[Continued from Post: Anger Management]
12 August
There were some fringe benefits. Rolf bought us 18 beer.
I can barely grasp a pen to write. We finished the cobblestone driveway job last night at 11pm, having spent about 14 hours at Rolf’s place. In the end, we were reasonably satisfied with the work we did, considering none of us had done this sort of work before. That said, we were happier just to be finished the job.
The last stone just went in. 11.30pm.
Today, muscles are sore but tolerable. Legs hurt mainly, but all of our hands are just killing us from grabbing cobblestones all day long. We really got alot done in the past 2 days. I however have been having a harder time as I’ve been sick the last 2 days, such that I’ve got a terrible chest cold that was made entirely worse by all the cobblestone dust flying around. I must’ve been coughing at least once a minute for 2+ hours. It got so painful.
Thankfully there’s Dr. Tomek and his magic medicine bag. My cold sucks, but the drugs make it tolerable. I’ve just been so weak today, I haven’t been pulling my weight, work-wise. I also realize that my motivation to do the cottage destruction has been low. I feel it’s because the whole job was started by Tomek and Andrzej and to me, they really attacked the house like barbarians rather than trying to dismantle it in a semi-organized way, so the cleanup part of the job will be fairly huge, and two, there’s dangerous rubble everywhere! Tomek has currently stepped on 2 nails; one for each foot, and today managed to put a nail right through his finger. (We were telling him he’s trying to get the Jesus Christ award... one more hand to go! Amen... I mean, Ahem)
12 August
There were some fringe benefits. Rolf bought us 18 beer.
I can barely grasp a pen to write. We finished the cobblestone driveway job last night at 11pm, having spent about 14 hours at Rolf’s place. In the end, we were reasonably satisfied with the work we did, considering none of us had done this sort of work before. That said, we were happier just to be finished the job.
The last stone just went in. 11.30pm.
Today, muscles are sore but tolerable. Legs hurt mainly, but all of our hands are just killing us from grabbing cobblestones all day long. We really got alot done in the past 2 days. I however have been having a harder time as I’ve been sick the last 2 days, such that I’ve got a terrible chest cold that was made entirely worse by all the cobblestone dust flying around. I must’ve been coughing at least once a minute for 2+ hours. It got so painful.
Thankfully there’s Dr. Tomek and his magic medicine bag. My cold sucks, but the drugs make it tolerable. I’ve just been so weak today, I haven’t been pulling my weight, work-wise. I also realize that my motivation to do the cottage destruction has been low. I feel it’s because the whole job was started by Tomek and Andrzej and to me, they really attacked the house like barbarians rather than trying to dismantle it in a semi-organized way, so the cleanup part of the job will be fairly huge, and two, there’s dangerous rubble everywhere! Tomek has currently stepped on 2 nails; one for each foot, and today managed to put a nail right through his finger. (We were telling him he’s trying to get the Jesus Christ award... one more hand to go! Amen... I mean, Ahem)
Andrzej has also stepped on 2 nails, and like Tomek, has pierced each foot. The two of them have been hobbling around all week. Bad luck. Piotr and I have also stepped on nails, but have been fortunate enough for these nails to not go through the soles of our shoes. Good luck. God bless my €5 Polish shoes, I have no idea when my last tetanus shot was. Risking life, limb, and locking jaw all for 80 Crowns/hour!
To top off my frustration with this job, we were provided and electric chainsaw that we broke within 1 hour. I had suspected that would happen however, due to the same aforementioned theme of barbarianism that somehow keeps two otherwise smart guys from thinking things through (or reading instruction manuals before using chainsaws to know that his light duty chainsaw is not really meant for house destruction, hence being electric and not gas, so best take it easy with it, etc.)
Anyway... now I’m in Per’s cottage in my PJ’s, just as a rainshower has started to fall on the roof of the cottage. Such a wonderful sound, rain on a tin roof. I’m still feeling sick, but relaxed.
The view from the water at Per's cottage.
13 August
Just have to maintain a bonfire now. The cottage destruction project is basically done. I’m still sick, as working just exacerbates the illness, making it harder to get better, but it’s not messing me up too badly.
This fire would frequently get massive, and we had to continually douse it with buckets of water to keep the temperature down, and the flames getting too high. There was a powercable overhead...
We got tanked last night. The Poles more than I because I chose to sleep through the first bottle of vodka. Then I woke up and we cracked the bottle of tequila and played Texas Hold’em poker with raisins for poker chips.
Despite my bitching, it's a good group.
One thing I’ve learnt about Poles (or at least these Poles) is that you can have a ‘sure thing’ and still manage to fuck it up. First example was the loss of the documents for the car insurance, nearly ending our trip before it started, then the manner in which the cottage was destroyed—like barbarians, then how the chainsaw was broken—i knew from the start that something would get fucked up with that; I just knew it would go wrong. Today we pulled together and got the cottage done, but we didn’t wake up until 11.30am due to the encounter with a bottle of vodka and his distant relative named Tequila. I thought this morning we weren’t gonna get the job done, and herein lies the Polish charm: whatever messed up situation they manage to get into, they pull it together and get the job done / save the situation.
"Don't test me today. Don't start shit."
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