arrival

I should begin this with a disclaimer: I don’t like when travel logs begin with details of the flight/train/bus there. I typically find it tedious, pointless and boring. That being said, I think for my journey here it was a bit different, which may be the trap that causes so many boring travel stories. I feel that my first impression of Poland was shaped a bit by my journey here so I will discuss it anyway.

So to begin, en route to Krakow I stopped in Munich, which is only an hour and a half away by air. So the weather in Krakow was bad, foggy and snowy, but I didn’t know about it and apparently the pilot didn’t either because we still went for it. When the announcement to secure your tray tables for descent came over the speaker in German, Polish, and then a shorter version in English, it was also mentioned that maybe we couldn’t land but we will circle for one attempt in any case. “Ahh shit” I sighed to the woman next to me who I had exchanged a few words of broken English with earlier. “Yes, shit” she replied.

So we took a few hard right turns, hit some harsh turbulence here and there, then dropped like a rock for a very long second and a half. After slowing the descent a bit the plane’s gear drops and we eventually get low enough I can see the ground. It is so foggy I can barely see the wing tips, so we are damn close to touchdown, then we just blast off back into the thick white clouds. A moment later the pilot announces in that permanently calm and confident, matter-of-factly pilot’s voice something like “the weather conditions are not good. we will land in Warsaw in about an hour. I don’t know what we will do with you but we will make some calls, maybe we can get you on a bus to Krakow.”

We land in Warsaw and are told to retrieve our baggage and they will send a bus for us. Great! Simple! I follow the crowd and wait around in an empty baggage claim area for 30 minutes. Then the conveyer starts, people snatch their things and start booking it for who knows where. I do as they do. Most of them speak Polish and have been asking questions to people in uniforms. So we headed to the street-side arrivals doors and see a mob of people waiting at the cold, cold bus stop. I think my flight wasn’t the only one diverted here. I ask a person or two from our flight what the hell is going on and determine we are clueless all around. A Polish news crew tried to interview me because I must have been the most desperate looking person of the whole lot. She rattled of something fast and confusing in Polish to which I interrupted with an “ehhhhh I don’t know.” She left quickly. We will not know which bus is for us but we get a guy at the information desk inside to make a call for us and he says wait with the angry mob in the cold…

Every bus that pulls in gets swarmed. People push to get their bag in the cargo box and squeeze onto the bus. I have 6 months worth of stuff, a big 45 pound pack and a smaller backpack. I haven’t slept in at least 26 hours so I’m cranky and I cannot bring myself to brave the mob to get on a bus that may not even take me to the right place. After waiting for maybe an hour, the crowd was a bit smaller, and then two buses came in at once. Covertly, I sneaked to the second to stow my things and board. Nobody said a word to me or asks for a ticket so I think I’m good to go. Not many are on this bus yet except for some rowdy Pols passing a bottle of vodka around laughing. I wish I could join in but I don’t speak Polish (yet) and it seemed like the longest day of my life. So I asked if this bus went to Krakow. “Yes, this Krakow bus,” one man said after refilling his girlfriends plastic cup with coke and vodka. Five uncomfortable hours later we pulled into the Krakow airport. The information desk receptionist told me there was a free shuttle to the city center just down the street. I found the stop, but after a half hour of hanging around in the cold trying to get on buses I gave up and followed a group of people to the train stop.

So far I had such difficulty in getting to Krakow, and the day was so long for me that I was in a pretty pissy mood. As soon as I walked out of the train station in Krakow toward my hostel near the city center I saw the streets in the quiet of night and snow and quickly forgot any ill feelings toward my new home of Poland.