What’s Rajmund up to these days?

What’s Rajmund up to these days?

He’s working with a bug specialist at Ojców on macro photography – taking pictures of bugs.

Here are a couple from today.

For those who remember

For those who remember

The customer in the restaurant decides he wants squid for dinner.

The waiter takes him to the tank, where he makes his selection – “there, the ugly bad-tempered  green one with the moustache”

The waiter scoops the squid out and passes it to the chef, Gervaise

Gervaise takes one look, shivers and passes the squid on to Hans, the dishwasher.

Now Hans is a great hulking brute of a man. Not the sort you’d like to meet in a dark alley

Hans grabs the squid by the legs, slaps it down on the chopping block and raises the cleaver

The squid looks him in the eyes and whimpers

Hans lowers the cleaver, then raises it again with a roar

The squid sees and lets out an even louder, more quivering whimper

At which Hans lowers the cleaver, shakes his head – he can’t do it

Which …

Just goes to show that Hans that does dishes can be soft as Gervaise, with vile green hairy-lip squid

Sleep apnoea

Sleep apnoea

Do you, or does your significant other, snore, sleep badly, wake up with a start or stop breathing in your sleep? Here’s John’s story.

I had been sleeping badly for a while, and I’d snored for years (allegedly). I happened to be at the National Heart and Lung Hospital, the Royal Brompton in London, talking to an asthma specialist, and he asked me how I was. I said I’d be OK if only I could sleep. I was waking at least once a night, sweating, heart pounding and gasping for breath. I thought I was having night-time panic attacks – I HAD to get up and do something for an hour or so until I calmed down enough to go back to bed. “Aha” said the good doctor. “We’ll get you in for sleep apnoea testing”.

So it was that on the evening of 1 May 1997 I reported to the sleep lab at the Royal Brompton. After dinner there was one last chance to use the bathroom, then I was wired up – heart monitor, oxygen levels, sound and video, I had it all! And it was an incredibly hot night, too.

Next morning at 06:00 the sleep support technician unwired me and read the print outs. “You died over 600 times last night”. I’d had over 600 episodes – stopped breathing – in eight hours. “We don’t want you to go home without a CPAP system”.

Sleepweavers are the most comfortable masks I’ve found

And so it was I got my first CPAP system. I slept uninterrupted and snore free that night, and ever since.

Taking my CPAP system with me whenever I travel is a small price to pay!

What’s a Polish Breakfast?

What’s a Polish Breakfast?

For a start, older Poles just do not get breakfast cereals. Rice Krispies and other famous cheap breakfast cereals just aren’t sold over here. Other cereals, often for kids or more premium ones and/or products adopted from the US, are to be found, though.

Still, milky cereals aren’t that popular with adults. So what is?

Hotels will usually serve up bread, butter, cheese, ham/sausage and jam with fresh tea or coffee. A lot of people will have that before leaving home in the morning, too. It’s quick and easy and can even be plated the night before and cling-filmed into the fridge to just grab next morning – and if time is short, coffee goes in a thermos mug and everything else makes a sandwich to eat on the way to work.

One of the better breakfasts we’ve had in Poland was at the Zajazd Krystyna, outside Krakow. Our “egg” breakfasts came with a layer of grilled bacon in the hot dish, under the fried eggs. And it set us up really well for a drive almost to the Channel.

Out and about, McDonalds offer a breakfast menu, including some items we’ve never seen in the UK. They had to withdraw the McKielbasa, though – it simply didn’t sell!

Ronald McDonald funds an ambulance in Wroclaw

And porridge. Porridge warms the tummy of more Poles than you might think – and a pan of porridge left on the stove overnight will be delicious next morning!

But what about a full English? Our attempts to get close to the traditional all-out full English breakfast have gone one step further with Rajmund’s find of boczek surowy plastry, the ones with a wyśmienitych wedlin smak. Literally “raw bacon slices with a delicious sausage taste”! They’re very thin slices, so much more like what you’d find in a bacon and egg mayo sandwich, but still … bacon …

Or go to any English or Irish pub in Krakow!

The Decoliner

Decoliner

While I remember, I want to post some photos of the “Decoliner”. Fans of “Storage Wars” may recognise it as one of the vehicles used in the show by Barry Weiss.

The entire body was hand-fabricated by Blastolene Cars on the chassis of a 1973 GMC motorhome …

… and a cab from a 1955 White COE (cab over engine – forward control).

It took some time to build.

The roof driving position (fly-bridge) is fully operational.

The interior is quite something.

But it’s the outside that takes the biscuit!

Other Weiss cars include a 1940 Ford COE truck

a somewhat customised 1946 Cadillac

and the Beatnik.

About Abouts

About Abouts

Home is where we tell our personal story – our blog, in today’s terms.

If you want to know about us, how we think and how we came to be in Poland, have a read here.

Abouts are where we store information we hope will be of use to anyone coming to visit us, or to holiday in this part of Poland. They cover travel and transport, Kamionka Wielka, Nowy Sacz and Kraków, and many of the places we’d hope you might like to see. We even added a page about Kraków for kids, which we hope will be useful to parents but which also contains one or two attractions not mentioned elsewhere – like the Air Museum and puppet theatre.

John is a Trip Advisor Destination Expert for Poland and he’s often surprised by how little research some people do before heading for Poland – he’s a man who has always read up on his destinations before trips, including one holiday over 30 years ago when he read about the streets of Estepona and every card every one of the six travellers sent referred to the “gorgeous wrought iron balconies gaily bedecked with flowers”. More seriously, on TA today there’s a first-time post from someone who “will never go back to Poland” because the ever-vigilant ticket inspectors fined her and her bf for failing to valid their bus tickets – something every article on Polish trams and buses tells you to do!

Incidentally, and this is a bit of an “about”, you buy tickets for a duration as well as a zone. Kraków only has two zones, and the trams are all in the central zone, but it’s still best advice to buy a one-day ticket (or longer) as that way you’ll not fall foul if your tram gets held up. (A delayed bus or tram does NOT extend the duration of your ticket, so watch out!). Plus you will cut down on the number of potential man/ticket machine transactions you’ll face…

Please feel free to browse or “follow” as we’ll keep updating the “abouts” and adding to “home”.

Neighbours

When God was creating the world He said: ‘And yes, the Poles — I will give them a land flowing with milk and honey, rich grain fields, lush forests teeming with game, lakes and rivers full of fish, natural resources such as coal, copper, silver and sulphur, scenic mountains, an impressive seacoast, rolling green meadows and beautiful blonde-haired maidens…’

A little angel witnessing the process pipes up: ‘But aren’t the Poles getting too much of a good thing?

God replies: ‘Just wait till you see who I give them for neighbours’.

Redcurrant surprise!

Redcurrant surprise!

Those of you who know us will know that we’re both pretty clueless when it comes to gardens. John hated gardening when forced into it at home, and has taken great pride in buying most of his homes garden-free. Rajmund grew up on a farm, but the farm is a commercial hazelnut (orchard?) so neither of us has really take much interest in, or learned very much about, gardens. We both like our land at Kamionka Wielka, but more than a year after moving in it continues to surprise us.

We knew we had an apple tree – we used the fruit to make apple liqueur, applesauce and apple chutney at the end of last year. We just sampled the apple liqueur – or, rather, sank half a bottle – a few evenings ago. We’re agreed we’ll use ALL this year’s apples to make more of the same … it’s delicious!   http://wp.me/p3syyr-4J

This year we’ve so far discovered cherries, gooseberries and redcurrants. Cherries came first, just a few days ago. They’re still a little bitter, but juicy and delicious. We’ve only had a handful of gooseberries, but they’re nice and we’re hoping to get enough for a crumble.

Rajmund was out at work and John had just taken TeaPot and Jurek out onto the porch when Gregory came over with a metal pot – he’d realised our redcurrants were ripe to pick so he and his wife came over and split the pick with us.

Ever cleaned redcurrants, straight from the bush? Do it in water.

What to do with them? Well, we both like sweet things, so John made a sort of Polish not-quite-trifle. Bottom layer is jelly, second layer is a Polish yoghurt-based fake cream topping used for flans and we put all the redcurrants on top. Then a trio of leaves, just to finish it off.

Nom, nom, nom, as the English say!

Luxtorpeda (b1933/5 – d1954)

Luxtorpeda

As a lover of travel and history I often stumble upon things of interest in terms of historical travel or the history of travel. One very recent find is the Austro-Daimler Luxtorpeda or, for the Polish-built versions, the Fablok Luxtorpedas.

Luxtorpedas were luxury single car trains – streamlined, powered by petrol (A-D) or diesel engines – and ran mainly out of Kraków, taking rich people to rich people’s destinations, such as the mountain resort of Zakopane or the spa town of Krynica-Zdroj.

The original Luxtorpeda was acquired in 1933 from the makers, Austro-Daimler. It had an 80hp Mercedes Benz engine at each end (the trains had a cab at both ends, so did not need to be turned when they reached their destinations), could easily handle the may reverse curves of the line into the Tatras and could reach speeds f up to 100kph.

The Polish-built versions (1935) had two 150hp MAN diesel engines and were capable of up to 115kph. Five were built.

Local interest – in fact where I picked up on the existence of these trains – came from an old photograph showing a Luxtorpeda at the tunnel in Kamionka Wielka. The Luxtorpeda would pass through KW on its way to Nowy Sącz, where it would then go on to either Krynica or Zakopane, depending on whether that day it fancied healthy waters or mountain air!

In September 1939 Germany and the USSR invaded Poland. In the aftermath, two Luxtorpedas were found to have survived and they became cars “for Germans only” operating out of Kraków to Zakopane and Krynica. At the end of the War, one Luxtorpeda was re-built, cannibalising the second survivor for parts. However, it never ran at its design speed due to lack of parts and so on and was allocated to operate local routes near Trzebinia, a town and major junction on the main line between Kraków and Katowice.

The last Luxtorpeda were scrapped in 1954.

A Luxtorpeda still holds the record for a train running Kraków to Zakopane, at 2h 18m.