Matching Tracksuits

fun in fours

the boy

Wood

Monday 18 July 2022

Today the Boy and I set out to tackle a basic but important project: sorting and storing all the wood Babcia had delivered in April. It's largely to serve as kindling for coal-fed fires in the winter months, but during the short time that it's not necessary to heat the whole house, the word heats the water.

Our job was to move and store the wood. And make a friend along the way:

We had an enormous pile with no before picture for comparison. All we have are pictures of all the various little corners we stored the wood.

And what with my little helper?

Babia Gora

Wednesday 13 July 2022

I lived at the base of Babia Gora for seven years and only once tried to reach the summit. Shortly after that, I injured my knee while hiking in the Tatra Mountains. Some time after that, when my knee had healed, I injured the other knee. And so I never made it to the top of Babia. Until today.

Here's some video showing just how windy it was at the top.

Pyzowka

Saturday 09 July 2022

I keep repeating myself: X is always a highlight of our time in Polska. When you come here only every few years, I guess everything becomes a highlight. Still, going to Pyzowka to visit K’s dearest friend D and her family has to count as a highlight no matter how you define it.

D is the type of friend you have that, no matter how much time has passed since your last visit, the years disappear in an instant and except for the topics of conversation, your relationship feels little different than it did when you were in high school together. These days, you might talk about the cost of your child applying to college versus the cost of your child going to college if you lived in the states. You might talk about friends that only one of you has seen in the last twenty years and how they’ve changed or not changed. You might talk about the cost of heating your house this year as opposed to last year. These are discussions your parents would have had years ago, but now you have them.

Before you know it, your children will be having them as well. But for now, your children are happy jumping on the trampoline and playing with a puppy. The cost of heating is as distant to them as it was to you when you were their age. They hear your discussions, but they don’t pay much attention to them.

Then again, neither did you.

Bowling and Cards

Tuesday 05 July 2022

Traveling always risks bad weather; coming to Poland, for us it seems, just about guarantees it. After several lovely days (how many? four? five?), it's supposed to rain. Every day. For the rest of K's and L's stay in Poland.

Still, we make the most of what we've got, like using leftover meat from rosol to make pierogi for lunch, or using the rainy weather to chop a little wood for Babcia.

After lunch we met with K's brother's family for some more bowling. This time, we took two lanes, and the adults played as well. That was a mistake: my long-injured finger began aching again, and I made it through two frames before I decided that it might be less painful to have my finger in a vice than roll even the lightest bowling ball available.

Afterward, we all headed back to Babcia's for games and conversation. Hearing the cousins laugh and argue and joke together is a lovely bit of chaos.

And finally, I talked the girls into the first of several photo recreations. The original image is from 2008, when L was a year and a half old and S was a year older. They barely fit into the tub together now.

Wypasiona Dolina Plus

Monday 04 July 2022

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.

Trzy Korony

Sunday 03 July 2022

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, I’ve been wary of mountains. The way up is not the issue. In fact, it’s a great relief sometimes to be heading up. No, it’s the way down – 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

Saturday 02 July 2022

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.

Images from the morning walk

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

Friday 01 July 2022

First Day 2022

Friday 01 July 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 — at least, they don’t remember doing them.

Like drinking hot black tea with breakfast. Admittedly, we don’t even really have that with breakfast in the States. We generally have spiced Indian tea — 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, there’s bacon, but that’s hardly the same.

These differences create differences in L’s 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 — 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 we’re 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.

“Prices are starting to equalize” seems to be our mantra this trip. It’s 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 don’t know how many times I’ve taken this same picture.

Babcia is so easy to talk to that it’s 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 K’s for some time.

All in all, a perfect first day — and only the second post on this site that I’ve completed completely on my telephone, pictures and all. The ease and convenience of it all…hard to beat.

Arrival 2022

Thursday 30 June 2022

The trip here seems endless — 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, it’s not much more than a short nap at best. So you feel cheated, tricked — 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 doesn’t 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 it’s 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 we’re 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.