Poland - Part the Third

I'm having trouble sleeping due to my asthma, so i thought if i was going to snuff it i'd go out fighting. This is the last installment of the Polish trilogy that no doubt doesn't quite amount to a Joseph Conrad, but it'll have to do. I'll rehearse the plot so far. We flew into Wroclaw, spent the day and night quietly sight-seeing and meeting up with Ciaran, and Richard. Then off to Czestochowa, casing the joint out before the Pope's recent visit there, much like an Irish Catholic FBI. Through in a plunge to the death with Ciaran, and our nerves couldn't take anymore. I'll skirt over what happened on the Tuesday night ... other than to say up to a point a great night was had by all, after which point all hell broke loose - those damn gypsy Irish!

On Wednesday, we journeyed to Oswiecim (Auschwitz), spoken as if there's an 'n' after the 'e', and stayed in the Glob hostel to prepare ourselves for the tour of the camps the next day. More of that in a more reverent place than this. Then we took to the hills, or the mountains in the south to be exact. We checked into a log cabin half way up a hill when we finally arrived after about four hours on a slow train. Then on Friday a friendly student of English we met at the bus stop - Ola - directed us in getting up Kasprowy, the biggest snow-capped mountain there. We then ascended from this mortal coil, carried on Agamemnon's chariot through tree-tops to a white, heavenly domain. (Peter: (shaking his head and tutting) Just say 'A cable car took us to the top'. Stephen: (smiling to himself selfishly) No this is my story, get your own blog!)

That would have been enough pleasure for anyone for one day, but no, Liam and Peter wanted to trip the light fantastic into the wee small hours of the morning, but our hostel had a curfew for eleven. So I let myself be persuaded we should take a three star hotel for our second night in Zakopane, for that is where we were. As it turned out, Peter and Liam weren't all that wrong as it appears the normally reserved Polish women like nothing more than to express themselves via the artistic medium of dance. Peter having had his requisite one too many promptly got the two old foggies sheepishly up to dance, whereupon he proceeded to dance (Editor: for 'dance' hereafter read 'stumble') into the middle of a group of six nubile women, each in their own way not unattractive. Being in Poland I didn't quite know what the law was regarding asking girls to dance, so out of habit I drove to the left. I had the Polish for 'Can you speak English at all, Madam, I do so inquire?' down to a tee, and she responded with a 'yes, a little, I'm an English teacher you see, kind sir'. However, after which decorous language she proceeded to dirty dance me up and down like a whirling dervish on heat.

Peter at this stage was trying to remember which girl he had been dancing with first, as he had just completed quite a spin designed to impress, but which had the undesirable effect of confusing him somewhat. I looked on in some pain as he went from female to female seeking his first partner back again. Liam by now was even dancing, pretending to enjoy it and everything, glancing a knowing glance at me that communicated - 'My God, in Poland, we're the thing ladies go for! I'm moving here!' I, not having dirty danced before, was a bit slow in knowing what goes where and what-not. So I tried to get the girl to calm down and tell me her name. Unfortunately, this was only grist to the mill!

Anyway, it turns out that Polish girls are much more reserved off the dance floor. Liam's girl said she would kiss him later, in the future, but would he first buy her a drink. After the third, Liam checked his change and lost all respect for the girl and his desire to kiss her. I was talking to Sylwia - for that is her name - about literature or Politics or religion or something similarly sexy. At which stage she was the archetypal wallflower, being circumspect about her person. But then a bloddy madonna version of an Abba song came on and she dragged me up to dance and she was off again, worse than before! By this stage, Peter had given up all hope of remembering who he had begun with, and tried to dance artfully with three girls at once, which sort of worked up to a point - the point at which the girls realised he was sort of dancing with them. For my part, I said my goodbyes to Sylwia with a disdainful kiss. I told her I expected more independence from the female of the species, especially on the dance floor. I think, according to Polish feudal law, we might be engaged. (Editor: she actually was a nice girl, albeit having an american twang to her English.)

There it is, not much of it was true, but some. In that case, it's exactly like life.