Greetings from Poland

My fiancé and I have been planning our trip to Poland for a couple of weeks. Plane tickets were bought somewhere around October. We drafted a savings plan very thoroughly: mini calendar, where we were, writing even money for bread and butter. Our journey schedule was very simple. It involved three days of major shopping, a short family visit, and a return with my parents (we invited them to come to Ireland for a couple of days). We reached Dublin without any big difficulty. Just a quick coffee and we were soon heading towards customs. Again I saw an enormous line of my fellow citizens who were homesick and were longing to go to our country. For a couple of euro we bought ourselves a priority ticket and we were actually the first passengers to board the plane. The flight was great, with a beautiful sunset, which let everyone notice right ahead that the earth is flat. Although I hate flying and especially making use of Ryanair services, this time I did it without getting dizzy. It was my 15th flight, but I was flying with someone I knew for the first time. Maybe this is a guarantee that you will have a pleasant flight. When we landed at the airport in Krakow a huge volume of snow was stretching in front of our eyes. My fiancé even shed a few tears (he hasn’t been to his home country for over a year). In Poland it is the depths of winter. We felt a little chilly standing on the apron area. It’s weird though, because you miss the snow, but when you see it and feel it, you wish it was never there. Especially in town, where this beautiful snow quickly turns into a black, dirty mud. When we finally reached my lovely town we had to do some quick shopping. I had nothing at home and would need some coffee for sure. Carrying our big suitcase we went to the shop. After a few minutes, a fierce security worker attacked us. He was screaming that he could not understand why people actually went into the shop with a suitcase. He treated us like thieves instead of customers. When we left we were very angry, because not a single argument reached him and other attempts to discuss with him were actually useless. We thought to ourselves, ‘this is Poland’. After dinner at grandma’s (as you know, all grandmas cook so much food, that you would be able to feed the whole of Europe) we deserved a short nap. However, it soon turned into a long sleep, lasting a couple of hours and unfortunately we had to rearrange our plans for the evening a little bit. A telephone woke us: ‘you were to be here long ago!’ Etc. Our planned three days of shopping appeared to be a kind of a marathon which was beyond our strength. Now it is exactly the 11th hour on Monday. We are going back on Wednesday. We miss the normal life and the peaceful lifestyle we have there in Roscommon. Once again I became convinced that I love my country very much. And the farther away I am, the bigger my love is. In an old movie dating back 80 years, someone said: ‘Poland! You must learn how to love it!’ And this is probably a little timeless truth. I cannot find my place in my own country and that’s why next time I want to go shopping, I will go to Athlone, they have even built a new shopping centre!