Poland - Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (Home & Geocaching)

Sunday, 22 October 2017

We're not overly busy, but it is so easy to get distracted and forget about the blog.  However, Sunday is easy, because it is a real day of rest.  The rain has set in, enough for us to stay at home.  Although there is no reason for it, I am not sleeping very well and have been awake from 3am onwards.  This means that I am not up very early.  Patricia is not in the mood to get anywhere in a hurry, so we take time to relax.  I work on my blog and we also need to take care of a load of washing, now I have found out how to dry everything.  It appears that we have a combined washer and dryer, so we try that out with reasonable results.  I don't dare drying more than 'iron-dry' so this means that all my pants have to be ironed.  No problem, it gets us through the day.... ;-)

I have left over penne pasta for lunch and after lunch we go out for a walk.  Rain or not, we want to stretch our legs.

An interesting bench near the library

On our walk we check out a few of the restaurants in the area and hope for one that serves local dishes.  The first one we find doesn't understand our request and sends us to the take-away next door. :-)  The second one is just about to close, so we walk on and find another one that looks good.  Problem is, it's a seafood restaurant, so, no local dishes.  No problem, we like seafood and as it is, it's one of the best I have been to in years.

We both have grilled salmon and chips with a plate of three delicious salads.  We find out that you pay your meal by the weight of the fish, so one meal costs a little more than the other, as one of us has a 200g piece and the other 250g.  I like these little surprises, and the salmon was grilled to perfection.  The salads were sauerkraut, red cabbage and something like coleslaw, but much nicer. :-)

One drawback with our current exchange is, that there are no instructions left whatsoever.  I had to ask about the washing and drying, we cannot get the TV to work, have to look for shops and what not and I don't know how to get the capsules out of the coffee machine....  So, after dinner I sent off another email to ask about the TV, which we finally get to work after a few messages between us.

Monday, 23 October 2017

It's still raining, so I do another blog update and wash some garments by hand after which I sit down to do a lot of reading and play Wordfeud.  I remember that I am paying for Spotify, so put on some music for a change.

Late in the afternoon it's time for my doctor's appointment and we make the half hour walk in the rain.  At the surgery I am ushered into a room with a nurse who speaks little English and she tells me that I am far too late for a blood test, as it should have been done within 2 days from the tick bite.  Well, I knew, but that was not what I was here for, so I am glad when she asks if I would like to see the doctor.  Yes, please, that was the whole idea!

After a short wait I am asked in and the doctor starts with apologising for is lack of English.  I respond with: "Your English is better than my Polish, so no worries!"  He laughs and then we're talking tick bites and medication. I get prescriptions for three types of tablets, amongst which antibiotics and very clear instructions that I am to have NO sugar at all when I am on this medication.  He also explains clearly why.  Luckily a lot of Latin is still used all over the world and my limited knowledge helps a lot in understanding that he is talking about the bacteria that can cause Lyme disease.  He also tells me how to follow this up in a few months from now.  What a great man, and kind to boot.

And as we are learning new things all the time, in this case I am surprised that I am not paying a the reception of the clinic, but the doctor personally.  I had nearly walked out of his room, but he was not shy in calling me back and telling me that I was to pay him.  Well, you live and learn! ;-)

Next we go to the pharmacy where I receive a bag full of medication.  It seems I won't go hungry for a while! :-)  One more stop at Lidl for some groceries and a few handy frozen meals and then we're done for the day.

Tuesday, 24 October 2017

I wake up late after a good night's sleep, but this time with a headache.  What's wrong with me???

We have breakfast, put a load of washing in the machine and have a restful morning for most of the time.  Towards morning tea time I suddenly feel very nauseous and dizzy, but Patricia says that antibiotics can do that to you.  I lie down for a while and after a good nap I am up and feel a lot better.  We have lunch and decide to go for a walk, because the clouds are lifting.

Our walk leads across the River Wisla and on to the sanatoriums in the hills.  It's a beautiful afternoon, dry, not too cold.  We find two caches:

#1764 - Ustroń - Zawodzie

#1765 - Pijalnia Wód w Parku Zdrojowym

The first one was a fairly easy find, the second one took a while.  I understood from the hint (in Polish) that we were to look near the signs, but the compass lead me to the wrong ones.  It wasn't until Patricia walked up to the one above that I suddenly noticed the orange wire at the top of the post! We had been looking at the wrong signs....

After we'd found the caches we made the walk back to town, but not before I had taken a few pictures of the views:

A huge statue in front of the Catholic church

Fountain near the sanatoriums

The clouds are lifting - during the past days the hills were not visible at all

The River Wisla

I also took a few pictures on the way back of the little shops that we found all along the roadsides:

Perfumes, bags and shoes

Health products, honey, etc.

Honey and sery goralskie

Many sell the sery goralskie, but this one
we bought ours from, yesterday and again today

Not a roadside shop, but a restaurant that we want to try out as well

Fur coats

It was fairly cool and on the way back from our walk we bought another sery goralskie and a cappuccino at one of the coffee shops in a two-level shopping centre.  We took the lift up to the second level to look at the shops along the walkway and discovered another delightful restaurant, called: At the Angels.  As they had pierogi on the menu we told them we would come back later for a meal.

I bought some headache tablets at the chemist and then we walked home where I logged my caches.  Soon it was time to walk back to the restaurant where we ordered Borscht (the beetroot soup), which comes with a variety of fillings and an optional bit of cream.  Patricia ordered pierogi with chicken and I had pierogi filled with liver.  It had a nice salad, dilled cucumber (ghorki) and apple and cranberries on the side.  A glass of wine made the meal complete.  As usual, it was  not only delicious, but very well presented.

Borscht with cream

pierogi with liver, apple and cranberries

At home waited another little surprise.  I had logged my two caches and one of the COs seemed to have a Dutch surname.  I had been thinking of sending a message, but thought the better of it and didn't.  Lo and behold I get a message from him!  He tells me that he is Dutch, and was happy that another (assumed) Dutch person had found his cache on his 74th birthday!  And of course we are going to have coffee at a nearby restaurant tomorrow and will probably go in search of a few more of his caches in the area.  Geocaching is always good for such surprise meetings!