Top of the World/A Cold Day in Hell

Kosice has been relaxing and culturally fascinating, but I'm writing you as I spend my final few hours here. My train leaves at 11:30 pm. I'll tell you why that sucks in a bit. Icetime at the public rink seems limited to very small children and figure skaters. In order to double my chances of finding something in Poland, though, I bought a pair of decent inline hockey skates. Inline is usually less organized and will hence be easier to wedge into. My Polish is improving, so that should also help.
I went to a museum of underground fortifications in Kosice, which produced some really interesting pictures, but not much else.
Since hockey seemed to be a wash here, I decided to take a daytrip to one of the regional castles, Krasna Horka. The buses run at 6:50 am, 12:50 pm, and 6:50 pm. It's a two-hour bus ride, and the castle closes at 2:00. Guess which bus I had to take! But I made it, and the ride down took me through some lovely countryside (the pictures are uploading this very moment). The tour was interesting enough. Old expensive things rich people once owned can only hold so much appeal, though. The highlights of the castle were the counterfeiting workshop, the torture room, the armaments room full of captured Turkish weapons, the mummified 300-year-old countess...one of those things is decidedly not like the others. I swear to God I've seen more creepy dead bodies on this trip. It occurred to me that there was probably enough skin on her to make a lovely leather hat and glove set, though. Since the old lady's skin wasn't for sale, I bought a pile of postcards instead.
From the castle I could walk to see some low-level nobility man's mausoleum and, no doubt, more expensive things he once owned. I started down the road toward said mausoleum, thinking "why the hell not?" when I saw a path. Then my "why the hell not" shifted gears, and I started down this labyrinthine system of trails. There were little olive-skinned kids playing in the forest, and old women were gathering mushrooms. There were also piles of clothing and garbage, seemingly sorted, in the rows of hedges and trees. I arrived at a clearing and saw a village with dirt roads--many of the houses had no rooves and there was no direct paved road access. Across the valley shepherds were driving flocks across fields. It was like I stepped back in time 150 years. Aside from a highway and a water treatment plant in the distance, were no readily apparent signs of a lifestyle that includes directv, supermarkets, or cars. There was a single, beaten-up Fiat in the village. It was fascinating. From there I changed course and found a rocky peak where I got a spectacular view of the castle and outlying area. Go see the pictures on Facebook.

http://sewanee.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016841&l=b01ee&id=44700686

Because of my admittedly occasionally silly no backtracking policy, I didn't go back the way I came. I wanted to make an adventure out of it. An adventure I made indeed. I stumbled through overgrown trails, whistling and coughing as I did so in order to avoid any possible hunting accidents. I did this for an hour before I came back to one of the better-marked trails. I followed it and exited the woods by a path that was only 50 meters away from my entry path. Not too shabby, methinks.

Here's where it starts to get bad.

I checked the bus schedule. The bus schedule was scratched to the point of illegibility, and were it legible, it would still be remarkably unclear which buses ran which days. After waiting for the time when I thought my bus would whisk me back to Kosice, I asked one of the locals when the next bus to Kosice would be. The answer he gave me was certainly not the one I wanted to hear: zajtra. Tomorrow. I winced and thanked him for his help. My mind flashed over several things at once. Checkout at the Kosice hostel is 10:00. I need to buy a ticket to Krakow. I need to buy a Krakow map. I need to clean my room before 10:00. I'm travelling tomorrow; I need to sleep. None of these things were especially pleasant. I learned the unfortunate fact of my confinement at 15:30, and the earliest listed bus was 5:58 the next morning. I ate pizza (quite tasty pizza, at that), and mulled over my options.

A) Get a room at a cheap accommodation place in Krasnahorske Podhradie.
But Josh, that costs money.
Okay.

B) Hitchhike.
But Josh, that might not be safe and you might end up sold into white slavery in Dubai...or at least just stuck in some totally bizarre part of Slovakia.
Point conceded.

C) Drink beer til the bar that's open the latest closes, then go to the bus stop and sleep.
But Josh, people will think you're homeless, and besides, it's cold outside!
Counterpoint 1: I don't care. Counterpoint 2: I don't care.

The bar was fine. I chatted with the barman to the best of my abilities, and he showed me his collection of spiders preserved in shots of gin. He found all of them at the bar, and caught them himself. 17 varieties of spider, all huge. Made me a little wary of my beer, but I soldiered on. Closing time came, and option C seemed to be the most serviceable. I would be awake for my bus, I wouldn't be spending any unnecessary money, and I might be able to get some sleep. (guffaw)

My good friend Frank said something that really stuck with me, especially last night: "if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough." I got an hour and a half of the worst sleep in my life behind the bus stop, and woke up covered in frigid dew. My layers of t-shirt, hoodie, and wool sweater weren't really helping much in the 36-degree weather. I did jumping jacks, which helped a little, but the ultimate temporary solution was starting a fire with my postcards. I'd grabbed some matches from the bar in case something like this happened, and it got me to the point where I could at least feel my fingers again. I tried sleeping again, on the bench instead of in the grass, and when that failed, I ran in place for half an hour. That worked. A merciful bus driver stopped at 4:50 and picked me up. As consolation, I don't think the sky's even that dark at Sewanee. I looked at stars for easily two hours. From there I packed, and the desk attendant asked me "so where have you been for so long?" I told him as best I could about my ordeal, and he said I could check out an hour late, that I looked like I needed some sleep. And I did. And I do. A seven-hour train ride has to be good for something, right?

Why do I have such blighted luck with bus transit?

Comment, and since the hostel in Krakow has internet, I'll be contactable regularly. Two comments on the last post, guys. That's a poor showing :-P (kidding, I know you read it)

Finally warm again,

Josh