The diary of a Scot in Amsterdam

Monday was supposed to be my one relaxed non-cycling day of the week, but not for the first time things worked out less than ideally.

It all started out well, since we arrived in Cracow quite early on Sunday. This meant that some of the things we had to do could be done then. For example, I really needed to find a sports or outdoor store and buy some new shoes. The discovery a few weeks ago that only my newest and most expensive pair of trainers prevent pain in my knees meant that I had only one pair suitable for cycling, which is not really enough for ten months.

By mid-morning Monday I had found some decent shoes at a good price, and we had wandered round Cracow a bit and had breakfast. One thing that needed to be sorted was that the middle finger on my left hand had become swollen round the nail, and had got worse in the past few days. Better to get it seen to now, rather than later.

I asked at the hotel (actually a student halls with private rooms) where I could find a doctor,and they gave me the address of a medical centre.

When I got there I was told to come back in half an hour and “maybe the doctor will see you”. After half an hour there was no doctor, and I was told to go to a hospital on the other side of town. When I got there it took ages to find the emergency department, owing mainly to my inability to understand Polish. When I had stood in the queue for a while I was told that they could not help me, and that I would have to go to another medical centre much like the first one.

Of course I was already getting quite pissed off by this point, but since there was not really an alternative short of ignoring the finger, I went anyway.

At location number three things got even more complicated because no-one whatsoever could speak any English. What I managed to understand from the receptionist is that I needed to return at 6pm. This I did, at which point a doctor was present, who could also speak no English. German didn’t work either. She just sort of stared at me like I was an idiot, until a colleague who could speak a little English told me to come back the following morning at 8am and see the surgeon.

As frustrating as this was, at least it meant I could stop thinking about it for the rest of the evening. As can be imagined I was very sceptical if anybody was ever going to help me, or whether I would have to hack the damned thing off myself.

The next morning came, and sure enough I was told that they could not do anything about it there, but that the hospital across the street could maybe help. Here, after waiting around once again, hallelujah, I was seen by a doctor.

He knew immediately what it was (I forgot the medical term as soon as I heard it) and prescribed me antibiotics. He said that the thing would swell up quite large after a few days, which was naturally not really what I wanted to hear. When this happened I would need to visit a hospital again and get it cut open. “It is not ready”, he explained. Yippee, can’t wait.

I am reluctant to complain in this sort of situation, because it is after all my problem that I am in a country where I cannot speak the language. What is really annoying though is being passed around and told bullshit because no-one has the time or can be bothered to help you.

This is kind of the nightmare I had of what would happen if one of us got sick on this trip. In this case it was a pretty minor thing, but I would rather not think of what would happen if either of us were to get really ill or injured. Fingers crossed we don’t have to find out.

Meanwhile we have been back on the road for a few days and are spending our last night in Poland. I am currently sitting listening to the rain fall outside our tent, always a lovely sound when you are wrapped up warm inside it. It is pitched in the garden of a farmhouse which we came across while carrying out our usual evening strategy of looking for some secluded piece of forest in which to camp. As soon as we had got the tent pitched, the family who live here produced a set of chairs and a table and tea with sandwiches for us, and there followed as best a conversation as could be managed between us. The youngest daughter if the family was learning English at school and was able to talk a little, although the phrase book she had did not help very much; it was full of such sentences as “I’ll have a Scotch on the rocks, please”, “take these suitcases to my room”, and such like, which were not so useful at the time.

Later the husband of the oldest daughter, who could luckily speak German, arrived. He asked if we were worried about our safety further east, which freaked me out a little bit. Should we be? On the other hand he did say that the Germans consider the Poles as lying thieving no-goods, which they certainly do not appear to be to me, so perhaps they themselves just have some negative ideas about their neighbours to the east.

So, tomorrow afternoon then should see us cross the Ukrainian border, leaving the European Union behind and entering what was once the Soviet Union. Needless to say I am as curious as always as to what will be different there.

And here is a picture of a nun who was behind me in the queue at the first clinic in Cracow. The city is indeed full of nuns. I guess even they get sick from time to time, sore knees from praying or whatever.