Having spied a bakery/café the previous day we set off early to get some breakfast. Unfortunately they had a total lack of interest in customer service and a lack of English menus so what we got for breakfast could only be described as interesting, dry & boring. You place your order and they point you to a buffet of loaves of bread. You cut slices off the bread of your choice and sit down and wait, and wait and wait, and then a plate of wafer thin greasy bacon, murdered scrambled egg, an uncooked tomato wedge and sliced cucumber (Roger hates cucumber) gets plonked in front of you. That’s breakfast! No butter, no toasting of the bread, no niceties. In France you get a 5 minute greeting, 5 minutes of wishing you good eating and a 5 minute farewell.

In German it’s shut up and eat up, oh and put your dishes on the side stand when you’re done. In McDonalds you don’t just clear your tray into the bin, you sort the items into recycling bins, and everybody does it, even we did it for the novelty and not because we are learning to be conformists.

Last night’s research put us on track for finding a free memorial exhibition, viewing tower, parking and walk round tour of the preserved piece of the Berlin Wall. We managed to enjoy the attraction without any authoritative people watching over us or offensive signs. There was even a beautiful cemetery nearby that had lovely individual gardens for each plot.

Our next destination was Poznan in Poland for the rowing but Roger decided we needed a side attraction to visit on the way. He found what he called a Giant Jesus in a small Polish town. Getting there was interesting, 140km speeds on the Autobahn, prostitutes on the roadside in rural Poland, trucks obeying the speed limit and drivers respecting the rule that you only use the fast lane to pass.

Apparently detours require you to go to small towns to buy lunch from the local grocery store. They don’t get many English people this way, no one spoke English, they don’t take Euros and they don’t have a large selection in the shop. After a visit to the ATM we were rich in zlotys, and were still rich after buying a few items as food is cheap. Poland may have joined the EU but they won’t accept the Euro. They plaster their name (or PL) on everything and don’t appear to be readily displaying the EU symbol much.

We eventually found the gijant Jesus, although he was under maintenance wrap. The Catholics prayed, we geocached.

Arriving in Poznan at peak traffic hour we managed to navigate to our hotel and then to the rowing in time to watch the para rowing heats. The rowing venue is all geared up for rowing international events, but at the same time keeps the public happy with bush trails, a luge, dry downhill skiing, water world, mini golf, camp ground, several cafes and food outlets, bars etc

We also found a decent sized mall and selected from the food court overlooking the rowing course, McDonalds. To reduce the fear factor we used the self service option and I ordered wedges and a burger that resembled a cordon bleu schnitzel in a bun with lettuce. It came with a free Football World cup glass, blue cheese sauce and a whole lot of verbal Polish instructions, sorry lady we don’t do instructions.