Andrzejjjj ... essen!!
Trip Start
Apr 22, 2009
1
15
19
Trip End
Ongoing
Kamienna Góra, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Poland
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Once again, we were late to rise, and it made for a hectic hour or so to pick up tickets, then make our way to the Katowice train station. What is with us and being late for trains? After a lot of running and dropping things from our backpacks, we eventually made it well before the train.
We switched trains at Wroclaw station. It was the first time i'd been to a Maccas where nobody spoke english. I felt very vulnerable, but thankfully Anita was fluent in Polish. After a day long train ride, and a touch of cabin fever, we finally made it to Kamienna Góra. We decided not to spoil a good thing and filled our faces full of food and vodka for the last 3 days of our trip. Just like i'd had encounted throughout our time in Poland, nobody spoke english, so charades became the most handy communication device with a few words of German thrown in. As Anita's uncle pointed out, he speaks Polish, German, Bulgarian and Czech fluently because he'd worked in those countries. If he had worked in an English speaking country, he surely wouldn't be living in Poland now. Fair point.
He took us out to visit Anita's babcia. We went to a tiny little village out of town that looked like it'd seen better days. In fact, most of Poland had seen better days. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, and more recently, the induction into the E.U, all of Poland's wealth and labour force had moved west across the border seeking the euro. I can't blame them really. From what i could gather, Poland was becoming more and more expensive, yet wages hadn't kept pace. It was a similar story in most of eastern Europe. The barbecue Anita's uncle put on that afternoon was by far the best meal I have had in years. It was just barbied bits of flesh, but the meat was so tender and delicious. Something hard to find back in London.
Three days went quickly, and before we knew it, we were back on the plane headed for London. It was sad for Anita's relatives throughout this trip. They hadn't seen her for 10 years (some had never met her) and weren't sure when they'd see her again. One thing i'd learnt along the way was Polish families are close, so to say goodbye to her was a tear jerking moment. What wasn't so tear jerking was the flight back. I was impressed with W!zz...even if they do spell their name with an exclamation mark!
