Upon landing I slot myself into a bedraggled queue leading up to a snack kiosk jewelled with unfamiliar looking food and drink items; with the exception of Coca- Cola, of course.

My girlfriend is trying to find a cash machine as we have no local currency. She finally appears through a mist of half-asleep, half-crumpled travellers and shakes her head. She looks a little disheartened too as her brother — whom I'm due to meet for the first time — is waiting for us over 300 kilometres away in Gdansk.

Chocolate and the human spirit

As I step outside I gasp as a cruel, icy wind cuts through my measly flannel jacket. Once again, I’ve underdressed for the occasion. Unlike the time when I turned up at a job interview with torn jeans and a black eye, this lack of apparel could cost me more than a job, it could cost me my life.

"Stop being so melodramatic," says my girlfriend, "And put another jumper on."

We discover that the runway has been turned into an ice rink and the only way to get back to Gdansk is on a bus. The prospect of an eight-hour bus ride on an empty stomach is daunting but hopefully we can reclaim some of the sleep lost in the last 15 hours.

A lady with two kids shares the back seat with us. As the bus begins to trundle carefully towards its destination, the lady pulls out a big chocolate bar and begins to unwrap it. Realising I'm blatantly staring at her wares, she kindly offers me another chocolate bar — possibly meant for her little rays of sunshine. I inwardly smile at how the human spirit comes together in times of such hardship.

"Dziekuje (Thank you)," says my girlfriend to the kind lady, and breaks off half for herself.

Always remember, Stalin was a bad man

I look outside and watch the wintery countryside crawl past. We’ve driven through Warsaw which was my first actual experience of Soviet communism. I was rather naïve regarding Eastern European history until I met my girlfriend. A case in point was when I unravelled an old Russian art poster of Stalin, showed it to her and said, "This is cool, hey! Where should we hang it up?"

Soviet architecture is easy to spot. If it is square and grey and looks like a giant dropped a concrete brick in the middle of a field, then you can be sure that it was conceived by a regime which still deeply affects its neighbouring victims.

We move through the countryside which is difficult to appreciate because the blizzards have left a white haze in their wake. I begin to relax, my girlfriend puts her head on my shoulder and we are primed for a good sleep.

Czesc Jack

"Kurwa!"

I wearily open my eyes and see a bottle of Jack Daniels raise into the air and then tip its nectar directly into the gullet of the chap sitting directly in front of us. He and his travel buddy have recently become loud and rude.

"Kurwa" is a Polish swear word and one which, when ejected from the same mouth which has consumed almost half a bottle of neat Jack, spells trouble.

If I could speak Polish, I would have had this situation sorted, obviously. Instead all I do is sit upright and look at the back of their heads sternly. I then turn to my girlfriend and shake my head and then nod.

Picking up on my ambivalence, she leans over and in no uncertain terms tells them to behave. I sit upright even more to prepare myself for possible retaliation. To my surprise, the two lads sheepishly apologise and continue supping their liquor in relative silence.

But no human can keep the irrepressible spirit of Jack Daniels down. Within about half-an-hour the swearing resumes and these two gents who have now polished off the bottle of Jack Daniels and numerous beers, have officially crossed the line — or my girlfriend’s line more correctly. She gets up and marches towards the front of the bus and has a word with the bus driver and then calmly returns to her seat.

Enter the Driver

The whole bus is waiting for the next move which comes when the bus screeches to a sudden halt on the side of the road. The bus driver; a burly, rugged and weathered man who looks as if he was raised by wolves in Siberia; strides up to the to the fellas, says two words and points to the freezing, nowhere blur outside.

Without question they remove themselves from the bus and wait for the driver to chuck out their bags. As the bus pulls away we look back as one lad urinates against a stone wall and the other — who possibly has just realised their current predicament — watches forlornly as we head of to Gdansk.

Soon I will meet the family.

Got your own travel tale to tell? Email it to us here!