Where there is a will, there is a way…….
More often than not when the first snows of the year fall in the U.K., the country comes to a halt. The roads become car parks, supermarket shelves empty and the schools close.
However in Poland it’s business as usual, another day another Złoty as some may say, but way more fun.
So after my Pol-Ski adventures we travelled further north to the Village of Nowy Kocin, close by Czestochowa. It was a bit warmer than in the south, it was only -20. There lives Basia and Andy. They are great friends for both myself and Ania, you may remember them from my first blog, but in the meantime they had moved back to Poland to live in Basia’s childhood home. This was also very much in the country side, but whereas in the south where we spent our first week it was mountainous, here it was flat.
I can’t remember much of the first night in Kocin, we visited some friends in the village opened a bottle of vodka and the next thing I can remember is waking up with a splitting headache.
Thankfully my hangover did not last long. When I enquired what we would be doing that day, I was told by Andy we would be going on the snow train. He said “you know in England, when it snows and the kids get a day off school, well here they don’t. They get there on this”
My first thoughts where AH….. I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t pass UK health and safety law. It was basically a tractor with a picnic table on sleighs tied to the back, with another tied to the back of that and so on, but they got smaller and smaller until the last sleigh on the back was a cheap one man plastic effort, that you could by from any pound shop.
The circle of friends turned out in force and there was a jolly atmosphere as we set off. After only a few minutes, just after we turned off the main road onto some tracks we stopped, I was wondering what the problem was, I soon found out we had stopped to warm up…….. with a shot of vodka each. After another 10 minutes or so, we had moved onto the tracks running through the forest, again we stopped. This time it was a little more obvious, a large tree had fallen onto the track, I was a little anxious on how we would turn the train around, as it was quite a narrow track. With a look of triumph on his face that said, If you can’t go around it, go through it, the driver seemingly pulled from out of nowhere a massive chainsaw and started cutting through.
Next up we stopped towards the back of the village, for Lunch. We built a fire, stuck sausages on the end of sticks and cooked them. We also enjoyed Żurek and more vodka. The tipsy atmosphere was fun, and even with my lack of Polish I started to get to know some of the group, which would lead to an even more fun second part of the trip.
We carried on through the woods and tracks through farmers fields and other local villages. I saw some really nice natural sights, in particular one I remember was caused by rain immediately freezing over and making trees look like waterfalls. Further on we travelled. I soon found out that any excuse to stop for Vodka would be taken. From an impromptu snow ball fight, to stopping next to a monument in the middle of the woods in remembrance of some Polish soldiers that were caught and killed on that spot by the Nazi’s during WW2 and having a drink to them. At one point whilst travelling through another village we realised that we had run out of vodka, the group started knocking on doors and shouting to people through their windows, I mean what else would you do???? 5 new bottles later, we carried on our way.
Things started to get a little mad from then, we started to take turns going solo on the sleigh at the back. But it wasn’t just riding, it was trying to stay seated whilst being flung from one side of the road to another as the driver travelling at speed swerved from left to right. On more than one occasion the person was flung into a big mound of snow which turned out to have a more solid centre.. Ouch!!!
We finished off at a friend’s house, it was then that it became apparent just how drunk everyone was. One guy called Daniel who had obviously just been told an English expression or two kept on shouting to the amusement of everyone else “Craig, I Love You” “Craig, I am your friend”
We must have been out for hours that day, but even though a little dangerous, I can honestly say I have never experienced a day like that in my life. It was so much fun. Something that is the norm in Kochin, was something I would have never experienced had I not been on My Polish Journey.
Malenki
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