Dzień dobry! Good morning to my friends and family across the world 🙂
From Poland with Love
Just a little insight into what happens when public transportation in Poland fails big time.
Last night I worked until 8.00 pm. This is generally the case for two nights during the week. As I mentioned in a prior post, there is only one last bus that goes to Krakow from Wolbrom…and it’s at 8.30pm.
I don’t know how or why this happened, but for some reason this minibus never arrived last night. I waited until 8.50pm before coming to grips with the fact that this bus would never arrive. Perhaps it was a young driver who decided he just didn’t want to drive the last stretch of the route before calling it a night. It seems as though the timetable is merely a guideline, and being punctual and efficient is of little concern. All I know is that I’m not very fond of this minibus system in Poland–it isn’t reliable in the slightest.
To make matters worse, (this is my fault entirely and something that is very typical of me) I left my set of keys to the school at home. My house keys are also attached to the same keychain. Lovely. So now I was stuck in Wolbrom, freezing my ass off, and turning into a little Mexican-Japanese-Irish popsicle. I frantically searched for my cell phone, which was low on battery. I quickly called Basia’s (my host) mother, who lives next door to the school. Thank God, she was still up. I greeted her in Polish and said, “It’s Ally! I missed my bus! Do you mind if I come stay?” Her English isn’t strong, but I’m probably the only native English speaking person she’s met recently so she definitely knew it was me. THEN, my phone disconnected. The battery had died. At this point I was kicking myself for my lack of preparation and forgetful nature.
I quickly rushed to Basia’s mother’s house and being the sweet woman she is, I was welcomed to have some homemade soup and whatever else I cared for in the fridge. Then, I went to bed with the clothes on my back.
This morning, I wanted to be back in Krakow very early, before Basia left the house to take her kids to school. I woke up at 5.45am, and realized there was only one bus to Krakow per hour that early in the morning, so I sprinted to the bus stop where the bus picked me up at 6.05am. Then the bus driver mumbled something in Polish to me, to which I responded “dobrze”, meaning okay/right….haha. I was so out of it! Turns out, he was explaining to me that I only needed to pay 4-something złoty instead of the usual fare of 6.50. Well, I guess I’m cool with that!
Despite a rather hectic past 15 hours, today is my day off! 🙂 Time to party!! (not really) But I might have glass of wine or two 😉
Blackboards and Borscht 