Day 1: Toronto to Łódź, a total of 6,862km

I just arrived at my hotel in Łódź (those markings on the first and last letters will soon become important), capping off the first leg of what's going to be a whirlwind, exhaustive, and slightly nuts-of-a-pace trip. Last night, I was on the red eye from Toronto to Dublin — on Air Canada rouge. Didn't have a good feeling about rouge because of all the one-star reviews I read, but being 5'2 and in possession of a Kindle, I was fine.

Before boarding, I hung out at the Plaza Premium Lounge and stuffed myself silly with couscous salad, corn salad, fruit salad, Oriental linguine and a whole bunch of other stuff from the mini buffet. Because it was free. I wasn't even hungry anymore after the first plate, but I soldiered through a second one. And a Red Velvet mini cupcake as a reward for my efforts.

Think I managed to get about an hour, maybe, of shut-eye on the plane and felt pretty scuzzy until we landed. Once we arrived, I was so charmed by the Irish accents I half thought about just staying there, but kept going onto the next point.

The next point was a Ryanair ($15.50 for a 'premium' seat upgrade and being able to get off the plane first? Yes, please!) flight to Łódź, which I discovered is pronounced "Woodzh". Huh. Go figure. I took linguistics for how many years, and I did not remember how to pronounce the "L" with the line through it.

Łódź Airport is pretty small and there was no place to get a SIM card, so I knew a good cup of coffee would also be out of the question. I grabbed something that was hot, light brown and vaguely resembling watery coffee, and then set about trying to figure out how to get to my hotel. Luckily, there was a very nice man at the transportation desk who spoke fantastic English, and he even showed me how to purchase a bus ticket and how to validate it. And the bus driver also spoke English! I've been in the city about two hours, and here are my first impressions:

The residential buildings are colourful, yet pale, from the sky

The way they're placed together look like broken Lego blocks, sort of like a compound of Soviet-style high-rises — there's a cluster of four or more together, each one parallel to the next

They drive on the right side of the road, which is a tad comforting, and it was neat to see a roundabout here and there from the sky

There's a lot of snow on the ground...which I was sort of hoping to escape in Toronto

There's a big tech lag here as compared to Toronto. iPhones are definitely not the dominant type of phone, as most people seem to be using what we did about seven to 10 years ago

Women's hair fashions are...striking from a distance. The best way I can describe the dominant hair colour is "electric pumpkin". But at least I know that if I get lost at night, there'll be plenty of heads lighting the way for me

A remarkably large number of people speak English and they're happy to help out as best as they can

SIM cards, and data, are cheap beyond my wildest imagination. On the walk to my hotel, I popped into a Play store and bought a prepaid SIM card with 250MB for just...wait for it...5zł. The Canadian equivalent of this is $1.72. And for more context, my monthly Fido bill is around $80, and I get just four times more data (1G). Am I allowed to buy, like, a hundred SIM cards and take them home with me? Heck, even with the EU roaming rates, this is scads cheaper than anything I'd pay back home.

My hotel room is nice and clean and modern, but incredibly small. On the left side of the bed, there's enough room beside the wall to put my legs; I can sit on the floor on the other side with my legs bent at about a 90-degree angle.

I haven't eaten since gorging at the lounge and again on the plane and I'm riding an adrenaline high with some caffeine mixed in and I'm going to fall asleep sooo fast tonight, so first thing on the list is a meal. And then checking out the Łódź ghetto.

Tomorrow, Auschwitz.