The Journey Home
1 January 2000
I left the area of the festivities and followed the crowd, through the snow, to Warszawa Centralna. I arrived at 1am. For some reason, the train stations are not kept very warm in Poland. I retrieved my bag from the luggage locker and sat to wait for the train. By now, I had been up for almost 21 hours and staying awake was getting to be a problem. However, I know better than to fall asleep in a train station with my backpack sitting next to me.
I boarded the 2:05 train to Dzialdowo. It was packed ! We would arrive in Dzialdowo at 4:30, and then I would catch a 5:19 train to Olsztyn, arriving at 7:20, where I would have to wait until 8:56 for a train back to Mragowo, finally arriving at 10:16. Or, at least that was the way it should have worked. Y2K somehow effected the train system in Poland, and they were all stopped, en route, for one hour (from 3h - 4h). We arrived at Dzialdowo at 5:30. However, as luck would have it, there was another train to Olsztyn in 10 minutes. We arrived at the Olsztyn station at 7:45.
I went to see if there were any busses running to Mragowo, however, it turns out that none of the PKS busses in the country were running. So, I waited. I had some of the bread and cheese I had bought in Warszawa. I tried to read, however, started falling asleep, so chose not to. It was a long one hour and eleven minutes!
I boarded the train to Mragowo and found an empty compartment (the train was just about empty). As I settled into my seat, one of my students, Krystian, walked by. We talked for a few minutes, but we had both been up all night and I was too tired to speak Polish, and he was too tired to speak English. He had been dancing at a big celebration in a different part of Poland and was also on his way home.
We finally arrived in Mragowo on time. It was a beautiful ride through the rolling snow covered hills and past the frozen lakes of the region. The train station is a good distance from my flat, so I took a cab (7zl). I was way too tired to walk. I arrived at my flat, took off my coat, hat, gloves, and shoes, and went to bed. It was the end of a great trip !
In Conclusion
All in all, I had a great time on this trip. I saw a lot of historical sites, I found decent places to stay, and I also found good and inexpensive places to eat. I was able to improve my Polish as well.
Anyone who has read this site knows that I had other intentions in mind for ringing in the year 2000. Do I regret not going to those places (New York City, Berlin, or London)? NOT AT ALL. I was able to ring in the start of the new millennium in one of my favorite countries.
This trip made me love Poland even more. What a brilliant place this entire country is ! What great people the Poles are ! I think that this may be the happiest I have been in my life (so far).
