Chasing Ideals

I am back in Poland now with Wiesieck, Nancy and fam having a ball. Spending the last days bouncing on trampolines and hauling large amounts of earth uphill. Some of you may have seen the new album on Lovable Quirks with pictures from my time in Germany. The family pictured are the relatives of Cathrin that we visited in Stuttgart. I had a wonderful time on that trip especially to have the opportunity to relax, enjoy manageable summer sunshine, and meet some new people. Crazily enough I am off tomorrow with fam here to Warsaw until Sunday when together with their friends and mine (those who spent hours teaching me Polish the last time) we will set off for Croatia for a two week adventure. I will continue on to Slovenia from there and they will return here to Poland. I'm not sure how long I will spend in Croatia but will then return here after a possible brief stint in Nowy Sanz in the south of Poland (many of you will remember my friends there from last August). I had planned to limit my traveling at the point of arrival but as you are reading I am not accomplishing the task.

I must note some occurrences from my bowel basher of a drive from Koln, Germany to Gdansk, Poland. The 14 hour extravenganza was littered with early bathroom stops before traveling the final seven without a single one. I remember from my years in the States the excitement around the German autobahns and on this drive the remembrances made me laugh. There was always a sense that the speed-limit-free autobahns were a chaotic free-for-all of grannies driving 120 miles per hour and the younger crowds breaking the sound barrier. Instead I had many miles of construction and the ol' Citroen chugging along with surrounding traffic doing speeds that most bicyclists would scoff at. Even in a good spot I passed a dreaded fahrschule (driver's education) student doing nearly indectable speed in a new Mercedes. I felt sorry for that car that had been built for the speeding freedom of such roads.

When I neared the Polish border I noticed the road becoming progressively worse. I'm not sure what this says about Polish-German relations but it was the only extremely poor road condition I experienced in Germany. There were weeds growing on the road's surface and bumps that caused my last twelve meals to reemerge with fury. Once across into Poland I experienced the finest road that I have seen anywhere in the country. This lasted only a short distance before I came to the less than perfect regular roads but the discrepancy was strange. The German side seemed to imply "Go no further" while the Polish side had the short distance red carpet entrance. One of the first signs of entering a different nation was the scantily clad construction workers I soon encountered. One chap was hurrying back and forth across lanes of traffic wearing only a small vest and shorts that were nonexistent without the use of magnifying glass. The sight brought eight of twelve of the previously mentioned meals back to the surface and when I saw a mile or two later that some chap had driven off the road I was not surprised. I witnessed later another driver's education student in the act of soiling himself. A full size truck made a pass on the two lane motorway and only just avoided a head on collision with the student. I have never seen before such a look of driving terror as that student had when he passed me. Since most motorways in Poland have only two lanes the frequency and aggressive nature of passing is difficult to adjust to. I was so lucky that I reached a point in driving where my energy level seemed to just coast and I was alert until I arrived here at the house and then felt utterly exhausted.

In my next two weeks in Croatia I will have little chance to email or post but as soon as possible I will again. The time alotted for relationship mean that it should be marvelous all round.