Big Trip: Day Two (Rzeszów and Zakopane)

I know now that the night of Day 1, a few of our gang stayed up until 4am drinking a good portion of a second bottle of vodka. This turns out to be prophetic for our time in Poland. On our second day in Poland, those who could slept in a bit and then Maddy made us all breakfast since Ola's parents had to go to work that day (it being a Monday). We thought that Maddy's bag would arrive this day, but it turned out it wouldn't arrive until the next day. Ola's mom gave Ryan Air what for and arranged to have the bag waiting for us at the hotel in Zakopane when we arrived. In the afternoon, we loaded some of the luggage onto the roof and tied it down. Then the seven of us (six from Seattle + Ola) piled into the Kia Carnival mini-van and we headed into the mountains. We stopped a few times for food and breaks and arrived in Zakopane (pronounced Zah-ko-pah-nay) about four hours later. For lunch we'd stopped in a little town and gotten a whole bunch of different kinds of pierogi from a restaurant that Ola described as being "like grade school cafeteria food." Though that's not much of an endorsement in America, this food was pretty good. At least by our standards of pierogi. Being terribly full, we stayed in the hotel for dinner and ate leftover pierogi and spoils from the local grocery store. Of course this included kiełbasa and vodka. The last hour of the drive I'd started to get a scratchy throat, so I took it easy and went to bed early. Some of the other carousers went out after drinking and found a place to dance in Zakopane. They're having a much wilder adventure than I am. ;-)