One of the main reasons we came to Poland was to "get back to our roots". Mom has been speaking to some newfound cousins in Lancut (pronounced Wine-suit) and they asked us to come visit for a couple days. We thought it would be easiest to take a train from Krakow to Lancut and it turned out to be a trip from hell!
The morning started out innocently enough with breakfast at the hotel. It's the same thing every day for me- three slices of rye bread with butter and jelly with some green tea. There are other items at the buffet but I wouldn't dare try them!
The hellish day started when the cabs arrived. First of all keep in mind that between the four of use there are seven pieces of luggage and about as many carry-on bags and purses. So one cabbie looks at all the bags and basically says "forget it" in Polish. We eventually had to call the hotel receptionist over to help us out. Then we arrive at the train station. We check our tickets and figure out that we're supposed to be on platform 2. We lug all of our bags up the stairs or elevator and wait for the train to arrive. Shortly before our scheduled departure I notice that we're on the wrong frickin' platform. F***! There was no way we could get all of that luggage down the stairs and back to the other platform in 2 minutes, and thus we missed the train. Thankfully a very nice young guy helped us reschedule our tickets and get us to the correct platform.
But our troubles were not over yet! As soon as the train pulled up, passengers rushed the cars trying to get on and we totally struggled with all of those stinkin' suitcases. So then I start looking for seats. Do we have assigned seats? Who knows- none of us can read the ticket an so we're just standing there blocking the narrow aisles. Then the conductor points out that we're in the wrong frickin' car and we have to the move to the one behind us. ARRGGH. The train is about to leave any minute and we had to wrestle all of those stupid suitcases off that car and onto the new one. The conductor helps us find our seats but the little compartment can barely fit us and the luggage and he helps us put the bags on the overhead racks. FINALLY we sit down for a breather.
Little did we know what would happen when we arrived at our destination, Lancut (pronounced wine-suit). We pull up to the station and um, it's in the middle of nowhere. I mean, just a platform out in the middle of frickin' nowhere. We figured there would be taxis around but there were none to be found. I pop my head into the ticket office but no one speaks english. Ugh. I called our hotel and no one speaks english there either! I was so frustrated that I was nearly in tears. We had no idea how we'd get to the hotel. We end up calling our travel agent in the US to see what we should do, and while that's happening a Chrystler minivan pulls up and asks if we need any help in a mix of Polish and Italian. We handed the phone to him and our agent explained the situation. He offered to drive us to the hotel but we were a but unsure ("stranger danger" as Rose called it). However, he seemed nice so we went for it. He dropped us off and refused to take any money (we still pushed 20zl. at him anyway). Talk about a stressful trip.
So then we check into the hotel. It's actually a "pension" and man, it was sure no-frills. Our room looked like the maid's quarters and only had a small skylight for air. Needless to say it was so damn HOT in there. We decided to venture out for some dinner since we had barely eaten anything that day and ended up eating pizza...go figure.
Ok, so I know we were out in the sticks and all, but everyone STARED at us like we had 3 heads or something. I mean really stared. Do we really look that different? Or maybe people have never head english spoken before. Either way it was weird and very uncomfortable.
The rest of our stay in Lancut was, um, interesting...to be continued!!!
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