There was so much more — so much more — today that, at 11:59, I don’t care to cover. But this was the most insignificant event of the day.
Wypasiona Dolina Plus
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Trzy Korony
Climbing mountains is something my mind loves but my body questions. Ever since I seriously injured my knee about 25 years ago hiking in the Tatra Mountains, Iโve been wary of mountains. The way up is not the issue. In fact, itโs a great relief sometimes to be heading up. No, itโs the way down โ that crash! crash! crash! against the knees. Almost 190 pounds dropping on knees time and time again.
So when we started our trek up to Trzy Korony today, I was a little concerned about the effect it might have on my knee. I was more concerned when I saw just how steep it was. Fortunately, we all made it fine.
And I’m so exhausted that I can’t say much more than that about the whole day.
First Saturday
Originally, the plan was to meet with K’s brother’s family and head out for an adventure on the Dunajec River this afternoon after a morning hike around the Three Crowns Mountains. But in fairly typical Podhale fashion, the weather turned suddenly overcast, threatening rain. We decided it wasn’t worth it: what’s the point of hiking up a mountain if you can’t see any views? And we always have tomorrow.
So since we were all up (meaning, the adults and the Boy) early, we went ahead and had an early breakfast. And as we had nothing else to do in the morning, I went out for a walk in the hilly fields just west of the village.
I saw a gentleman sweeping hay from the floor of his barn with an old-fashioned twig broom. I thought to ask him if he would mind me taking a picture of him, but I didn’t. Why? I really don’t know. What’s the worst that could have happened? He would have laughed, said “No,” and I would have gone on about my walk. Instead, I am writing about it hours later with just a little regret. Next time.
After lunch, the plan was to head to Wypasiona Dolina for a little line-park action, but just as the weather put a quick end to our river plans, the rain put an unforeseen end to our afternoon adventures: though the park is only a few kilometers from Jablonka, and though it didn’t rain all day today, it poured there apparently, and the owner, seeing that all the wood was wet and thus slippery, sent all the workers home.
Instead, we went to the outdoor museum that we almost always seem to visit while here. It seems to grow each time we go.
On the way back to Babcia’s to pick her up for church, we stopped at a new place that had — strangely enough for a small village — a small bowling alley. It was not quite a normal bowling alley: the pins were suspended by strings and seemed to be lighter plastic. The Boy managed to win the first game but didn’t do so well with the second game.
After bowling, we rushed to pick up Babcia to head to church so that we can have tomorrow completely free. Afterward, we dropped by the cemetery to tidy up around Dziadek’s grave and pay our respects. As always happens at the cemetery, we met an old friend of Babcia’s, a former teacher of K’s.
And finally, back home, Babcia began teaching the Boy how to make a fire for hot water — a basic skill in old-school rural Poland
Friday Afternoon Walk
First Day 2022
Coming to Poland is always the same old new: it is always a question of what has changed and what has not changed. The things you would think are timeless are just that: without change from who knows when. Yet some of these things for our kids are indeed new โ at least, they donโt remember doing them.
Like drinking hot black tea with breakfast. Admittedly, we donโt even really have that with breakfast in the States. We generally have spiced Indian tea โ close to the traditional breakfast drink here, but taken in an entirely different direction.
The food largely stays the same, too, yet completely different from our everyday reality. Boczek, for example, is the impossible dream where we live in South Carolina. Sure, thereโs bacon, but thatโs hardly the same.
These differences create differences in Lโs breakfast patterns, too. Smoothies are out. Scrambled eggs z boczkiem are definitely in.
Or just some slices of boczek on some good Polish bread with a little butter.
After breakfast, a bit of unpacking, and some ironing (everything we packed of course is now too wrinkled to wear around here โ what a shame that would be), we head to the store to do some shopping after dropping in at the kantor to get some zloty. Another different-same: while the stores in Jablonka are much bigger than what they used to be but still much smaller than what weโre used too. Granted, such mega-shops exist in cities, but your average rural sklep here will be only a fraction the size of its American counterpart.
On the way home, we stop at Pasieka, the small restaurant where K and I met when dating, for some afternoon refreshments. We look over the menu, commenting on how much inflation is evidence from the time we left in 2005. Beer now costs double what it was, for example.
โPrices are starting to equalizeโ seems to be our mantra this trip. Itโs not so ridiculously cheep for someone earning in dollars despite the generous exchange rate.
On returning, we resort to one of our favorite pastimes: sitting at the table and chatting with Babcia. I donโt know how many times Iโve taken this same picture.
Babcia is so easy to talk to that itโs hard not just to sit around and talk about anything and everything.
After dinner, the Boy, K, and I head out for a walk to the river, stopping to talk to an old childhood friend of Kโs for some time.
All in all, a perfect first day โ and only the second post on this site that Iโve completed completely on my telephone, pictures and all. The ease and convenience of it allโฆhard to beat.
Arrival 2022
The trip here seems endless โ completely
Coming to Poland is always worse than returning as far as the travel itself goes. Returning to America, due to the time change, only feels like a really long day. The sun just never seems to set. Going, however, is deceptive because you have that night in the middle, but in reality, itโs not much more than a short nap at best. So you feel cheated, tricked โ and your body does not appreciate it. It was not expecting one long day with the illusion of sleep in the middle.
Having a six-hour layover after an eight-hour flight doesnโt help much either. It seems like that will be long enough to catch up on sleep just a bit, but just like the night itself, it only teases.
So we board the plane from Munich to Krakow some twenty hours after we began the whole adventure with eyes barely open. K and L try to nap on the flight, but itโs of little use. E and I, each having a window seat, spend the flight looking out the windows at the shapes below.
Anyone flying into Poland with a window seat as we have knows exactly when weโre over the border. The shapes change immediately and drastically. The irregular, large shapes of fields and forest interspersed with houses and towns disappear, and in their place stretch long, narrow fields, one beside another. This is Poland from the air.
Departure 2022
We’re in the air at the moment; I write this still sitting at my desk in South Carolina, the whole adventure still ahead of us all. The waiting, the sitting, the endless masks — they’re all ahead of us.
All our indoor plants are behind us — on the kitchen counter.
But best of all, Babcia awaits
Packing
Tonight is our last night in the States for a little while. Four suitcases and four carry-ons are ready to go. The Boy is going around the house constantly saying, “We’re leaving for Poland tomorrow!” K is going around the house saying, “I can’t believe we’re leaving for Poland tomorrow.” I’m going around the house saying, “Does anyone know where the bladder for our backpack is?” And L — she’s been at work, so she hasn’t been saying anything this evening.
Driver
The Girl got her restricted license today. This means that, once we have her covered on our insurance, she can drive alone during daylight hours.
It’s not that big of a change, I guess. She’s been driving for six months now. Ah, but it is a big change: she’ll soon be doing it alone.
The Boy learned about the joys of putting together furniture.
The Girl
When I got my current job teaching eighth graders, Nana said to me, “I don’t know how I survived your eighth-grade year. I wanted to strangle you every other day.” I can’t say that I’ve been as upset and frustrated with teaching eighth graders as Nana might have suggested. Indeed, I’ve come to love it, and I don’t really have any desire to teach any other grade.
My own child, though, was a different story. I began to understand Nana’s hyperbole. I haven’t written much about the Girl here because it’s been a typical period of growth, which means frustration for parents. What are we doing wrong? Why is she pushing us away? What can we do differently? We knew the answers to those questions (Nothing; Because she’s thirteen/fourteen; Nothing — just be there unconditionally), but that didn’t make it any easier.
In the last few weeks (or even months), though, since she’s started driving, since she went back to work, since she’s made it through her first year of high school, it’s like she’s taken a deep breath and made peace with us and herself.
I knew it was coming: the transformation eighth graders go through is amazing, and I know it continues through ninth grade (until they’re sophomores and temporarily revert because they’re sophomores and know everything — or is that just a cliche?), but to experience it has been refreshing. To begin seeing what kind of an adult she will be: a valiant defender of anyone facing injustice, a friend who sometimes lets her love for her friend overshadow reason (not always a good thing, not always a bad thing), self-reflective and self-aware — to see this change really start to kick in just makes me smile.
Tonight, we finished watching Schindler’s List. The reason (other than it’s a moving film that everyone should see) is that L and I are planning on visiting Auschwitz while we’re in Poland, and I wanted her to have an idea of what the scale of the Holocaust in real, human terms. Tomorrow, we will watch Conspiracy, a film about the Wannsee conference so she can get an idea of the “logic” that drove the Nazis.
That I am comfortable letting her watch such a film is a testament to her maturity.
Family
Aunt D is a national treasure. She is at least a treasure to everyone who knows her. Selfless and kind, she’s helped the family more than anyone I know. When her own mother-in-law was ill, she took care of her for several years. When Nana was ill, she came and spent alternate weeks taking care of Nana.
For years she hosted the family Thanksgiving gathering, cooking for the whole family. Of course, everyone brought something, but she cooked enough herself to feed everyone.
She’s generous almost to a fault.
She’s always buying things for people: she sees something that she thinks someone would like, she buys it and gives it to them.
Now she’s taking care of her own husband, Uncle M. He’s facing his own health challenges, and he’s stubborn: that would be more than a challenge for most, but Aunt D is sly and caring.
That’s a combination to be reckoned with.
She always refers to the Girl and the Boy as “my babies.”
“How are my babies doing?” she’ll ask when we talk on the phone.
“Where are my babies?” she asks when she arrives at our house for a visit.
She’s the kind of aunt everyone should be fortunate enough to have.
Mention
Monopoly
Some of E’s friends came over for the day. They ended up playing Monopoly — at last, someone to feed the Boy’s addiction. I always feel a little guilty not being willing to play that game with him, but I swear we’re all so sick of it that we’ll be happy if we never play it again. All except for the Boy.
Orlando Traffic
Going to the convention center where all games took place, we traveled on Interstate 4. No matter the time of day, it looked like this:
Orlando Return
Driving back from Orlando today, I got to thinking again about the writing project I’ve been considering, and I came up with yet another organizational idea for it. Indeed, not just another organizational idea, but a somewhat altered focus. So two initial drafts get shoved aside for a third. Fortunately, I was only a few thousand words into the other two drafts, so there’s no real loss there. I’m excited about the new approach and began jotting notes on my phone as I took the dog for a walk.
But the whole way, I think the Girl relived the highlights of competing in nationals.
Orlando 4
Our first experience with nationals is now over. The Girl’s team finished 124th place out of 200+ teams. That’s not great, but it’s not terrible.
It represents the end of a strange volleyball season, one of several ups and downs, thrills and disappointments. The Girl improved a lot, both in her sense of court real estate (knowing and moving around the area of the court in a smart, effective manner) and ball handling.
The end of this year brings a bit of sadness with it, as do all endings. In this case, it’s due to the fact that it’s very unlikely these girls will play together again. Everyone will be going their separate ways from here. Since they don’t go to high school together, they’ll probably be opponents if they’re on the volleyball court again.
So the third year of L’s club play is officially behind us, and what lies ahead? The Girl has big hopes, big dreams. She wants to come back to nationals and win it — or at least place in the top ten. She wants to play college ball, using her academic success with her academic skill to work her way through college.
In the end, though, the true friendships, whether among players or their families, will always last.
Orlando 3
Another day, more games, more frustration. It’s tough watching the girls not doing their best, but there’s something admirable in their effort, no doubt.
Orlando 2
Day 2 in Orlando didn’t go quite as well as day 1. We have two more days, but the girls have a bit of a hole to dig about out of tomorrow. The girls are capable of it. It’s really just more of a question of will, perhaps. Or maybe there’s more going on.
Orlando 1
Today was a mixed bag for the girls in their first days at nationals. They lost two and won one, but they should really be able to compete with a lot of the teams here. They didn’t get their butts kicked: instead, they got outplayed a little and kicked their own butts with silly errors that gave their opponents too many free gifts.
The Girl got some really big hits, and she got at least one monster hit that shot like a bullet to the back corner, the sound of the contact still echoing when the ball hit the court. It was a great hit.
The Boy discovered the joys of riding up an escalator and back down and back up and back down and back up and back down.
Planning Rides
This summer, I’m hoping to get back on the old mountain bike I left at Babcia’s and ride a bit of the old areas I’d covered so many times in the early 2000s. Much of my riding then was on a road bike, which I don’t have in Poland (or America anymore for that matter), but I rode a fair amount off-road as well.
To that end, I’ve planned at least a few rides I want to complete — three of them completely new.
Ride 1
The first ride I want to do — though not necessarily the first ride I will do — involves crossing over the border at the top of Lipnica Wielka, the village where I lived for seven years. I’d always heard there were villages on the other side running somewhat parallel to LW, and I discovered getting to them is fairly simple. Since one can cross the border freely now, there’s no risk of getting in trouble coming back into Poland without any documentation of entering Slovakia.
Ride 2
Next up would be a ride that begins the same ride four — one I’ve done a few times but instead of turning left in the fields, I’ll turn right. I never went right because I didn’t know where I might end up. Turns out, I’ll end up in Chyzne.
Ride 3
The third ride is through the fields of Lipnica Maลa and Lipnica Wielka. It goes along the top of a ridge I’d looked at countless times when riding in Zubrzyca but never bothered to explore. I’ll explore it this summer.
Ride 4
The small loop through the fields, I rode this route a few times in the past. It’s a fun one, especially that climb at the start.