Thursday, August 9, 2012

DAY 9: Frontiersmanship


"Your bike looks much better than mine", says a voice from behind me.

Turning around I see Scott, rolling slowly along on a blue-grey bicycle that looks as if it had been handed down through at least two generations of German owners before he bought it in Leipzig on Monday.

We're on the platform of Zgorzelec railway station, which turns out to be one of the weirder railway stations I've seen. The platforms are cut into a hillside, and they look quite new, shiny and evenly paved. The station building is an entirely different story. 

Standing on top of the hill, completely unconnected to the platforms, and utterly shapeless in its decrepitude, it's both strangely attractive (if you like a bit of decrepitude) and just the tiniest bit creepy. Neither of us can locate an entrance door, though there are numerous broken windows that you could use to gain entry – assuming you were, say, either homeless and freezing to death, or slightly mad.

Sunset Reflected in Railway Station Building
Zgorzelec, Poland, 08.08.12

So as I mentioned, Scott has ridden most of the way here from Leipzig, and I've come from Krakow. But why here, specifically? Well, because this is where Poland runs out and Germany begins, so it just seemed like a fun place to meet. We even had a vague plan to rendezvous Cold War novel-style on the bridge which links the two countries, and make a clandestine exchange. Just couldn't quite figure what we could exchange – given that neither of us had taken any prisoners or was in possession of sensitive information – so the plan never quite worked out.

Anyway, Zgorzelec itself didn't impress us very much at first glance (my Polish friend Basia tells me that the town's name means "gangrene", so perhaps that's not surprising!). We were a lot more taken with Görlitz, though, which is about a 2km ride from the opposite river bank. We rode into town as the light was fading, and found a cozy little Altstadt with a nice laidback feel to itSo we decided to stay for a quick coffee and a catch-up, before heading off to find our accommodation back in Zgorzelec. Thing is, though, a "quick coffee" can easily turn into a two-hour chat with Scott, so by the time we got back on the bikes, it was absolutely pitch black.

Needless to say, we didn't find the border on our first attempt, and we got thoroughly lost a couple of times before finally getting back across the river and locating our pensjon*.

All that remained, then, was to drink and smoke and eat peanuts (in lieu of dinner) until two in the morning on the street outside our pensjon, thus guaranteeing a late start to the cycling the following day ... but hey, this is what one must do when catching up with an old friend in a small Polish frontier town.

I'm sure the oversized hedgehog who lives in the long grass near the pensjon was very glad when we finally called it a night. Not only could he have some piece and quiet at last, but he was also free of the annoying Australian who kept coming up and trying to pat him.

"Why can't those Australians leave us hogs of the hedge alone?"

Because you're just too damn cute, that's why.

Good night :-)


* A kind of budget hotel, often family-run, with a sort of 'homey' atmosphere (at least in the good ones).

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