Planes, Trains, and Other Polish Transportation

So my friends and I have decided that we can add to the Benjamin Franklin adage so the quip now reads, “there are three things in life that are inevitable: death, taxes, and your train in Poland will always be late.”  I have yet to have a travelling experience in which everything has gone right (either the train was late, my international student ID card didn’t satisfy the ticket puncher, or we got on the wrong train and were kicked off at the next train stop).  It is a learning experience and I’ve found myself taking the, in the end, things will always sort themselves out approach to living in Poland.  I feel like I’ve being winging it since I left home almost three weeks ago.  When dealing with trains, Polish bureaucracy or lack of any organization, I find myself simply thinking, “well… this is Poland.”

            If I’ve learned anything in the three weeks I’ve been here, it’s that you shouldn’t plan more than 45 minutes into the future because beyond this window, you’re setting yourself up for either frustration or disappointment.  On the train to Krakow this past weekend, another American that I was travelling with and I were planning what cities we would like to visit in the coming weekends.  When we got three weekends out, we realized that we were getting rather ahead of ourselves considering we didn’t even know what hostel we were going to stay at that night.  In the end, like they always have, things worked themselves out and my friends and I found a great hostel right in the city square and I consider the weekend to be a great success.  We visited the major tourist sites like Wawel Hill, the old Jewish Quarter, and a few museums and churches.

            I think this was a good, “first trip” in Europe because Krakow is a touristy enough of a city for 6 foreigners who don’t speak any Polish to get around quite easily.  I felt like everybody knew English and was amazed by how many Americans I saw/heard.  And I look forward to more travelling as well.  The university has planned a trip to Śniężka and Karpacz to go hiking next weekend and then some friends and I have planned a trip to Prague for the weekend after that.  I have a bet with another American who is studying here concerning how many times we have to ride a train in Poland before he have a, “perfect train-ride” (a train-ride in which everything happens as scheduled) and my bet is mid-November so I’ll probably have more stories for you in the upcoming posts.

Until then, do widzenia