Greetings, Earthlings!
I feel I've returned from a galaxy far, far away. I'm ashamed at how long it's been since my last post...but I've had my reasons. I'm not allowed to disclose them all, but here's a bit of what we've been up to...
1) Got my tooth fixed, and then while climbing in (see #2 below), the clinic called to tell me that my dentists is sick and will have to cancel his appointment with me 8 days from now. "Wow, the dentist knows he's going to be sick that long? Or is it just a coincidence that the appointment was at a ridiculously early hour, and right between Xmas and New Year's?!" (Jan. 8 and still no crown on my tooth!)
2) Jill and I went to Spain! KLM was delayed twice out of Warsaw and Amsterdam, so we (I) desired an extra day in Barcelona (say the 'c' like an 's' or better a 'th' with a serious lisp to match the Catalan pronunciation!) so we could get in enough Gaudi and other interesting sight seeing before we hopped in our little rental Citroen and spent nearly 40 frickin' Euro to drive the toll way to the death of all tourist beaches in the Mediteranean, Benidorm-a sin of a place that is so overbuilt with a wide variety of crappy and somewhat nice skyscrapers, not high rises, but buildings that must rival Chicago's skyline in scale and height and...anyway, it's mostly built by British investors, so Jill and I don't want to hear about how Americans overbuild and destroy beautiful places from you Brits anymore...at least we do it on our own land and live with it ourselves! Grr.
Anyway, we actually avoided Benidorm pretty well, and stayed in the interior of Costa Blanca in Finestrat at a pseudo climbers' hostel called the Orange House. Much fun was had freezing to death the first few nights in our tiny room with no heat (I later stole a space heater from one of the nice rooms) and then we felt we deserved better and moved into a fancy room with its own bathroom! Plush! Well the climbing was great, better than what we experienced in Italy last year, when we climbed in and around Arco/Trento...but Italy still wins with scenery...but Costa Blanca did win big with having 2 good Indian restaurants!!! :)
OK, so the climbing was good. It was almost entirely sport, which was good for us mentally so we could push it a bit, but not so good for my tendons...I think I squeezed in the one rest day (Xmas eve) at the right moment to avoid serious injury. Hooray! The one day we did do real trad it wasn't so hot, and the guidebook is really subjective on the ratings.
But, in a nut shell, we'd return definitely to Barcelona and very likely to Costa Blanca for more winter or spring rock climbing.
3) New Year's Eve/Sylwester in Warsaw. Pawel, one of Jill's coworkers invited us to a real, genuine Polish Sylwester party (Sylwester happens to be the 'names day' of Dec. 31 po polsku (they celebrate birth names and birthdays in this country. Polish calendars list every friggin' birth name throughout the entire year. God help Poland on the days of Magda, Piotr, Agnieszka, Marcin, etc....the country must be hopelessly overwhelmed with vodka purchases on these special days...)). Anyhoo, it was also nice because it was a Polish 70s/80s theme/costume party. Jill and I weren't sure if there dress was any different than the states, but we took our chances and all went well. Pawel (Cobra) and his wife Magda looked stunning. Hopefully a pic will pop in here soon. Night was fun filled with lots of talk in another Magda's flat, with some dancing and vodka shots with all the men. Jill was scared for me, but she was rather impressed with my ability to keep up with the Pollocks...my new record was reached in the wee hours of the night...13 shots and still standing...and the slurring began after #12, I think!?! (and had 2 beers, too!). Midnight came and we all ran out into the deep snow and watched the gazillion illegal in the states but plenty legal here fireworks of large size go off all over the place and fortunately didn't see anyone get injured. Fun snowball fight was had, too!
Next day was rough, that I remember.
4) Finally watched Star Wars, Episode III. Nice to see Obi-Won looking more like Alec Guiness with the beard and all, but AG was really unmatchable in acting and charm. I'm sorry he's gone.
And was that really Frank Oz's voice digitized for Yoda? It didn't sound right, so now watch Empire Strikes Back, I must, to learn the ways of the dark side.
5) Jill had 3 weeks off for xmas. I didn't. For once, I worked a lot more in one week than she did. Jill slept alot, in fact she probably had more time to relax than either ever, or in over 10 years or so... long before her teaching days....!
6) We finally made it to Zakopane and the beautiful Polish Tatry mountains!
We trained it to Krakow, then bussed it to Zako. Seriously nice bus facility in Krak, seriously flawed clerks and any sense of order when boarding/paying. They have much to learn, they must, to meet other standards of other EU countries!
Weather was foggy and cold day 1, didn't see much but the famed Krupowki street and all its tacky karczmas, swarmas and more karczmas (these are forms of Polish eateries/restaurants). Day 2, cold, cold, cold foggy start. Got up to Kuznice and took the 7 km long gondola ride into Tatry National Park and into the SUNSHINE!!! We skied at a place I can't pronounce or remember how to spell, all day long in gorgeous sunshine with wonderful views of surround high peaks and may have even stepped into Slowakia. BUT, the ski area has one 2 lifts. and basically 2 slopes to ski. Compared to Austria, where last winter we visited Ischgl in western Tirol, where they literally built a lift or a ski run on every piece of skiable terrain possible, and were in the midst of building more (?!?!?!), here the Poles have thankfully been very rigid in protecting their wilderness and reducing the impact on their precious piece of the Carpathian mountains. So an interesting trade off. We know we sure as hell won't go there for a week long downhill ski trip... but we'll surely return for the climbing, scrambling, XC-skiing and another day or two skiing on another clear day.
Oh, and I found I still really suck at skiing, and that Jill is still really awesome at snowboarding.
7) ? Well, that's a secret for now...until then, Happy belated New Year (Dosiego Roku) to everyone!
Cheers!
JnJ
