Trip to Zakopane (Town in Tatra Moutains of Poland)

My first trip outside of Krakow was to a mountain town in southern Poland called Zakopane. It was a two day trip that started really early Saturday and we got back to Krakow by 8:00 Sunday night. It was my group of 6 IPS students with about 40 something international ERASMUS students. The first stop on the trip was to the Highlander Ethnographic Park in Zubrzyca Górna. It was kind of boring because we just walked around a few old cottages for an extended period of time. I did like parts of it though like seeing the pretty wooden construction of all the cottages. Apparently they made linen at these places and survived off of flax seed oil during Lent since they couldn't eat meat. There was also the Sheppard's cottage we saw where they made the traditional Highlander cheese made out of sheep's milk called Oscypek. I tried some of the stuff made out of cow's milk and I didn't really like the smoky taste.

For lunch we had a little banquet where they gave us a bunch of food. First we got a soup called Zurek that had sausage and hard boiled eggs. I was not a fan of it. The bread was good and they gave us flavored lard to spread over it which tasted very nice. The lunch was rolled and bread pork with potatoes. The desert was an apple pie/cake call szarlotka and the host guy went round with a jug of honey flavored vodka to give everyone shots.

Next we went to a castle in Niedzica. It was very picturesque and we learned a lot about the superstitions of the place. In the dungeon, there was a hole that if you stuck some finger in it and rotated it then you would have good luck. The only catch was that no one knew which finger or which way to rotate your finger. Then we saw a well in the courtyard. The superstition with that well was that a married couple had lived in the castle... they argued a lot and were moved to a tower... one argument was so bad that the man pushed his wife out the tower window and she fell into a well and died immediately... the husband felt bad and whispered in well that he didn't mean to kill her... a voice responded "I forgive you my bald husband''... he was not bald though and loved his hair... then he woke up the next morning and was bald. The legend goes that if anyone whispers the name of their loves in the well they will lose their hair if they had not been honest with them. I needless to say did not whisper into the well. The rest of the castle had interesting rooms and amazing scenery.

Eventually, we made it to hotel where we checked in and then went to our Highlander Integration Party. The party was probably the highlight of the whole trip. They started us off with tea which was of course spiked with vodka and actually very good tasting. Then they started the games. The first one was that a German guy was put into a wooden stock and got his face shaved by a meat clever. The guy doing the shaving took a few shots and borrowed some glasses before he commenced the shaving. Then there was a game where two teams had to take shots off of a wooden ski together by only moving the ski and not holding the glass in their mouth or dropping the glass. The team that did this the fewest times won shot glasses in a sling around their necks. The losers got Highlander a GPS (a bell around the neck). The game I was involved with was a game where we hammered a nail into a log. The catch to this game was that the head of the hammer was made of a metal pipe, so I had to hit the nail with the edge of the pipe. If I bent the nail or if I hit it ten times, I had to take a shot. I hit it 40 times, and that was good enough to win and get a pair of knitted gloves. The funniest game was definitely one where two groups of 6 people had to snake a rope through all of their pants going up one leg and down the other. People were taking their pants off for this and it was very funny. The prizes for the winners were some explicit wooden pens that revealed either a penis or a vagina when the wooden pants were pulled down. Finally, Highlander man and woman were crowned by competing in dancing routines which I was not very good at. The night ended in hotel room number one where we partied until 3:00.

We woke up at a reasonable time and had a breakfast that consisted of a platter of cheese, deli meat, and cucumbers which we could make little sandwiches out of. Then we got scrambled eggs. Our day consisted of walking in the town of Zakopane including a cemetery that would have been interesting if it wasn't so cold and if I wasn't tired of touring things. Then we took a cable car to the top of a mountain and got a great view of the city, but not that great of a view of the mountains because it was cloudy. Then we got free time to do what ever we wanted which included eating pizza (I know I should have tried some more Polish food, but nah). Then I went shopping, but unfortunately I couldn't find Highlander pants since the store that had them was closed. Instead, I just bought some of the fresh cheese that tastes like string cheese.

The bus trip back was a great way to end the trip because we all got shot glasses. Mine was in the shape a small mug. Then they passed out the vodka and we all took one or two shots of it (I guess only in Poland). I hope the rest of my trips will be as good as this one.