Hit by a Polonez

I'm not sure if it is because German drivers expect me to carry an extremely contagious infection that will jump straight through their windows if they pass me within two meters, or if they genuinely care about me (and their no-claim car insurance payments), but I can't help to get nervous when I'm driving on the shoulder of a two lane road and a car slows down and keeps driving behind me slowly for half a kilometre because he's not able to see if a car might be coming from the other direction in the next kilometre. The slow roar of the car is enough for me to imagine the cocking of a semi-automatic so favoured by the Balkan freelancers well known in the Dutch underworld since the late nineties. So far the burst of gunfire never came, but the suspense has been unbearable. Since I crossed the border I have experienced the Polish road use, and I definitely prefer the Polish method of honestly offing cyclists by means of 10-ton wood trucks thundering past within centimetres.

All around in Poland, budget supermarkets are taking over the scene, like they already dominate the German landscape. The funniest looking one is Biedronka, which translates into ‘lady bug’, and has a smiling specimen as its logo. In small towns the chain is fervently building and opening and on my way from Szczecin to Gdansk I met several stores in varying stages of construction. Hiding from an approaching massive thunderstorm I sat down under the overhang at a Biedronka that had not opened yet, but was busy being stocked. As I inconspicuously ate my sandwiched while the rain was thundering down around me I was the witness of the following scene. A car approached, laden with what seemed a family, and two people sprinted out through the rain, leaving the grandparents in the car. As they stood in front of the doors, water glistening on their bald skulls, I gestured to no avail that it was closed, but they still expected the sliding doors to open sesame, ignoring the weirdly dressed up bike enthusiast sitting on the floor and focusing hopefully on the visible personnel filling the racks. Then one looked closer at a note displayed near the entrance, spat out the word “Kurova!” and ushered the others back out through the rain into the car. As I continued eating my sandwiches, the same amusing and relatively absurd scene repeated itself three times over, only the protagonists and words of disappointment changed.

Even though the weather has kept balancing between unbearable and unpleasant, the people welcoming me through Couchsurfing have been fantastic, the glacier made landscape phenomenal and the food has been amazing. Strawberries and cherries have been in season and are offered in large, rectangular shaped baskets. In the last week and a half, I must have eaten 6 or 7 pigs. Its been a great week and a half.