Eastern Poland

 Yesterday we broke the record of the number policeman we have met ever in a day. They were everywhere.

However before getting in to that we started our day in Bialystok. Where it was -10°C in the morning! I got us some breakfast then till Sari packed our staff I went to get our car. While I was walking to it I checked all the cars on the street how icy were they trying to assume how thick ice cover did my car grow overnight. Luckily the car was only covered with some snowish loose staff that was easy to get rid off with a broom. However in the inside everything was frozen. The motor didn’t even start for the first time, then when it finally started it sounded like when you didn’t put the dishes properly in the washing machine and everything falls out, that was the exact same noise my motor was sounding. It was definitely not pleasant. 

The temperature had risen to -8°C by the time we got to our first stop. It was the Church of Trezescinka: a beautiful huge wooden church with green paint job. It was really spectacular. Unfortunately it wasn’t open, so we couldn’t get inside. We quickly checked out another church in Odrynki. It was also a wooden church, in the middle of nowhere. It was in the middle of a swampish place small streams where running all around it, we didn’t understand the place but it was pretty interesting. 

Our next planned stop was the Bison Reservation near Bialowieza National Park. Although we didn’t plan on stopping anywhere before it we had to stop at various police checkpoints. I’m sure you are aware of the disagreement between the European Union and Belarus; but if not basically what happened is the EU stopped talking with Belarus because they cheated on the elections and Belarus got angry and invited thousands of immigrants to their border with Poland. So, now the EU’s borders are being attacked not only in Hungary but also in Poland — and Lithuania, and Latvia (aaand it same thing happened to Finland when the Russians played the Belarus trick on them in 2015) The whole thing resulted huge amount of police and soldiers near the Belarus border. And when I say huge I mean it! We were stopped in every 45 minutes — if not in every 30!

First we got stopped by a young officer who surprisingly didn’t speak any English, however they were super nice, kind, and very smily. I asked them if they spoke any English, they told us no, and opened the trunk of the car. Then I asked ‘dobro?’ I think it means ‘good?’ and he replied something like ‘you do speak Polish’ and started laughing. Then the other said something like ‘go’ or ‘goodbye’ and added ‘anglesko.’ We were very surprised. Firstly because we were stopped secondly the kindness coming from those officers who were standing outside the whole day in the -8°C freezing their nuts off — for our safety and Europe’s safety. We should appreciate their hard work! I wish we would’ve or could’ve showed them our appropriation. The second time we were stopped by an older officer, he didn’t seem too nice, he did speak English, but it seemed like he had enough of standing in the cold. However when he eventually asked where are we from and I said Hungary he said ‘Good Morning’ in Hungarian and counted till 10 in Hungarian! WTF?! And them said ‘Goodbye’ in Hungarian! True legend! 

Unfortunately this blog already seems to be too long I’ll continue tomorrow!

Till then take care,

Almos