Drive to Przemisl

We are ready to leave Warsaw at 9:30am. Last pictures together with our Polish classmates and friends. All of them came to say goodbye: Stefan, Romek, Borzena, Ella, Bonga, Elzbieta, Alina, Leszek, Tadek. This is it, our last departure from Warsaw, not for a drive around the country or the USSR, but to go home.

Romek and Stefan

Borzena Romek Ann Stefan Andrew and Marco

Alina Bonga Marco Ann Elzbieta Cathy
Leszek

Elzbieta Alina Bonga

Elzbieta Andrew Alina Tadek Bonga
Cathy Wadim Ann

Andrew and Romek

It's been an immensely interesting and fun to spend these four months in Poland. I know I will be back, though I don't know when. Borzena will come visit me in Italy soon.

Just before leaving the capital, we fill our tank with our last black market gasoline from Jan's station. The drive to Przemisl is smooth and easy. Funny I should think of it this way. A few months ago I would have described Polish roads in less positive terms, but I guess we are used to it by now.

Once there, we meet Cathy's auntie, her father's sister. She's been waiting for us. She can only offer one room to us in her small apartment, but it will do. We'll squeeze in, Andrew and I in one bed and the girls in the other. There is no hot water and no sewage in the building, a strange smell whiffs out of the toilet, but we don't mind the small hardship.

This family is clearly not rich, but very hospitable nonetheless. Dinner is based on kanapki. After  which, three ladies and one man, in their thirties, not sure who they are, friends we guess, arrive and offer to take us for a tour of the town. Nothing much, but it gives us a good idea of a different Poland than that we have seen so far in Warsaw and other major cities.