Golden autumn and first snow

vathsanclan
Feb 24, 2016
4 min read

First week of September was over and it was time for Vathsan to get back to work.

So he flew to the other end of the World and left me with kids in Europe. He was not very happy about it, but I insisted. I still had some plans and projects I wanted to do before going back no NZ. What will you be doing for another almost two months in Europe??? Everybody were wondering... Well, for start let me explain you, that there were two level of plans.

The first one, was simply to let kids hang out with my family and friends and show them my origins.Where I am from and what I was growing up with. Of course late 80's and nowadays got quite different, but some highlights of my childhood stayed the same.

Autumn is Autumn, and every year, once per year, it make Poland look beautifully golden. Covered in different shades of yellow, orange and red leaves, and some brown chestnuts as well. I mean, if I want my kids to feel what I felt when I was little, then picking up leaves and collecting chestnuts ( to later stick tooth picks in them and make little chestnut-man) it's a must.

If Autumn was already exciting, you should try to picture pure joy when me and Yana were chasing Poland's first snow!Snow was always there on my list of highlights, but since you never know when is going to come, I kept it a secret and didn't share

my plans with her till I finally was sure we will be able to make it.

I had a friend who was going down South to Kraków and Zakopane, who I was calling in advance and explaining to him, how this year's first snow is very important to me, and if he sees any, ho should give me a call immediately. I had a look in my agenda, our stay in Poland was coming almost to the end, so I called him Sunday night asking : -how is the snow situation? -Yeah...there is some...but...looks like is melting already so...nah...no need of coming.

Then the following morning I received a text from him saying : "Yuuhhhuuu! 10 cm of snow in Zakopane!" So you can imagine my frustration. That day he just to kept me updated, and annoyed, as he was driving by car all the way back to Warsaw, and calling once in a while saying where exactly he was, and how much snow was there in different cities...

Lucky, on Monday I had one more friend going to Karków, who also became part

of my " chasing the snow project", and who was even sending me on Tuesday an early morning MMS, just to show how much snow was still left.Well, maybe there was not much left, but I decided it must be enough for me and Yana to go.

So we took a train, and already that ride was worth it, as majority of the time if you would look outside of the window it was all beautiful and white.

Till we reached Kraków. Then all of a sudden there was absolutely no more snow in the city when we arrived. So I called my friend Michał to go with him and grab a lunch. It is always better to sit and eat, and try slowly to figure out your next move, when it looks like you need to improvise. And we came up with idea of catching bus which will go a bit away from the city, more to the woods, towards the zoo.

And it worked! The snow was there! It was not the best, as it was about to melt very soon, but it was the closest we could get. Yana was surprised, as she was imagining it is going to be dry, fluffy and cuddly. Instead was...just white.

But we still had fun!

The second level of plans was not about the kids as it included more boring and serious staff such as:

- renewing my expired Polish ID card ( check )

- registering in Poland our marriage certificate from Vanuatu ( I did register it, but there is a big error next to Vathsan's name so...I would rather classify it as failure ) - going to the Dentist ( I ended up not going as my Dentist went on 3 weeks holidays )

- tidying up my room, that I left my mum with, and didn't take care of it for

like 10 years ( I was successful but only partially )

Ah! And just to compensate the boring part, I was catching up Big Time with all my friends. And yep, it was great, I could leave the kids with Babcia, go have a beer, or two...or more...and come back home by night bus ( totally doable in Warsaw) or by Taxi ( affordable ). So it was great, and all that time did not feel too long. It was sad not to have Papa around us for a while, but that overstay in Poland was needed.

Happy mama = happy kids, you know that right? : )