All the way through Poland by train to Kraków

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How do you keep up your spirits on a day when your blood sugar is consistently extremely high, no matter what you do? Brainless optimism is how I do it, with frequent flashes of frustration. But spending almost ten hours on a comfy and speedy train running the entire length of Poland helps ease the heartache somewhat.

Here on Day 31 of the trip, Masayo and I were on the move, by train for only the third time in a month of buses. We were shooting all the way from Malbork in the north, having toured its World Heritage castle, to Kraków way down in the south. My BGs were absolutely awful all day until the very end, and I think I even screwed that up.

Does low blood sugar wake you up if you get it at night? It does me (luckily). High BG, on the other hand, rarely does. But it did today. At 6:30 I sat up in bed in our guesthouse in Malbork with an unmistakable feeling of highness. And I was right: 289. I took three units of Humalog and went back to sleep.

Later someone brought breakfast to our room and it was filling and delicious, if simple. Eggs, rolls, tomatoes, lunchmeat, cheese, and… coffee. Sort of.

I figured the early-morning Humalog had brought me down to normal, so I didn’t check my BG before breakfast, and just took enough insulin to cover the meal.

According to the internet, the train from Malbork to Kraków takes 9.5 hours and costs about $40 each. While we lurked in the room and waited, I checked my BG around 10:30 and was stunned to see it was 361.

That’s not a mere carb/insulin miscalculation; something is making me high. Head spinning, I took some corrective Humalog and we checked out.

After walking through a small but pleasant downtown-looking area of Malbork to the station, we bought our tickets to Kraków and stocked up on some food from an attached store for the train ride. (We didn’t know if there would be food on board or not. Don’t get caught on a train without food!)

They only had junk food; I got sandwiches, chips, yogurt, doughnuts, and a Coke Zero. Let the journey begin!

In fact the train turned out to have good service on board – someone came by periodically with free coffee, tea, or juice, and there was even a dining car (that we didn’t visit).There was also a power adapter on my seat, which was nice because it let us watch videos on my laptop.

The weather was misty outside, and the landscape was rather dull anyway. And at any rate darkness fell at about 3:30 so half of the journey was spent looking around the train car. The seats were nice, and there weren’t that many people, so the laptop came in handy. We watched Louis CK standup videos, sharing a single pair of earbuds, and Masayo knitted some gloves for me.

By 3:00 my blood sugar had made it out of the 300s, thankfully, but was still way too high at 259. It was snack time, yogurt and doughnut, and I took a large Humalog shot for everything.

The train stopped only every hour or so, and remained lightly populated until we got to Warsaw. At a station called Warszawa Wschodnia, where the train sat motionless for 45 minutes, I checked to see how my shot had worked. Not at all: I was 321. Big sigh. It was dinner time, sandwich and chips, and I took another very large Humalog shot.

Things were not working for me today.

At Warszawa Centralna station a lot of people got on; almost every seat was taken. From there all the way down to Kraków there were no more stops. Actually I read that tomorrow the BBC is broadcasting an episode of Great Railway Journeys highlighting the Warsaw to Krakow route. I don’t know why; all I saw was darkness. Must be really nice in the daytime.

In Kraków, finally

For the second week in a row, we did something I really try to avoid: arriving in a new town late on a Saturday evening. We did it last week in Warsaw and again tonight in Kraków. Funny how the trip dictates its own schedule, despite what I may want. (Kind of like blood sugar.)

We walked through Old Town to Tulip Hostel, about 1.2 km from the train station. I’d booked a room on booking.com so I felt safe that we had a place to go. Old Town Kraków seemed great – lively but friendly, with grand buildings and warm lighting.

Tulip Hostel has a fantastic location, along a windy little street in the southern part of Old Town with a tram running below our second-floor balcony, statues and cathedrals in sight, and restaurants and shops nearby. We have reserved four nights here, the longest stay at any place so far on this trip.

There is a lot to see in and around Kraków.

At 10:00 I checked again and was down a little bit: 240. We found a takeout pizza-by-the-slice place for dinner and I got a can of beer at a little shop. The pizza was excellent but I knew it would need a large shot, as pizza so far on this trip has been surprisingly high in carbs.

Kraków welcomed me, as Gdańsk had, with better blood sugar: 149 at 12:30 am. Back in the 100s for the first time in a day! The period of unexplained highs seemed over.

In fact, I convinced myself that this 149 was probably too low, and that I still had some Humalog in me that would work its magic overnight.

So I drank a bottle of juice.

It was a diabetic gamble. Would it work? I’ll see tomorrow morning. But Masayo and I are in southern Poland, ready to spend a few days seeing Kraków and the many sights in and around it. So far, so good!

What’s the longest train ride you’ve ever taken?

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