Refried Neurons

I’m currently sat on the floor of Lublin Airport, six hours into a delay with no end in sight. My brain is so foggy I’ve begun to rediscover my sense of humour. Classic survival mechanism, really. But let’s rewind a bit.

I run a small holiday rental business in the Roztocze region of Poland — nothing huge, just a cottage and a shepherd’s hut, both near my parents’ place. I use every excuse to visit: checking in on the properties, seeing family, and soaking up the peace of the area. This time, I drove down from Gdynia — eight hours in the car — because my social media manager convinced me to film a few summer reels for Instagram.

We spent two days filming. One day was at the main cottage, baking buckwheat and cottage cheese rolls and pretending we do this sort of thing all the time. The other day was spent driving around, capturing the hidden charm of the area. If you asked most Polish people what’s special about Roztocze, they’d probably shrug. Fair enough — no mountains, no lakes, definitely no sea. Just forests, rivers, and wildlife — the sort of nature you’ll find elsewhere in the country.

But look a bit closer, and it’s a different story. What Roztocze does have is silence, dark skies, and air that smells so good you wish you could bottle it and take it home. It’s the only place in Poland with wild horses, and one of only two with bison. There are even endangered species hidden in the landscape — not that they show up well on Instagram. But we did our best to share what we could.

The shepherd’s hut is… remote. It’s only a 30-minute drive from my parents’, but there’s no reception, the nearest neighbour is 200 metres away, and all you see is forest and field. It’s the place you go when you want to escape everything. Of course, it comes with all the glory of the wild: bugs, mosquitoes, flies. At this point, my legs and back look like spotted chicken drumsticks. And yes, I’m a bit scared to sleep there alone. Nothing’s ever happened, but my imagination doesn’t need much help. I’ve only done it once — barely slept, every twig crack jolted me awake. That said, I did spot a lynx wandering past in the middle of the night. Silver linings. For the rest of the trip, I arranged company for two nights, and fled back to civilisation for the third.

Friday night, my friend K and I were invited to a campfire at a nearby rental. It’s run by a family who visited Roztocze a few years ago, fell in love, and bought a farmstead. Now they visit when they can and rent it out the rest of the time. I was late, despite being only ten minutes away. Two reasons: (a) I went mushroom hunting with my parents and we hit the jackpot, and (b) in a fit of brilliance, I thought I could memorise the route while I still had reception. I could not. I ended up on a logging track in the middle of the forest and had to turn back. Classic.

Still, I arrived — fashionably one hour late — to a lovely evening. K also runs a cottage, so it turned into a bit of an Airbnb meet-up, although the others weren’t in the rental game. Lots of chat, laughter, and good people. We left around 12:30am, had a quick rinse at the hut, and crawled into bed just after 1am.

Wouldn’t have been too bad — if we hadn’t set the alarm for 3:20am.

Why? Because we were going birdwatching in Zwierzyniec, an hour’s drive away. At 3:20 I was convinced I’d made a mistake. But no — I dragged myself out of bed, brushed my teeth, made coffee, and somehow even whipped up a frittata to take with us. We left at 4am, still in darkness.

At 5am we met our guide, Anna — a retired biology teacher turned ornithologist. The tour lasted nearly seven hours and it was brilliant. I never thought birdwatching could be so engaging. Roztocze, it turns out, is full of rare birds — tragically underrated and barely promoted. We drove around, binoculars in hand, learning to identify species by sight, song, and habitat. We even bumped into another bird nerd, got chased off by an irate farmer (I swear I was looking at a swallow nest, not into his neighbour’s windows), and just generally had a wonderful time.

At noon, we had to call it — I had a 4pm flight to London and needed to get to the airport. And that’s where the day started to unravel.

After sleeping for 2.5 hours, birdwatching for 6, and then driving 2 more, I found myself sitting on the airport floor. We boarded the plane… or almost. The aircraft came in for landing, hovered, then took off again. “Oh great,” I thought. “A delay.”

But I had no idea what was coming.

We were lined up on the tarmac, 1 metre from the plane stairs, when they told us to turn around. Something about damage to the aircraft. The next announcement? In two hours.

I felt like I’d been hit by a train. And then, just numb.

At this point — two hours past departure — even the hot dog queue was quiet. A woman was jogging laps around us all. I pitied whoever had to sit next to her. But to be honest, we all stank. I was wearing a T-shirt that had soaked in 24 hours of smoke and campfire. Pure eau de Roztocze.

For entertainment, a couple was dancing the polonaise, and another girl spent two hours trying to open a can of Coke with nails sharp enough to perform surgery. She eventually gave in and used her teeth.

The smokers seemed to be thriving in their corner of the airport.

At 8:45pm, the internet information board said we’d depart at 10. The board at the airport, however, displayed a departure time of 7:38 — which had already passed. Whoever was doing the maths clearly had access to different time zones (or different drugs).

By 9pm they brought out cold McDonald’s and some compensation leaflets. I scored two cheeseburgers — someone forgot vegetarians exist — and the woman next to me got cold chips. Bon appétit.

Communication was non-existent. The only way to get info was by spying on the border guards and asking anyone who’d managed to get a word with them. At 10pm I found out an engineer had just arrived. I was tempted to head to Warsaw instead — there was a Bolt car (car sharing) parked at the airport, which I reserved and I panic-bought a flexible 6am flight, just in case.

At 11pm, everyone suddenly stood up — a rumour was spreading. We were boarding. No announcement, of course. Just herd instinct. We were finally let on the plane. In my optimism, I cancelled the Warsaw plan and the car I’d reserved. And then… the pilot spoke.

Turns out the ground crew had hit the plane with the stairs. Nothing serious, but protocol required an inspection. The engineer, after 6 hours of travel from Warsaw which is 2h drive away, declared it airworthy — but by then, time had run out. Not only was the crew approaching their legal flying hours, but the airport’s boarding system had also broken. They’d boarded us manually, just to save time. It wasn’t enough.

We missed the window by five minutes.

The door opened again. A woman screamed at the crew, which frankly, wasn’t fair — they’d tried everything. At 00:40, we disembarked again.

I was relieved to see the Warsaw flight still bookable and the car still available. We were herded back through departures. Since we weren’t leaving the EU anymore, anyone who’d bought duty-free had to return it. (Not sure how that worked if you’d already smoked the cigarettes.)

Eventually, all EU passport holders were just let go. The others? No idea. In the terminal, we were told to ask at the ticket desk if we wanted any chance of claiming compensation. A staff member eventually emerged to say there were no hotels, no transport, and the next flight was at 1pm — twelve hours away.

Nope.

I rebooked the Warsaw flight and shouted to the crowd that I was driving — if anyone wanted to join. A lovely couple from Zamość did. We drove through the night, chatting the whole way (mostly me, talking to keep myself awake). I dropped them off at Chopin Airport and returned the car.

It was bliss to be in a real airport again — with food, coffee, and open shops at 4am. The 6am flight left on time. I slept the whole way. Miraculously, I didn’t feel half-dead on arrival — though I was immediately told to shower, which was fair. I was filthy. The Lublin flight never left, so honestly, it was the best decision I made all day.