Tag: Poland

Home Alone for Christmas?

IMG168

This time of the year is coming when it feels strange if you spend Christmas alone. For the first time I felt the same. I thought how come I am spending such a wonderful time a year alone when I am not even old, my parents and my brother still are alive and I feel I do not want to spend Christmas with them?! Everybody around tells you it is such a special time you should (I hate this word!) spend it with your relatives. What if you do not really like your relatives? Shall you force yourself to be with them? Shall you visit them, pretend you want to be with them when in fact you are praying for the evening to be over? Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we force ourselves to spend time with people we do not feel good with? Because the society says so? Because before Christmas and on TV as well as billboards we see these perfect commercials with perfect people sitting around the table who seem to be sharing and enjoying every moment of this special time? Do we live in such an illusion we can also have it with our own families when most of them are very imperfect? Do we think someting might change and improve our relationships with relatives during Christmas? Does this time really bring miracles?

I need to admit, the first time I decided not to visit my parents for Christmas, hurt. I spent Christmas Eve alone! Yep, alone! My father did not really show the respect for this time as he decided to work till midnight that day, to earn more money. He is a tram driver, so shifts he does are different ones and I do understand he needs to work in barbarian hours sometimes, but hey – it was Christmas! He did not need to take such a long shift, he could have finished at 6 pm, he had a choice! Yet he decided to neglect, in my opinion, Christmas Eve, and negate his own words when he was each year saying that Christmas is a family time and everyone should be with their families then. And he did exactly the opposite! It also made me wonder why grown ups say different things and later on act differently? If he said he did not give a damn about Christmas, I would understand his behaviour. Everyone has right to their own perspectives. So adults can act in a funny way some of the time. He went to work, and me, I decided I am spending this time at home, alone. As my relationship with my mother sucks and my brother is kind of good but totally irresponsible person, I admitted to myself I prefer to be home alone than in a bad company, even though this bad company occurred to be my own family :/ Felt strange at the beginning. The plan was simple – I had some dinner, a glass of wine, watched some TV. Nothing special, yet the company was special, because it was my own. 🙂 And the next day, when I woke up, I realized the drama did not happen. I was still alive and smiling. It only proved me the worst is always the first time. Whatever you do, the first time will always be most scary. I cannot say I was very happy about the fact my family sucks and is incredibly imperfect, but I realized if I do not want to take part in it, I do not have to. I am not going to force myself into spending time with people who have negative influence on me just because it is Christmas and they take part of my family. I prefered to visit my aunt the day after Christmas Eve instead. She lives a few kilometers outside of Warsaw and with her I can talk about everything – my life, my emotions, my travels and future plans. Even though she is 70 we get along perfectly and she supports me in every aspect of my life! This part of my family I love the most! 🙂 And I want to be surrounded only by people who wish me well and support me in achieving my goals. It makes me sad these are not my parents, yet I know I cannot change it. We do not choose families we are born into. However as an adult I can choose people I want to spend time with.

So this 2018 Christmas I am going to the mountains with a friend. The plan is to relax, do some hiking, maybe skiing, spend Christmas Eve just the two of us and share only positive emotions! Finally I am allowing myself to choose how and with who I want to spend this special time, instead of pretending I have a wonderful family that cares about each other when in fact it happens to be a very dysfunctional one. No point sacrificing my precious time with people who do not know how to love. This Christmas I am going to love my friend, and the mountains, and the snow, and the cold weather! 🙂

And I wish everybody to spend this special Christmas time with people you feel good with, who bring only positive emotions into your lives and make you happy! Life it too short to be surrounded by any aspect of the negativity 🙂

Poland – Zakopane Weekend Break

IMG_7759

When I travel it is usually abroad. The reason is simple – there is always a  challenge awaiting when you travel to a foreign country. You need to find yourself in a new environment, sometimes there will be misunderstanding issues to deal with or you will get a meal in a restaurant with a taste you would not expect to have. I love these emotions traveling abroad gives me. In my opinion traveling within the country I live in does not give me much of an adventure. Anyway I find Poland very interesting with amazing places to see.

So I went to Zakopane, in the south, with a friend, one Thursday afternoon. It is a spot where you easily reach beautiful Tatra mountains. The trip from the capital – Warsaw, took 5 hours, to my surprise. A few years ago it would take whole night by train. So I am impressed by the transportation, especially railway, that changed in Poland and became faster. My and my friend took a train to Krakow from Warsaw, and then a bus from Krakow to Zakopane. The whole trip took 5 hours. In my opinion it is bearable.

The next day we woke up at 6am to get to the mountains and see the famous Morskie Oko. It is a lake surrounded by hills where you can get only by 9 km walking. There are some horses going there, but I am not going to encourage anyone to use this kind of transportation, as the walk is a very simple one. There is a straight asphalt path going to the lake. Some people even say it is the most boring path in Tatra mountains. I am not into using horses to go to Morskie Oko. The walk is only about 2 hours – that is what took me and my friend to get there.

Now from the beginning – we had to take a bus from Zakopane to Palenica. That is the spot where you can start your walk to Morskie Oko. Palenica is around 30km from Zakopane and buses go there every 15 minutes. Probably during the summer season there is some traffic on the road, but as we were in the end of September, kind of summer season ending, we got there within 30 minutes. It is easier to take the bus as if you decide to go by car, there might be a problem parking. Especially if you go quite late. And for the spot, quite late for me, is midday. That time you can even forget about a parking spot near the Palenica.

2 hours walking starting at 8 in the morning, a break in a shelter at 10 am, then walking around the lake, a quick-lunch in a shelter again, and then walking down made our trip  around 20 km long. By 4 pm we were heading back to Zakopane.  The weather was just perfect – warm and sunny. It was my third time visiting the spot and I truly recommend it 🙂

However the weather the next day was not that great. Me and my friend decided to take a cable railway to get to very high mountains, that is Kasprowy Wierch. And imagine by the time we got there, and it was around 10 am – it started snowing! 🙂 Already, in September! 🙂 It was my first time there and unfortunately I did not get to see much of the views, however I will get back there one day to see what I was not able to catch this time! The cable railway takes you within 15 minutes to very high mountains where from you can either go down or head to other spots. If you take it early in the morning, you can spend the whole day in the mountains admiring their amazing views.

We did not want to hang around in the snow, so we took the cable railway down and decided to have some rest in the Aquapark in Zakopane. That was fun! 🙂 Jacuzzi, swimming, sliding and resting 🙂 For me 2 hours there was enough. After our swimming pool rest we went to Gubalowka – a hill with a view of whole Zakopane. You can either walk there or take a cable railway which takes you there within 3 minutes. Walking is around 2 km only as far as I recall, a it up the hill.

The weekend break in Zakopane was a good idea. Poland is a beautiful country and from time to time I like traveling around it. When it comes to prices – I would not say it was very expensive, even though the spot is very touristic and prices can be high. Accommodation was around 20 Euros per night in a center of Zakopane and in a B&B. Bus tickets to Palenica (Morskie Oko) and back – 5 Euros, Aquapark 2,5h entrance 10 Euros, cable railway to Kasprowy Wierch both ways – 25 Euros and the one to Gubalowka both ways 5 Euros. When it comes to food it was not expensive at all. This weekend break was definitely worth it! 🙂