it begins (again)
Posted by markofthefells on February 2, 2011
well the ball has officially started rolling again on the ‘mark fell travelling ride’. quite where the ball stops, or even rolls to along the way is still unclear. in fact it appears to be a little confused and has already backtracked on itself!
let me explain the ball’s movement.
first it flew, cattle class, to krakow. it found its way onto a train from the airport to the city centre and, after careful navigation in some bitter weather, fell upon it’s bed for the night near the dominant castle towards krakow’s jewish quarter. only this ball is no standard size 5. it’s more of a floater. instead of bouncing its way around krakow, soaking up the sights, it decided it would do a bit of shopping, settle for some liquid then bounce back to it’s neighbourhood to consume some local ‘delicacies’ and then roll home. such a ball had little plans but those it had settled upon were to board a bus to Zakopane the following day and meet up with it’s fellow bouncy-balls (more commonly going by the names of Liam and Charlotte Wright). What this foolish round being hadn’t factored into account, though, was the influence of alcohol upon a journey and, following many welcome drinks into Krakow with some Australians and Belgians, the spherical object sat, forlorn, on a 140 minute journey south, to the Tatras.
Enough of the ball thing. I had a lovely weekend in Zakopane with the newly-weds (who really aren’t that new anymore but i still catch myself looking for Charlotte Parker on Facebook). They were done with their snowboarding by saturday so we ventured through Zakopane centre (after taking a little detour into the middle of nowhere. This would be my first mistake of the trip, and not the last!) and up the funicular railway up a mountain. Upon this mountain sat some ski-fields, lodges and many, many horse rides. Picture a small, horse-ridden sledge with up to 4 people (+rider) inside striding confidently around the main roads. Liam had a rather close encounter with such a sledge at one point resulting in him ducking narrowly out of the way of said oncoming traffic.
On Sunday we slowly made our way out of Zakopane to head back to Krakow (hence the backtracking reference). This journey, thankfully, wasn’t accompanied with a hangover (or indeed any references to spherical beings), and we arrived back into the city safely. Quickly to follow, however, was my 2nd error of the trip. I’d planned for us to go back to the accommodating hostel i’d previously stayed in on thursday. Upon arrival, however, the perplexed worker (who failed to recognise me) rang his boss (with whom i’d arrange my return with – he even gave me his mob. number to text) who then responded with the far from positive news that they were closed. We surmised that since we were the only people wanting to stay there that night the originally very helpful owner had had a change of mind and didn’t want to be helpful or friendly anymore. Cue some rather ill-feelings towards Ars Hostel (actual name) and its workers.
All was well ultimately, we settled for the ‘Goodbye Lenin’ hostel that LnC (new nickname…) had stayed in on a previous KRK trip and got ready for a few days in Poland’s best city.
More later. Maybe.
x
