day four: the joy of place names

Covered about 80kms today, which is the minimum pace I'll have to keep if I want to get to Zgorzelec (i.e. the German border) in a reasonable time. About 45 of those were by train, and then, after waiting out a fairly ferocious downpour that started the moment I left the railway station, I did the other 35 by bike.

I ended up in the small town of Ladna, and if you speak Russian, you'll understand immediately why I had to stay there. There are just so many terrible comic possibilities ;-)

See, in Russian, the word "ladna" (spelled with an "o" on the end, but pronounced with an [a] sound) literally translates as "ok". However, the meaning really depends on your tone. It can be used in a friendly or neutral way, but with the right intonation it signals something else – something more like the American English "what-ever" of frustration/exasperation. Altogether, then, it can mean anything from "Yep, no problem" to "I'm completely over this, can we move on please?" to "You're talking bullshit, but I can't be bothered arguing 'cause there's clearly no way to penetrate your stupidity". Such a versatile little word )))

So as I rode past the amusing signs saying "Glass Factory: Ladna", "Supermarket: Ladna" and so on – as if every signwriter in the town was just horribly, terminally bored – I imagined various silly dialogues, beginning with one person asking "So where are you staying at the moment?" and the other replying "Ladna", then another question answered with "Ladna" etc. etc. until a fight resulted. Ah, the joy of place names that translate badly!

Incidentally, two days ago there was a town called "Lazy" about 10kms off my route. I considered going there just to get my photo taken next to the town sign, but in the end I couldn't be bothered.

(Next time you see me, you can slap me for that joke if you like.)

The scenery today was more dramatic than yesterday. My cycling route skirted around the edge of a low mountain range (actually I'm not sure if you'd call them low mountains or tall hills, but ladna, doesn't matter), so there were some valleys of splendour and the like.

I particularly appreciated the wildflowers on this part of the journey. At this time of year, Poland essentially becomes a sea of wildflowers. On every square metre of land not otherwise occupied, they spring up in their millions, adding bold, broad strokes of yellow and occasional purple or white pointillist dots to nature's canvas. If there's so much as a vacant lot between two houses, the wildflowers will claim it and thrive on it. They look especially vivid late in the day or after rain, which were exactly the conditions in which I saw them yesterday ... hence the appreciation, I guess.

You know, while I was cycling today, I had a moment when I suddenly thought "This should be my life". I mean, it is my life, in the sense that I'm doing it now and I appear to be breathing (sometimes very heavily!). And there are obviously good reasons why it can't be a full-time thing – super-important reasons like family, the need to make a living etc. etc.

The thing is, though, other than the factors I just mentioned, most of the stuff that generally keeps us stationary seems kinda empty to me when I get 'on the road'. I don't need a nice house or even a 'place to call home'; don't want a car; couldn't care less about flat-screen TVs or a private vege garden or the familiar faces of neighbours or any of that palaver. The world is ridiculously large (as you realise only too well when you try to traverse a little bit of it by bicycle!), and so varied and interesting, and life is way too finite for my liking! So I ask myself: what the Hell are we all doing, missing out on so much by staying in one place? Why don't we all just gather together our loved ones, get rid of all our unnecessary stuff, work out a way to earn money while mobile, and disappear into the blue?

I know that's a horribly flawed and idealistic argument, and the lifestyle it recommends is virtually impossible to sustain (especially on an English teacher's salary!). Still, those were my thoughts last night and I'm recording them faithfully here, cos y'know, I sometimes do that.

Meanwhile, to the guy who makes those insanely delicious fruit-and-spice-infused vodkas in Kazimierz (the 'Bohemian Quarter' of Krakow): I'll see you tomorrow night, my friend!

Take care everyone :-)
Anthony.