Emmigrating from UK to Poland

During a visit to Warsaw with our English friends Mark and Sharon we stopped for a quick snack at a Pizza Hut in Warsaw’s main square. Mark, like myself has an appreciation for ‘natural beauty’ took this picture of a typical young Polish girl who we were lucky enough to have been served by. Unfortunately we didn’t get her name, though if we had been 20+ years younger we would no doubt have asked for her phone number
Our thanks to Pizza Hut, Warsaw for such friendly staff and efficient, welcoming service.

Photograph courtesy of Mark Sheeran

Continuing on from our previous post about our Spring Break at Horni Mala Upa in the Czech Republic I have just finished throwing together the picture gallery Horni Mala Upa - please be aware that there are 40 images in this gallery so it takes a while for the page to load before the gallery actually kicks in.
The first image that loads you may wish to scroll around as this is the picture of the mountain stream we trudged through for around 5km.

The start of another exciting adventure!!
We left home Thursday at 04:15 to try and beat the holiday traffic. It is a national holiday here in Poland ‘Corpus Chrsti’ and as the road accident rate goes through the roof on these occasions due to the upsurge in moronic Polish drivers, we thought we would get a head start.

The journey took just short of seven hours to complete the 400km trip, including two short rest breaks for the pooch and of course the obligatory breakfast at McDonalds. We arrived safely, without any drama, though the drive up the winding mountain road was a little challenging due to me being tired and the road was thick with fog. At least I thought it was fog but when we arrived at our final destination, we realised that at 1,500 feet above sea level, we had actually been driving through a dense cloud - definitely a new experience for me.

Our host showed us around the guest house and of course the obligatory beer cellar before we unpacked and promptly fell asleep for four and a half hours.
We woke refreshed, went out for a meal, than came back to our Villa for a nightcap, show our faces to the other guests and then some more much needed sleep.

Friday
Went for a walk and decided to follow what was posted as an ‘easy’ walking trail of 2.8km. We were doing really well until the ‘blue’ markers we were following suddenly disappeared, so with no further markers, we seemed to be effectively lost.
As we kept walking in the general direction we thought we should be heading in, we found some concrete marker posts for the Czech Republic/ Polish border so, on the basis that we were residing very close to the border, we thought we would simply follow the markers until we reached an ‘official’ border crossing point (now disused due to the Schengen Agreement).
Well, it seems we had the right idea but did not realise that the border itself was actually a natural river bed with water flowing off the mountains due to the thawing snow. We climbed for what seemed like forever, paddling through near freezing water up the side of the mountain until we reached the peak. It seemed quite surreal at times walking through clouds of water vapour with near zero visibility one moment, then a few hundred metres of visibility the next. We spotted a cable car terminus and with the aid of a guide map ascertained where we were by virtue of the fact that it was the only cable car system this close to the border on the map and set off once again. We were soon heading downhill (not that we could climb any higher with us already being on the peak) and an hour or so later found civilization and the official border crossing which was within spitting distance of our villa.
We found out later that the ‘routes’ marked on our guide map were not, as we had assumed, ‘circular walks’ but one way ski routes, although on the villages information board, the ‘blue’ trail did indeed start and end at the same place. We calculated that instead of the anticipated 2.8km walk we had actually covered almost 15km of which, about 5 km was paddling through the mountain stream along the border trail. I was quite fortunate in that I was wearing my high leg hiking boots which were waterproof but unfortunately, although Zoe’s hiking shoes were waterproof, the depth of the water kept coming over the top of her shoes and she was quickly squelching as she walked.

We had a shower when we got back, changed our clothes then headed out again before our legs seized up for a late lunch. Tatzen was showing signs of pain in his bad hips so we left him in the warm with some medication to help reduce the swelling and muscle pain.

Saturday
A mad German couple we had met offered to show us around Karpacz (they have been here several times and know the area quite well) so we spent almost the entire day in Karpacz. The weather was fantastic so we took the ski lift to the very top of the mountain but as our luck would have it, the clouds descended and we couldn’t see much of anything once we were at the top. We managed to take a few snaps from the ski-lift when returning to the village. I had really hoped to get some picutres of and in, the Wang Temple but as Tatzen was exhausted and still suffering from hip pain, having extended himself on our hike the day before, we returned home after eating a freshly battered fish and a few drinks.
When I say the fish was freshly battered, I mean it was caught, smacked in the head, dipped in batter, fried and served in the space of 15 minutes. I’m not really a big fan of fish and it was mare than a little off putting seeing this whole fish on my plate with it’s mouth gapping open and it’s dead little beady black eyes giving me the once over.

Sunday
Zoe had been awake most of the night tending to Tatzen who was in quite a bit of pain due to his hips and he insisted on trying to change his sleeping position which caused him to yelp a fair bit. When morning finally broke, he seemed to manage hoping out for a crap and a piss and as usual was trying to behave like the puppy he still thinks he is - someone should sit down with him and tell him he should really be acting his 90 years of age now and there are some things that he really shouldn’t be doing.
We popped out for a couple of meals but because of the discomfort Tatzen was in, we didn’t particularly want to go out for any extended period of time and leave him on his own so we basically spent the whole day cooped up in our room looking out at the mountains and forests.
Poor Tatzen did seem in a rather bad way with his hips and could hardly walk so a visit to the vet was our top priority on returning to Poland tomorrow. I was that concerned for his health I was already considering the content of my next blog post - “A eulogy to a well travelled pooch” as there was no way we would want him to be with the sort of pain and discomfort if the vet confirmed his hips had finally given up on him.

Monday
Headed for home. We managed to call the vet en-route and he was to be our first port of call upon arriving back in Poland. The journey took 12 hours; much longer than the outward trip due to heavy traffic. Luckily, Tatzen didn’t feel the need for us to stop at every tree and mark his territory which was rather nice as it was no easy feat hoiking him in and out of the back of the bus.

After a thorough examination at the vet’s (which I was dreading), Tatzen was given the all clear. Yes his hips were knackered but no more so that they were on his last visit. The pain and discomfort he was experiencing was caused by the same thing that affects us bipeds - a build up of lactic acid in the muscles due to over use of the muscles. an injection and some pills were all that was required and I am pleased to report that the following day, he was much more like his normal self. I wasn’t taking any chances though and kept his ‘ablution’ walks down to 10 minutes. Even then, although he wasn’t in obvious pain, he was starting to drag one leg but now several days later, he is back to almost normal.

I have not added any images to this post as now that the Joomla installation in the root of this domain is removed, I will be creating seperate galleries for all the places we visit.

Well, it seems the white line fairies have struck whilst I slept.
I woke yesterday morning to find that overnight an army of white line fairies had been out and re-painted all the crossings and road markings for about a 2 kilometer radius of home.
No traffic cones in site, no road closures, no 12 man teams of 11 ’supervisors’ and 1 ‘worker’ to actually do the work - the west’s planning departments could learn a thing or two from their eastern counterparts!!
No lengthy meetings or debate, just get the job done and get it done now. While your in the road, fill up the pot holes as best you can and give the traffic lights a clean and replace anything that needs replacing.
If you finish early, trim the hedges and any overhanging tree’s and if the tree is in anyone’s garden and it is over haging the footpath, just lop the bits of and give them a bill.

I have no idea how many fairies were at work but they have done a heck of a lot of work in one night!

I’m not sure if it is coincidental to the fact that ‘the community’ is aware of some visitors coming over from the UK next month but I’d like to think that was the case lol.
Today we have a team of painters re-painting the lobby of our apartment block. I would have mentioned (had I been able) to the ‘caretaker’ that it might be more economical to install PIR’s on each landing rather than keep replacing the light switches on the landings outside of the lift area, so I’m very impressed with his psychic powers as they are being fitted now.
There is nothing worse than when leaving the apartment at night to be fumbling around in the dark for the light switch which you know is *somewhere* in the middle of the wall between your door and that of the apartment opposite.

We are off for a spot of R&R soon. We will be staying a few days in the Czech Republic but as we will be right on the Poland / Czech Republic border there are a few places we hope to visit. One place in particular, Jelenia Gora (in Poland) I am really keen to visit as it looks magnificent.