*not edited
I honestly don’t know where to start. I attempted to start in the room just now but D was still sleeping, I didn’t want to wake him and the last 24 hours in some way has been indescribable. I decided to get fully dressed and come down to the breakfast/ lounge area. Here I sit remembering when we landed, which I had forgotten it now seems so long ago.
I will start there.
We landed and after collecting our bags (which miraculously fit stacked on 6 trolleys) were immediately met by a Polish radio station after baggage claim. M has come to Poland to speak previously and the society of Urology had alerted the radio station that we were coming. I am interested in this particular interview because I wonder if they will dub us in Polish (I picture a Polish celebrity reading my bit). What now seems weeks from this interview, there is only one question I remember. The interviewer asked Manoj if he had picked this Holy Week on purpose. It is Easter and 91+% of Poland is catholic.
Of note I know zero Polish and have attempted to pronounce a few things very unsuccessfully.
During the interview B had called the rental car company pick up guy who told him the reservation was cancelled because our flight was late. I had gone with a midrange Polish rental company that had reasonable ratings, so I thought I would be safe. He then called a second number that never answered. After the interview was finished he called back and I immediately started looking for another place that we could rent a van. He got off the phone again and agreed with this plan. I stood in line at Avis/ Budget and he walked around and asked at least one other car rental place who said we could have a van the next day. During that time he called the rental company back who initially said they would pick us up over in 4 hours (no thank you). The man called back 5 min later stating that “a mistake had been made”, they could pick us up in an hour. This was happening simultaneously with bartering with the Avis lady. Her starting price was eye popping and why I hadn’t selected a more reputable company to begin with, however within 7 min we had a magical 20% discount with all the trimmings.
We had a van and would soon be on our way.
The van fit our bags with ease and was nice. B drove formula one style on their very well kept highways and we almost caught up to M and L who had left well before us in their car and our stop at a convenient store to stretch our legs and get beverages and snacks.
The quick recap of the gas station: We still don’t speak Polish. They didn’t speak English or Russian. It was all figured out in the end with the touch and go things being: how to get them to start the gas pump (I ended up moving the car to the pump that they insisted we were using) and how to get hot water out of the automated coffee machine for my tea. Snacks and disappointingly water with bubbles (gross) was successfully procured.
The drive per google was 4.5 hours. We made it in around 4h15 min. Our guest house is lovely. B has twin beds in his room which I found extremely entertaining at 1+ in the morning.
We were in Medyka and the whole journey had taken almost exactly 24 hours.
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