Our first week was restful and successful on multiple fronts.  Our first evening, my brother-in-law got together a little shin-dig for us.  He announced that his doctor had told him to quit drinking bubbly drinks, so we’d be drinking vodka along with various tasty snacks.  This was perfectly fine with me, as I’d had minimal interaction with vodka for a while and was looking to be reacquainted.  The tasty Absolwent has taken off compared to Bols or Luksusowa, and that’s just fine with me.  During our evening I talked about the Zloty Pstrag, and Marcin was quite taken with the idea.

So taken, that we ended up heading over there the very next day, and an easier day fishing in a more lovely location has rarely been had. The Zloty Pstrag (Golden Trout) is an establishment with two fish ponds, fishing equipment, cold beer on tap, and fryers at the ready. You roll up, are given a rod and bait, and you can start fishing for trout immediately. Marcin and I ended up with seven trout in less than two hours’ fishing. When you get a hit, a kid runs up with a net, lands and de-hooks the fish, and stores it in a bucket for you. Once you’re happy with your haul, you can either have them gutted and ready for cooking at home, or they can fry them up for you on the spot. This is the ultimate no-muss, no-fuss lazy fishing. There’s a larger pond that has carp (a perennial favorite in Poland), pike, and more trout, and this is the harder spot to fish from. We hung in there for a while, but it was starting to rain and we ended up going back to the trout pond to catch enough to feed everyone at home.

We had a pretty swell trip down to Florida and prep for takeoff (ignore geographical craziness of our departure point, details too numerous to recount here). Halfway through Nashville, Ula turned to me and asked if I wanted to drop in our friends (Clan Crowell), and I figured, why the hell not? It’s a vacation, after all. Despite lack of a phone number and a completely random stopping point, we got in touch with G & C, who miraculously weren’t doing anything really time-critical that day, were within 5 miles of us, and were completely open to an impromptu “make the largest splash” competition and tasty lunch. Animal scariness was pretty quickly dealt with, and the Crowell kids proved quickly that they have looks and brains both (if you’re reading this, you probably know this already, but further empirical observations always add to theoretical weight. Look it up, dingus.), which can be verified below. After fine food and conversation, we left them to their prior agenda of baking dream cakes and finding a way to keep young Abby from killing earthworms. I hope the dream cake worked out well, G. Confections in my own dreams usually have nasty surprises inside.

Further travel progressed pretty much without a hitch. We got in late but not inordinately so, and had some time to relax and recover before the flight on Monday.

Flying (Orlando->DC->Munich->Wroclaw) went passably easy, despite the presence of quite a few young US citizens headed to Germany for their first time and experiencing the miracle of transatlantic flight. Luckily the steward was not modest in his application of gin to the problem, and some of the issue was thus assuaged. We made it to Wroclaw without great incident and the Krolikowski siblings carted us home in time for dinner and balcony-sitting. » Read more: Takeoff/Approach

So I’ve been a terrible blog author, and I haven’t kept track of a single thing since last year’s trip to Greenland, which wasn’t chronicled in any sort of organized way.  There has been a seething load of activity since then, I haven’t had time or inclination to record it, sordid and stale as it was.  So.

Here’s an attempt to jump-start some tracking, some of which may be made public and some of which I’ll keep to myself, miserly thing that I am.  Hoping that the context switching of vacation gives me an incentive to write down some interesting things.  I haven’t had a vacation of this extent in a sufficiently long time, or:  Let’s just say I haven’t had a vacation in an embarassingly long time.

We’re just finishing preparations to leave Indiana for a month and head back to Poland.  Ideally for a time of travel, rest and rejuvenation, and getting back in touch with Ula’s family.  I’m looking forward to fishing (the lazy kind), trail running, and spending long days on the balcony.