This was one of the most beautiful days of my life and one of those in which one realizes that with the power of will nothing is impossible... 17.06.2006 I wake up at 4:30 after I sleep a sweet 2 hours sleep... J And here I am, at 5:20 we go on this wonderful trip, to Zakopane, me, Kuba and another couple – two of his friends (Asia and Marcin). We proceed and I find out that they wanted to go hitch-hiking, in fact, in the mountains, before arriving to Zakopane. And I don’t really like the idea, mostly because I wasn’t told about their plans... Well, at the end of the day, I would be thanking them, secretly, in my head for this wonderful idea and day... ;) We arrive here, finally, we pay for the fact that we were going to breath this healthy air and we start walking. And we walk and walk and take photos and we speak from time to time... And we walk and we walk and we walk some more until we get to this point where we have to climb and from this moment on, we climb and climb and climb and climb for almost 4 hours. My beliefs collapse, my life seems to escape through my fingers, I see myself laying on these rocks and I see Kuba with his qualms of conscience regretting that we had to get to this point.... Well, nothing of what I see happening happens so I have to deal with the climbing and Kuba is the one to encourage me telling me that I will be able to do this and I will be able to see wonderful landscapes and places like I’d never seen before. “Wow, I thought I’d never see something like that,” I was saying later seeing the Tatra mountains landscape... Dream-like landscape and a feeling of trust in myself and my strength, both physically and mentally (even emotionally)... It was him, again, the person to tell me stories about the places and to gravely tell me to be careful – as the paths were most of the time very dangerous and deep precipice was waiting to seize me... But apparently they weren’t too lucky... ha! (sic!) And we spent some time bathing our eyes and hands in the wonderful lake, in Morskie Oko and we admired the fish swimming there. After some more climbing, we decided to eat something and the boys ate “Żurek w kebałsem” (I think I wrote it well J) – which is a soup made from sour cucumbers with sausage and I had some bigos (also Polish dish made from cabbage)...
So we went on narrow, snowy paths, we crossed rivers trying to escape dry, we drank melted snow, we sunbathed (and only God, me and Kuba and maybe Marcin and Asia too J - hi hi hi – know how it sometimes hurt, esp. when we’re trying to sleep) because the sun shone with all its might, we walked under the rain and – this is my favourite part – I started liking walking on rocks, because I had learnt how to do this very quickly and efficiently... ;) Isn’t that a realization????
And after almost nine hours of walking, climbing and going down and of taking photos and enjoying the gorgeous landscapes, we proceeded to Zakopane. I was “Finally!” to myself... And we arrived here, in the winter capital of Poland, very weary and exhausted but full of genuine will of moving the muscles, that couldn’t rest now.... And I cannot avoid the story of the second of sleep. Well, on our way, after five minutes, after leaving the parking Kuba had fallen asleep for a second, holding the car wheel. I watched him carefully, after that, all the way.... Don’t use your imagination keeping this in mind!!
We finally found a place to park the car and we went to visit this very famous place, where the Pope John Paul II used to spend his holidays, in winter. And we walked the not so long, but very popular and famous street and we had some drinks and watched a few minutes from the Czech Republic – Ghana match. And I first drank here beer with caramel (I think it will also be the last time)...
I forgot about the fair! How could I? It was a place like everywhere full of all kind of things, specific, from the mountains: all kind of sheep, mountain dogs – toys and real (they were sooooo sweet...), pillows made partly of wool, all kind of pottery, things made of wood, woolen blankets and finally cheese – “oscypek”, which we ate grilled and which I don’t like very much...but which is very famous in Poland and especially in mountains...and in this region. The rain came and took us to the car, but not without giving Kuba the chance of composing some meaningless, but funny lines “Polandia, pada, mokro, do dupy...” always embellishing it with more and more words or phrases and making it rhyme. “Koń sie....”
Finally, going home... It started raining, again and it stopped a few times and we were half an hour away from Bielsko a big storm started and we could bearly see anything, rain, water everywhere, lakes on the road, we saw an accident and 5 minutes before getting home the car stopped and didn’t want to start again... and the rain was falling heavily and finally the guy’s brother came for him and he brought me home and he took Kuba too at home and today, he went to take his car back, and he did that without any problems. The car didn’t know to swim... So, what’s the moral??? BUY YOURSELVES CARS THAT KNOW HOW TO SWIM!!!!!! JJJ
