Destination: Zzzzzzzzlin

Fucking trains.

Nothing has been more stressful than leaving Łódź . Not just buying a ticket- I had to figure out where to go. I needed footage of more post-industrial cities, but which ones? …How will I get there? …How long should I spend there? …Should I be worried about all these thunderstorms moving through Europe? And on top of all this planning, I still had a ton to shoot in Łódź.

Finally, on my second to last night in town, I (with some remote assistance from Philip) came up with a plan.

From Łódź … I'd train north to Warsaw to catch the connection south to Zlin, Czech Republic. I’ll have about a day and a half to get the best pictures of Zlin. Then I’ll train to Brno, Czech to catch a flight to Milano, Italy where I can train to Torino and shoot there for a day or so. From Torino, I’ll fly to Brussels, Belguim where I’ll take a train east to Duisburg, Germany where I can see the cites of the Ruhr area.

And this is all gonna happen in one week.

I’ll admit, it’s a little overwhelming just writing it down. But all I had to do was stick to the plan. No room for error; no time for the ever-late “Oliver-time.” Michal had spent over an hour planning the first leg: Wake up at 7, walk to the train station near Łukasz's flat, buy a ticket to Otrokovice, Czech; I’d stop in Warsaw where I’d have fifteen minutes to change trains; and when I got to Otrokovice, I’d take the bus to Zlin. ETA: 8pm.

I woke up, packed, grabbed a coffee and made it to the train station early. Good start considering I only got four hours of sleep. I approached the counter and said,
“Bilet to Otrokovice.”
“Czech?”
“Tak (yes).”
“(polish, polish, polish, polish…)” She went on and on, and I had a feeling none of it was “coming right up” so I turned to the girl behind me in line for help. She translated. “You can’t buy international tickets from this station. You have to go to the other station in Łódź .”

…there’s another station? …I was told to come here. Fuck.

Okay. New plan: buy a ticket to Warsaw, I’ll have fifteen minutes to RUN to the ticket counter, buy my ticket for Otrokovice, and bolt for the train. I ran track in high school; I could make it, right?

Not a chance in hell.

I was stuck in Warsaw waiting for the next train… at 8pm…which put my ETA in Zlin somewhere around 4am.

With eight hours to kill, I stuffed my luggage in a train locker and found a nice patch of grass next to the hippies in the park. Listening to some Chad Valley tunes, staring up at the towering Palace of Culture and Science, I fell asleep. I needed this nap more than anything; maybe getting stranded wasn’t so bad. …until those thunderstorms rolled in.

A drop of water hit my nose… drops turned to rain; people ran for cover… I, on the other hand, couldn’t.

I have a system when sleeping in public with my valuables. Even though I had locked two of my three bags in the train locker, I don’t trust this camera anywhere but with me; it’s either around my neck or in my backpack at all times. So in case I fell asleep, I had looped my cable lock around my backpack and through my belt. It’s not as uncomfortable as it might sound, as long as I don’t change positions. When I was stranded in the Nairobi airport, I was able to get a full six hours this way. This time, the rain let me get about 40 minutes.

I scrambled awkwardly with the combination lock, stuffed my iPod in my bag, and scuffed on my shoes as I took off running. I found shelter in a coffee shop the rest of the afternoon where I caught up on e-mails and wished my mother a happy birthday 3 weeks late. (Yeah, like I said- Oliver-time).

I know- there’s nothing cute about forgetting my mother’s birthday. I’m a jerk and I deserve everything that’s coming to me. …like, all this stuff…

By the time I boarded the evening train I was completely exhausted. I just had to make sure I was awake at 3am so I could change trains and get to Zlin. ‘Stay awake Steve, stay awake Steve…’

I fell asleep.

I opened my eyes to find the train stopped. I jerked up and looked out the window. It was the dead of night… just after 3am… and this was my stop. Eureka! The first good luck all day. …and then the train started moving.

Fuck.

I rode for another hour and got off at the next stop in some unknown village. Everything was closed; nowhere to eat, nowhere to get Czech currency, and the only toilet was a porta-potty that smelled like a rotting body. It was two hours until the next train back, so I curled up on the floor, locked all three bags to my belt Nairobi-style, and passed out.

I got into Zlin around 9am. I was beat, I was thirsty, I had to pee, and I was STARVING. I stopped at the first hotel I saw. …and it had a breakfast buffet!!!

“So… is the buffet free for guests?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Complimentary?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t have to pay?”
“No.”

Suckers.

I wolfed down three bowls of cereal, two eggs, two sausages, a yogurt, two baguettes, two glasses of OJ, and an apple before heading up to my room.

“Can I take the coffee up to my room?”
“No.”

I don’t think she realized that I already had two eggs, two pastries, an apple and an orange stuffed into my cargo pants, but whatever. They can keep their coffee. I needed sleep anyway.

I squeezed in an hour nap, before meeting up with Kate- a couch surfer studying at Zlin’s Tomáš Baťa University. (Goddamn this site is useful). I told her the types of pictures I was looking for and she knocked it out of the park. First, she took me to a lookout point where I could get a view of the entire city, then we walked through the old factories, the new university developments, and she even wove in some historical city sites.

The entire city of Zlin was built around Baťa shoes. The founder Tomáš Baťa is sometimes called the Henry Ford of Europe. After much of the operations have been outsourced, the city is hoping to re-brand itself as a University town. The institution is only ten years old, so only time will tell if it’ll work.

It was a full day, and my legs were about to fall off. Kate took me to a restaurant where I filled up on typical heart-attack-on-a-plate Czech cuisine (meat and bread dumplings served with cranberries and whipped cream), then I passed out.

I had to wake up early the next day and head to Torino. And with three busses, a plane and a train to catch, I had a feeling I wasn’t gonna get much sleep on that journey either.