those events was a very interesting, and in many cases terrifying, time. Our map had the “Stasi” museum marked on it, and like many important museums and displays in Berlin, it was totally free. We head there, and find it's not far off the track we've beaten for ourselves.

Supplied with english translations of the important displays, we make our way around. The Stasi started out in a dangerously flexible fashion. Being appointed for security, their charter was quite open and allowed them a lot of lateral flexibility. Over time they gained more and more powers, and became more and more aligned politically. Their role evolved to the point that they were becoming a secret police force tasked with monitoring the general populace for signs of insurgents, anti-party activities and espionage. The department grew and grew, at one time having 91,000 full-time staff, and 170,000 “unofficial collaborators” (snitches, informants, etc). The estimated ratio at it's peak was one Stasi member for every 24 Berliners, a hideous saturation and covert repression of all manner of basic rights.

The Stasi were involved in all kinds of clever and immoral activities – they tapped phone lines with abandon, could censor mail in any manner they deemed appropriate, counter-espionage tactics and equipment were created in meticulous manners. Their spycraft was mostly gained from stolen western technology, but advanced and re-applied in all manner of equipment. On top of that, it wasn't uncommon for someone to be pulled in off the street, made to sit on a special chair, and interrogated about their loyalties and activities. The poor person would be panicking and stressing, and in most cases, let straight back out on to the streets. The catch was that the chair had a piece of cloth attached to it that soaked up the sweat of the prisoner, and was then kept so that if that person ever went rogue, they had a method for tracking them down with their tracker dogs. People lived in fear of the Stasi – they could be anywhere, anytime, and working for the Stasi paid well, so the unofficial collaborators were often living quite good lives (covered by official Stasi legends to explain their wealth.) An oppressing time indeed.

As it turns out, this over-saturation appears to be also part of the death-knell of the Stasi's power. Having so heavily infiltrated communities and groups, if that group (such as a church congregation) decided they were going to march in protest, the Stasi spies had no choice but to join in – to step out would blow their cover. Eventually the department was disbanded, and their thousands and thousands of dossiers, reports and profiles were made available. The amount of paperwork they had generated is mountainous, and yet even more documentation was destroyed so as to keep the contents secret. Good riddance to them.

We retreat to the train station, and experience our final Berlin bar. The system here is quite high-tech, with the waitress wearing a mobile order device that allows her to type our request in, and then go serve the next table. The order has been transmitted to the bar/kitchen, and so she can just go pick it up once it's ready – genius!

Boarding the train, we have a cabin to ourselves, but as the tickets read 21, 22, 24 we think that's too good to be true. The train takes off and we start our voyage hurtling north through Germany. We stop at various places along the way, and pass through a barrelling storm that rocks the train ever so ungently. I slip in and out of sleep, mostly as we approach stations, fearing our cabin being invaded – and yes, it happens. A pair of german men join us, but keep fairly to themselves. I doze, and finally we pull screechingly into Warsaw Centralna.

Warsaw Centralna is a dark, concrete cavern. We shuffle up the escalators and find ourselves in concrete corridors, lined with small fluro tube-lit shops. to one side is a roped-off area containing a massive TV camera and crates of gear. We find an ATM, determine the exchange rate is highly in our favour (1 zloty is worth about 50c, or 22p), and get some cash. Further exploration of the station finds us a small smoke-filled bar, where we drink some much needed caffeine before heading out again. Not wanting to get trapped by choice as we were in Berlin, we decide to book our flights home now. A smart move, as we manage to find one at half-price. After wandering the station for another 20-odd minutes, we make our way down to the platform that we earlier determined as sort of being where we need to be (they don't mark the departures and arrivals by platforms, but rather by the group of platforms, ie: platforms 1 and 2 are back-to-back, you get the number of the entire area)

We wait patiently, as a train pulled in a few platforms away steams itself ready. Out of the window hangs 30-odd soccer hooligans waving scarfs, banging windows and chanting various soccer songs. I distinctly recognise the tune to “When The Saints Go Marching In.” Their train begins to pull out, backwards, and the chanting continues...then the train comes roaring back in, the chanting getting louder and more excited, before the train grinds to a halt. Chanting continues, and then abruptly stops. We hear a voice on a megaphone, and finally put two and two together – that camera from earlier is filming them. The director doesn't seem quite happy with that take, and so runs everyone back to their starting positions – train and all.

Ten minutes after our train was due to leave, we start getting a bit anxious. Not being able to speak Polish, our choices are limited. Suddenly, an announcement comes over, and everyone starts moving towards escalators. Figuring that they were waiting for the same trian, and that whatever affects them affects us, we follow. J bumps into someone who does speak english, and gets the gist of what's going on – due to our unruly actor friends, trains are being redirected to different platforms. We follow, happier in this knowledge.

The train backs in and out at least four more times that we see, the scarves waving more and more limply, the chanting becoming more discordant. Our train finally arrives, and I get my first truly eastern European experience. Everyone rushes to board, not caring on the carriage they got on, rather that they are on before it leaves. The train pulls out and we have to battle our way through four over-full carriages before we get to the sleepers. Thankfully we had paid additionally to have a sleeper, and it's well worth it. The beds are not brilliant, but they are mattresses, they have pillows and blankets, and I fall asleep in minutes.

We are woken at 6am by the helpful guard, who repeats “Krakow” as a mantra. We get ready and spend the last 20 minutes of our journey watching the Polish countryside trail by. Arriving at Krakow Glowny, (a much nicer station) we stumble off through a town that has an air about that says to me “Ballarat”, and find our hostel. We get in, we crash.

New Thing Learnt Today – Second Class travel is really not a great idea in Eastern Europe. Pay the premium.