Absinthe In The Mountains.

And in the back seat during the two and a half hour drive home today, I had my Australian companion's sleepy head descend further and further toward my lap.

I delayed my Jewish pilgrimage until tomorrow, in order to go with Slavek, the hostel owner, to Zakopane. Zakopane is a small tourist town in the mountains of Poland, just next to the border of Slovakia. The point of this trip was to hike in the mountains, an excursion Slavek takes with hostel occupants at least twice a week. Slavek's friend Pavel was driving - at ridiculous speeds, and often on the wrong side of the road. Which to me feels like the right side of the road, of course, but other Polish drivers may disagree.

Our first stop, however, was to cross the border into Slovakia, and take advantage of the ridiculous amount of duty free alcohol stores just after the checkpoint. We also had a traditional Slovakian lunch - egg, cheese and garlic soup, followed by fried cheese. Seriously. I've never eaten so much cheese in my entire life.

As for the alcohol, it was Slovakian beer (strong, and too yeasty), and Black Absinthe. 80% proof. The effects of two shots are with me as I somehow continue to write.

The pre-absinthe hiking was occasionally difficult, but always filled with immense beauty. The scent of the air was as stunning as the large oak trees, and the nearly-freezing streams of water. On our travels, we were joined by another Australian, Hal, who had caught the bus. The three of us went then to the town of Zakopane to go 'gravity tobogganing', and eat yet more ice cream, this time in wafers called gofry. It was just before the drive home that we had our first shot of absinthe (the second came in the reception, about fifteen minutes ago, as I was starting this blog post).




I paid for one ice-cream, the tobogganing and the cable car to the top of the mountains. I asked Slavek how much I owed for everything else (lunch, alcohol, entry to the national park), and after laughing, he walked out asking, 'are you stupid?' After offering me more than the value of my night's stay, I wonder whether that question could in fact have been reflexive.

I had gotten only a fleeting impression of my companion, a traditional jock type talking of swimming and skiing and Polish girls. Only after our first shot of absinthe he revealed the real reason for his travels, that four weeks ago he had come to Switzerland for a girl. His expression soured as her memory revealed itself to her, that it 'just wasn't meant to be'. At this point he went deathly silent, and did not speak another word the entire trip. And soon, he fell asleep.