Blogs from Podlachian, Poland, Europe

#23 – Slice the marrow, sprinkle with salt, pepper and olive oil, then grill for ~20 minutes. Serve with grilled ocypki and cranberry sauce (ocypki is Polish smoked sheep’s cheese). There are few reasons for an alarm to be waking you at 2:30am. That’s more a time for going to bed than getting up. One of the reasons I would, and did, get up at that time, would be the chance of seeing a magical animal. I’ve had a thing for bison ever since seeing one in High Park in Toronto. That one was in a pen, which made me quite sad as it was such a huge majestic beast. I later found out that we have bison in Europe, but not many. There are about 2500 in the wild, most of which are in Poland. ... read more

16 juillet Je quitte l'Oki Doki Hostel de Varsovie en prenant bien soin de saluer une fois encore la sirène guerrière derrière sa vitrine sale. Je vais certainement la revoir celle-là: c'est que ma dernière nuit en Pologne devrait se faire ici (si je ne change pas mes mes plans d'hostel d'ici là). Je marche quelques rues seulement pour rejoindre la station de train de la Capitale. On est dimanche. Tout est calme, propre et ordonné dans le centre-ville de Varsovie. Des vélos passent en silence, attendant patiemment leur tour pour traverser les carrefours. Cigarette au bec et sac de papier dans sa mollassonne main, un barbu engourdi par la boisson roupille sur un banc de parc. J'entre dans la gare impeccable de Varsovie avec l'intention de me procurer un billet de train qui me propulsera ... read more

Vcera nakoniec len lezanie v posteli a citanie knihy. Na izbu postupne prisiel francuzsky par, poliaci a madar. V noci sa rozprsalo, zalomil som uz okolo 20/30. Rano ma uz okolo 6/00 zobudila polska rodina, potom som este nachvilu zaspal ale neskor osadenstvo pomalicky zacinalo opustat izbu, tak spat sa mi uz nedarilo. Do 10/00 som sa uz len valal v posteli, cital knihu a cakal kym prestane prsat. Dazd trochu ustal (uz len mrholilo), tak som sa zbalil, odovzdal na recepcii klucik od skrinky a hor sa do stareho mesta. Na recepcii mi nebolo doporucene pit vodu z vodovodu, tak sup ho do carefouru. Bohuzial, zatvoreny, bo dnes je sviatok, den ustavy. Nastastie bol cestou otvoreny mensi sklep (obchodik). Do stareho mesta to bola len jedna zastavka elektrickou, resp stacilo prejst most. Rozhodol som sa ... read more

We were kayaking on the Sokołda river on an upper part of the river that was not normally navigable, it being too shallow. Recent heavy rain had raised the level of the river allowing us to kayak on this quiet upper section. However, the other side of the coin was it was pretty narrow with constant tight bends. It was when we got stuck in a diagonal fashion by the powerful current wedging the ends of the boat into the reeds, that I was able to assess the depth of the river. A bit too deep and somewhat impractical for putting an oar in to shove us back in motion! … …We had started out from Supraśl near Białystok, with kayaks in tow. Our host offered us the option of starting further upstream to have a ... read more

BC: Belarussian Comfort? After our few days in Freiburg, all too soon we were to set off for Poland. It was my birthday, but sunny solar Freiburg wasn’t so sunny and we didn’t go on the planned trip into the mountains of the Black Forest lying just behind the city. Instead we had a stroll up the Schloßberg before a meal at the veggie restaurant in the city centre. There you pile up your plate and then they weigh it: good job they don’t do that on North Sea Ferries. In the evening we departed Freiburg on the night express to Warsaw. We packed up and said goodbye to David who was heading back to England the next day. At the railway station as the train rolled in I looked vainly for the Polish carriages ... read more