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Trip to Kyrnica I have been involved with town twinning in different towns for many years, and have made many friends during that time, so when I was invited to go on this town twinning visit I expected it to be similar. It was not! It all started when some members of the Amersham Town Council decided that they would like to arrange to visit Krynica in southern Poland near the Slovakian border, with the object of arranging for Amersham and Krynica to be twinned. Although I live in Chesham, they were aware that I had taught English in Poland for some time, and thought that it would be a good idea to get me involved. I thought that it would be a good idea not to get involved, because I was not very keen on the idea of going away again and leaving my wife for six months or so. But they finally persuaded me that my input would be useful, even if I did not agree to teach. So, on a Sunday morning, I joined the rest of the party on the journey to Gatwick, Krakow and Krynica. Town twinning usually involves the visitors staying with host families, but this tine we were taken to the Mielec Hotel, which had been refurbished and was in excellent condition, with my room having en-suite facilities and a television and a radio. In the evening, we had a dinner which was excellent by Polish standards, and ended up in the coffee bar listening to interminable speeches of welcome from potential members of the Krynica Twinning Organisation, which were then translated for us - taking even more tine. Then, of course, there had to be more speeches in return and they were also translated. Despite all the speechmaking, the whole evening passed quite quickly as we were treated to various different types of vodka, and Polish vodka is, in my opinion, the best in the world. Amongst the different flavours tasted were honey, cherry and a herb vodka which was recommended for upset stomachs. I am unable to remember exactly at what time the evening ended, but it was certainly a very merry one. On the Monday we were given a tour of Krynica and, as it is a spa town, we had the pleasure of tasting all the different waters: all of which were supposed to make people better, but some of which were fairly well endowed with a sulphur flavour and which I found difficult to drink. We were advised that the treatment should last for at least two weeks to be fully effective, but unfortunately we were only there for one week and there were so many other things to do. In the afternoon, we were given a talk by a balneology doctor, and afterwards had a little spare tine to see the town on our own. It certainly is a beautiful place with a very nice atmosphere. The next day was the one I had been dreading, as it consisted firstly of having a meeting with many members of the Town Council, and interminable speeches and translations, and then a tour of four of the schools, where the children gave us presentations. The visit to the schools was the danger point for me. The children were marvellous, some of then doing their best to speak English, and I have to confess that I soon became involved in talking to them, and exchanging jokes. My heart softened and I wondered whether my wife could do without my company for six months. One of the head teachers did not know English, but we conversed in French, and she invited me to go and teach at her school. Somehow I found the inner strength to refuse her offer, but it would have been so good to be able to make sure that those children grew up knowing that the English were quite nice people really. To know each other better is the best way to avoid future wars. The aftemoon was spent visiting various churches in the area on what our hosts called "The Orthodox Churches Route". There are lots of them. In the evening we had a barbecue during which some local musicians played for us, and were given a further opportunity to sample some vodka. Wednesday saw us on the "micro-bus" (as they called it) and we went to Krakow for a tour of the monuments and various talks on its cultural heritage. I had never been to Krakow, but it certainly impressed these of us who had not seen it before and I hope to be able to go back there at some time in the future. Our return to Krynica was delayed by over an hour and a half because of complete traffic congestion on the main road. We were told that there had been a serious accident, but I was unable to see any evidence of this, although the ambulances were very much in evidence. Unfortunately, it is not very easy to organise diversions in that part of Poland, so we had no choice but to wait. We arrived at our hotel over half an hour late for the evening meal, but the staff were still as welcoming as ever, and the smiles on their faces as they served us would never have been seen a few years ago. Then we retired to the coffee bar where glasses of cherry vodka mysteriously appeared in front of us. Despite our fatigue we felt we had to make sacrifices in the name of town twinning, so we drank all that was offered. We had the next morning to ourselves, and were able to tour the shops and look for bargains, as well as going bank to places which had interested us when we were taken on the tour. I took the opportunity to re-visit the spa buildings and to sample some of the water again, in the hope of repairing some of the damage cased by the vodka. It was during this time that I was made to feel that the water was doing me some good and making me look younger. I was walking round the town with a lady who must remain nameless, but who is about 72 years old. I am 69. She went to a stall and looked at jars of local honey, then she picked one up and studied it, finally saying to the stall-holder that she was not sure whether her son would like it. At that, he turned to me and asked me if I would like the honey. I said that I probably would, so she felt that she ought to buy it, after which I started to call her "Mummy". Luckily, she has a sense of humour, too, and the whole party has had a few laughs about it since, as I did not feel that we could keep it secret. The afternoon
was taken over by a trip up the Jaworzyna Krynicka Mountain by cable car
with, of course, the usual souvenir shops and cafes at the top. The most
impressive thing about this was that the towns almost disappeared from
our view, and the scenery consisted of tree-covered mountains as far as
the eye could see - all at about the same level as us - with the valleys
far below them, and, in the far distance, the snow-covered Tatras Mountains
just visible in the haze. It seemed as if we were in another world, and
it was a memorable experience. In the evening we were fed and entertained separately by our nominal host families. I had the pleasure of visiting the school head teacher who had invited me to go to her school and teach English, and she had as an additional guest another of the head teachers. I managed to keep the conversation away from the subject of teaching, and we all had a very good tine. Friday was almost completely taken up with a visit to the Town Hall and more speeches and translations, and an explanation of the way the municipal government worked, then a tour of the various sport buildings. Luckily there was no ice in the ice-rink, because I feel sure that we would have been tempted to try skating. The whole atmosphere was so friendly that it would have been hard to refuse. The evening was marked by what they called a Ceremonial Dinner after which there were more speeches and translations, and a few glasses of vodka. Our last day in Poland was the occasion of a microbus trip to the Pieniny Mountains, during which we hail some spectacular views of the countryside. We crossed a bridge over the Dunajec River, which had various very dangerous-looking waterfalls, and rapids and then the bus stopped and we were invited to get off, as it had been arranged that we would all go on a raft trip down the river. My "Mummy" was worried as to whether she would be sea-sick, but bravely went with us. We had a man with a long pole at the front and another one at the back and it was their task to make sure that as the raft drifted down the river, which was fairly smooth most of the time; they had it in exactly the right place when it reached the rapids, where it bounced quite furiously. Only once did they get it wrong and there was a sickening grinding as it hit the rocks underneath it. Luckily, there was no great damage done, and we arrived at the landing place almost dry and in good condition. It was a fantastic adventure and the last one of the holiday. Our hosts had done a good job! We did not take too much alcohol on that last night because we had to be awakened at 4.45am in order that we could get to Krakow in time for the plane home. There was no time for breakfast so we were each given a bag offood, as we had been on our days out, and we munched away on the bus. It had been raining during the night, and the road was covered with water in some places, but our driver drove very fast all the way, sometimes hitting pools of water at what some of us considered to be a dangerous speed. Despite our worries, we arrived at Krakow Airport in good time for the journey home. It had been a very interesting week, even if it had not been quite the same as the usual sort of twinning visit. First published in VISA issue 43 (November 2001) |