stranded (a bit):

a european odyssey in several parts

Er ... hmmm. Technically this is my third time in Krakow. To say that, though, almost seems like a form of cheating. The second visit was just a whistle-stop en route to a further-away destination, and the third (i.e. now) was completely unplanned ... kind of a "stranded by the dysfunctional character of Polish public transport and by my own unobservant nature" type situation.

As I write this, I'm sitting at one end of the huge and elegant main market square, where five months ago I bought one hell of a fabulous kielbasa (Polish sausage) at the Xmas market. Almost as memorable as the sausage was the mulled wine, which I sipped while walking around in -12C, blowing on my cup to make the steam rise up in clouds and warm my frozen face.

I love doing that!

Anyway, it's now a little after 1am on a Tuesday morning, and the square is thinly populated by ... well, by the kinds of people who thinly populate squares at 1am on weeknights. Most of them are drunk, and one or two are singing. (I just heard a few bars of Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares 2U, somewhat massacred by two drunken Polish girls staggering home from a bar.)

Under normal circumstances, I'd probably be thinking "Wow, it's great to be back in Krakow!" My first impressions of this city were very positive, and I told myself that I had to return here in warmer weather, to see how it looked in its beautiful spring green coat. But as you've no doubt guessed, the present circumstances depart somewhat from normality. I feel that my relationship with "Poland's cultural capital" has taken another strange turn ... and I use the word "another" quite deliberately.

Let's start at the beginning ...


1: SLEEP DISRUPTION

My friend Scott – as all who know him will surely attest – can be rather persuasive. He first demonstrated this ability when we lived together in Kazakhstan, and has continued to do so over the last six months. (We work together now in Lviv.) And I have to say that, when it's cold and snowy outside, and I don't have to work the following day, I'm rather an easy target :-)

Here's a case in point: on the night before my visa run* to Poland last December, as we were finishing up at work, Scott said "Hey, you're going to another country tomorrow. Let's have a quick drink to celebrate!" I agreed, adding the caveat "but it has to be only one. My train leaves at 7:20 in the morning." However, that night we saw the first real snow in Lviv; the streets were icy-cold and glistening, and the cafes were warm and full.

And yes ... I think you can guess what happened ;-)

In fact, as I was walking home through the pristine snow at 5am the next morning – accompanied by some random guy who claimed to be a 'skinhead' and enthusiastically outlined his views on Pan-Slavic Solidarity and Death to All Russians** – I realised that I'd barely have time to iron, pack and get a taxi in time to be on the train.

But hey ... gotta live while you can, right?

As it turned out, this was a fitting start to a weekend characterised by weird sleeping patterns, continually disrupted by random occurences.

The first wake-up call came an hour later, when my taxi driver dropped me at the wrong station. I'd almost fallen asleep in the passenger seat, but to get my train I had to run with my wheelie bag through a thick blanket of white for about 15 minutes. A nearby LED display showed
-13C, and the wind whipped me mercilessly as I struggled along the roadside. That will always wake you up ... especially when your train is leaving soon and you're not entirely sure that you're running in the right direction!

I reached the station and found the platform with only minutes to spare. As I climbed the stairs to the platform, the clock showed 7:18am. My train's exact departure time: 7:19. The platform was deserted, and the signs on the carriages were cryptic. I had no idea which was my carriage, and no time to find out ... so I threw my bag through the nearest open door and leapt in behind it. I almost lost my footing as the train jolted forward and began rolling out of the station, pulling my right foot in behind me to avoid the crush of the closing door.

The conductor showed me to my place in the carriage (which by some miracle was the right one), and I thankfully discovered that I had a whole cabin to myself – a rare luxury in this part of the world, where you normally have to share your sleeper compartment with strangers. I collapsed on the lower bed, thinking "Yay! I can sleep all day, and arrive refreshed!"

I could hardly have been more wrong.

The journey ahead was a mini-adventure in itself, and an education for those like me who had never before travelled by land from the wilds of Eastern Europe to the 'civilised' territories of the EU. I was about to make rather an unusual border crossing ... and it's not the kind of thing you can sleep through.

I'll tell you about that soon. For now, let me wish you a good night :-)

... to be continued ...



* "visa run": I mentioned these once before, but in case you missed it: this is where you get a visa for the country where you're living, but at some point you have to go to another country to either change your visa type or extend the validity of the visa. It's common to a lot of countries, from Russia to Thailand and beyond.

*** "Pan-Slavic solidarity and death to all Russians": a plainly self-contradictory philosophy of course. But then, it seems to me that zealots of all kinds are drawn only to ideas which clearly contradict themselves ... have you noticed that too?