I went to the mountains this weekend, in a place called "Wisła." This is a town up in the Polish mountains, about 400kms south of Warsaw. It's a small town best known for the champion Polish ski jumper Adam Małysz - you'll see his pictures everywhere here. It was supposed to be a skiing trip, however, since I have a bad knee injury (my left ACL is gone, for those who are familiar about these things) - and I was advised to stay away from the slopes.
Disappointing, I know - a once in a lifetime opportunity, gone. Oh well, I don't care too much about skiing anyway - its 30 minutes of lining up to get on the ski lift, and 30 seconds of going down the slope. I also didn't want to spend extra to buy/rent all that equipment (I was supposed to buy ski pants, ski jacket and gloves, and rent ski boots, skis and those sticks you use to poke the snow while you slide down). The conditions weren't good as well, it was sunny, and the snow was beginning to melt - turning it into a slippery mush.
Who am I kidding? I was (and still am) extremely disappointed. Maybe I'll go back this weekend, while there is still some snow, and try it out.
The other unfortunate thing is that I forgot to bring my camera. How dumb. How very, very dumb - especially since I bring my camera everyday to the office and back. How can I forget to bring it on this once-in-a-lifetime trip? Oh well.
The journey started out interesting enough - we left Warsaw at 8am, and immediately people started drinking on the bus. And when I say drinking, I don't mean having a couple of sips of beer. I mean heavy drinking. Vodka. Shots of it. Lots and lots of shots. There was also lots of singing, shouting, dancing, and more shots. The trip lasted 6 1/2 hours, it was 6 1/2 hours of heavy, heavy drinking.
This was difficult - not only because it started at 8am in the morning. The main problem is that it was a no smoking bus, and it didn't have a bathroom. The bus stopped for a bathroom break every 2 hours, and immediately a long line would form outside the gas station bathroom. Women would continue to line up, men would get impatient and head for the trees. Ahh, being male has lots of advantages.
All of this - coupled with the fact that I got home at 3am the previous night from vodka drinking at a friends house - guaranteed a pretty interesting trip. 6 1/2 hours zipped by so quickly, I didn't even notice that we were there already.
As soon as we got to the hotel, we checked in and hit the pub. More drinking.
It was a Sunday, and because I was a good Catholic, I decided to go to mass. I hopped out of the pub at 7pm and started walking, looking for the Church. It was pitch black, I had no map, it was freezing cold and raining hard. After walking around lost for about 5 kms along a narrow highway, I decided to head back - there was no way I could find that Church in these conditions.
Apparently, Wisła is one of those few towns in Catholic Poland where there are more Protestants than Catholics - so finding the right church was more difficult than I first expected. Reminded me of Sagada back at home. Sagada minus the Marijuana.
The next day, we were blessed with warm weather (10 deg C - yes that's very warm) and lots of sunlight. A small group of people were going for a walk, and they invited me to go along with them. Since I thought it was a shame to waste such a nice day indoors, I decided to go with them.
15 kms and 2 hours later, I regretted this decision. I was trying to hail a taxi - but in a place where there are only 11,000 people, taxis are not very popular. My feet hurt - I needed a beer. Badly.
I got a vodka instead. And sleep. We played poker later that night, and I lost badly.
The next day, we headed home.
It might not seem like I had fun, but I actually had a blast. I got to meet many different people from all over Europe (about 98% of them were from Poland though - one guy was from Spain) and regaled them with stories about Balut, Sisig, and how in our professional basketball league, we have 1 tournament a year where imports are not allowed (a.k.a the PBA All-Filipino conference). I learned different Polish and Spanish bad words, and found out (rather strangely) that there is no Filipino word for “Cheers!” (I explained that this was because we traditionally drink using the tagay method – so people generally don’t have one drink each to say “Cheers” with).
All in all, it was great fun. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.
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