Every cloud has a silver lining

How to add an unplanned 3 hours to an already long journey and still be happy about it?

Everything was going smoothly. We hit the road early in the morning, heading to Karkonosze. With a pleasant 5.5-hour drive ahead of us, on a sunny April day, the weekend seemed to be developing perfectly.

The plan was to explore the places described in the Schronisko crime series book, and the audiobook version of one part of the series was keeping us company along the way, building the suspense and making the hours fly by unnoticed.

About halfway through the journey, we pulled over to refuel both the car and ourselves with caffeine. After a short break, we got back on the road, completely immersed in the story (and yes - my husband is perfectly capable of focusing on both the audiobook and the road at the same time).

Around that moment, we noticed that the arrival time had suddenly extended by an hour, but we assumed the satnav had simply recalculated the route because of heavier traffic.

Then, about an hour before we were supposed to arrive, it suddenly dawned on me that we should have left the motorway quite a while earlier - the final part of the journey was supposed to take us along a scenic country road. That’s when I got suspicious. I checked the next exit on the satnav and, to my horror, realised it was Bielsko-Biała.

My husband admitted that the licence plates on the surrounding cars had started to seem a bit odd considering we were supposedly heading towards Wrocław. I checked our location on my phone and - to my horror - realised we were actually driving away from our destination.

When we traced everything back, we finally understood what had happened. One of our phones had Bielsko-Biała as the last searched location. After the break at the petrol station, the car’s satnav must have connected to that phone instead. We ignored all the signs and remained blissfully unaware that we were driving in the opposite direction.

Lesson number one:

Don’t get too comfortable during a long journey. Stay alert and don’t ignore your hunches.

Lesson number two:

Every cloud has a silver lining

With no traffic jams, no car trouble, and no unexpected setbacks, we somehow managed to add three extra hours to our journey. But thanks to this completely unplanned detour, we were able to finish the audiobook and explore the places described in it while the story was still fresh in our minds.

See how I teach and schedule a trial lesson

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🧩 Glossary - idioms & expressions

• every coud has a silver lining: see this post to see the meaning of this idiom

• to be immersed in something: to be completely focused on and involved in something (być całkowicie pochłoniętym czymś)

• to pull over: to stop your car at the side of the road (zjechać na pobocze)

• it dawned on me: I suddenly realised or understood something (dotarło do mnie, uświadomiłem sobie)

• hunches: feelings or instincts that something is true or going to happen, without clear proof (przeczucia)