A Fogotten Trip

So, the weekend is here again. Dora’s parents have arrived from the States. There’s a shitload of family birthdays to celebrate this time of year (it is perhaps a bit overwhelming, especially when you considerer my own family’s casual attitude toward birthdays – oh, by the way, Happy Birthday Courtney!! A day late, but it’s a busy time of year for you, I know.). And I’m getting ready for the school year to start up. So, I am plenty busy, and Dora is off to Poland for a work-sponsored training, and it is all a little overwhelming.

But the Poland thing reminded me of something I forgot to write about. Two weeks ago Dora and I celebrated our second year as a married couple in Poland. We drove up through Slovakia, a beautiful drive through the Tatra Mountains.

I did take a wrong turn about five hours into the drive and tagged an extra 90 minutes onto the trip. We saw a badass castle as a result, but the detour was a bit frustrating. My navigator was asleep when I went off course. She woke up to tell me I should have been more careful, but then we missed the turn a second time while backtracking. That’s when we realized that the Slovak people need to mark their roads better.

You hear that Slovakia! Mark those roads!

They can’t hear me…

Anyway, Krakow was the main destination, and it was worth it. It’s a beautiful city. There are pictures. If you want to see ‘em click this sentence. We saw the Jewish district and the Old City Centre. Very nice. “Here’s a famous church, here’s where some bad things happened, and here’s an example of architecture that was recently refurbished after it got blown up on forty separate occasions.” Did you know Poland stopped existing as a country for a while and then it just came back? I didn’t know countries were allowed to do that.

The food was good, but I think we should have asked someone for a traditional Polish place. We ended up at a bistro that was more French than anything else.

Then the next day we had two choices for a day-trip: Auschwitz or this famous 750 year old salt mine. I want to see Auschwitz at some point, but not on a wedding anniversary. So I opted for the salt mine and Dora agreed. People had told me the mine is amazing. And… well – No, wait, it is amazing. No, really, it is an impressive site. Don’t get me wrong, Dora and I were both duly impressed, but it’s a mass-tourism destination. And that means there’s the lines, the crowds, the cheap souvenirs, the overpriced fast food, and all the other trappings that come with a one-of-a-kind UNESCO protected destination.

Impressive, yes.

Ideal for a quick romantic getaway, not in any imaginable way. We stayed positive and appreciated it, blah, blah, blah, but we should have gone hiking or spent another day in the city.

We spent our last night in Zakopane, a village in the Polish Tatras. It was really more of a ski town, but the place was bustling with hikers and the like. We had good Polish food and a rude waitress in a place that made me long for the ski season, wooden walls, live accordion, and traditional Polish dresses as uniforms (might have explained some of the rudeness).

And then we headed back. A nice trip.

Since then there’s been the Radiohead show, a lot of work, and now you’re more or less up to date.

What about you? What have you been up to?