Poland: The Greatest Country in the World

Hello again friends!  I'm sorry for such an obnoxious delay for this post.  I shouldn't promise things and wait a month to deliver. I'm shamed, you can be sure of that.  Before I begin, you might notice a new look to my blog, and that is because I've finally discovered how to personalize it a bit.  The new background is a photo that I took in Poznań. I think it adds the proper ambiance, don't you?

Life in Kassel has been alternately exciting and boring (as usual) and I will share some of the excitement but clearly the most important event in the past month was our trip to Poland.  The purpose of the trip was to attend Ania and Dominik's wedding, but we weren't going to go all the way to Poland and not see some of the exciting cities.

Ania and Dominik left us earlier in the week, and so at the end of July Eduardo, Natalia, Jehona and I rented a car and took off on a family trip.  We headed east, relying on the GPS, and got pretty far before we realized that the GPS was taking us to the Czech Republic.  We all like the Czech Republic, but we didn't know of anyone getting married there so we altered the route, heading a bit more north.   We arrived at the border in the later afternoon, exchanged some euros for złotys, and sped onto the Polish roads.  Though I guess "sped" isn't quite right, since there are no big highways and most of the border region is under construction.  Rather, we cautiously putted along through the traffic cones and took in the scenery.  I didn't expect there to be such a difference, and while it wasn't drastic there was a noticeable change.  My guess is that this part of Poland is timber country, because it had the clear look of trees being grown for cutting.  

Welcome to the border!

We made it to Poznań in the early evening, checked into our hostel and immediately fell in love with the city.  Poznań is one of the oldest cities in Poland, and some claim that it was the first capitol of the kingdom of Poland.  There are gorgeous old buildings, outdoor markets, and a central square that rivals any I've seen.  It reminded me simultaneously of Amsterdam, Brussels and Prague.  My words could not do justice, but fortunately I had my camera.  

Extra Impressive at night

Poznań Town Hall

 

Natalia's famous in Poznań  

I like this picture.  It's a statue in the Central Square.

We wandered around for a bit, taking in the sights and looking for a place to eat dinner.  The only Polish foods I was really aware of are kielbasa and goulash, so I wasn't sure what to expect.  We found a restaurant just outside of the center with a warm and cozy atmosphere, extremely friendly staff, and delicious food.   And beer.  Super delicious Polish beer.  

We had to get used to the conversion from euros to złotys, and when we were figuring out the price of our meals I was convinced that I was estimating wrong.  But we realized pretty quickly that Poland is CHEAP.  With good food, beautiful cities, and friendly and good looking people, Poland didn't seem to have a downside.  Well, if you're getting paid in euros, I suppose. 

Speaking of getting paid in euros and living on złotys, after dinner and a visit to a dance club we headed back to our hostel and met some rowdy folks outside of a bar just downstairs.  They were very friendly guys, interested in talking and getting to know us.  (They were drunk, of course, but that's what made us so interesting to them.)  One of the fellows invited us inside to have a drink, on him.  I don't recall his name, but he was a German living in Poland and working for Mercedes.  I understood then why he offered to pay for the drinks.  Not only was he earning euros, but it was his company credit card that bought us the shots of whiskey.  This was good, because then I didn't feel so bad about dumping mine on the floor.  (I do NOT like whiskey.)  He wasn't so comfortable with English, so we spoke German, but it didn't matter much because he wasn't entirely in his right mind so we had the same conversation about four times.  We also talked to another friend of his, a Polish guy, who was from Toruń.  We were visiting Toruń the next day, so I asked him all about the city and what we should see.  His main recommendation was to visit a pizza restaurant called La Scala on Zamkowa.  He said it over and over so I wouldn't forget.  I thought it would be worth a try to look for it, but when we left the bar that evening to go to our hostel, I noticed that we were on a street called Zamkowa, and across the street was La Scala.  Well, we found it.  


It was a good time in the bar, because it seems to be a rowdy place.  A lot of people were dancing on the bar, and when I asked the guy from Toruń if this was normal in Poland, he said "ohhh, nooo."  I asked if he was going to dance on the bar, and he said "ohhh, nooo."  About five minutes later he was up on the bar dancing like his life depended on it.  Ohhh nooo.  

Thank you for fighting and warning us
about that burning deer.

We left Ponzań the next afternoon after another walk around to see the place in daylight.  We bought magnets and postcards and visited the famous goat statues in the town center.  Apparently, the kings cook was making a dinner of deer but he burned it, and these two goats escaped and then warned the town about a fire by getting into a big fight, so the king pardoned the cook and they immortalized the goats in the clocktower and in statues. I think. I'm a little fuzzy on the details.


We headed for Toruń next, the birthplace of Nikolaus Copernicus.  Ania had recommended Toruń very highly, so I was looking forward to it.  It was a neat little town, but not as cool as Poznań in my opinion.  Still we took our obligatory photos of Copernicus.

Local Hero.

We left Toruń after lunch, and punched in Ania's parents' address in the GPS.  We were so excited to be going to her hometown to meet her parents, celebrate the night before her wedding, and smash bottles in her driveway.  


I should explain.  Apparently it is a tradition in Poland for friends of the bride to come to her house the night before her wedding and smash empty bottles and other glassware outside of her house in exchange for vodka.   The more glass you bring, the more vodka you are entitled to.  Ania and Dominik told us a story of a guy who brought an old toilet to smash, asking for a lot of vodka.  Clever, eh?  


We stayed for just a bit, meeting some family and friends, and then left to find our lodgings.  The wedding was in the small town of Górzno, about 30 minutes from Ania's home.  We made it there with only a a few wrong turns, and found the camping area where we would be staying.  The wedding itself was at a fantastic inn that had been a mill, but we didn't book in time to get rooms there.  We were staying in cabins less than a kilometer up the road, which suited us fine.  The only problem was that we arrived too late and no one was in the office.  We knocked on a few doors, asked Ania to call the number, and enlisted the help of some other cabin dwellers.  We got it straightened out eventually, and settled into our little hut.  The next day, Natalia and I went to the big inn for breakfast, and sat for at least an hour talking, drinking coffee and enjoying the scenery.  When we left, we found that we were not able to drive back to our huts, because there was a triathlon taking place in Górzno.  Instead of turning right to drive the 800 meters to our hut, we had to go left and go off-roading through the woods.  Because of the lack of roads, this took an extra 40 minutes, including the time we spent stuck in the mud.  To demonstrate the absurdity of our detour, I've included a map. 

You will see that the pink X is the inn where we had breakfast.  The green X is our hut.  The yellow line shows the route that we had to take, and the brown X is approximately where we were stuck in the mud.  Please note that this road (with the brown X) is not a road.  It is a mud path with tire grooves so deep you could bathe in them.  

We finally made it back to our huts where we met Eduardo and Jehona, and they looked at the car and asked if we had gone to a derby.  Har har.  

We went into Górzno to watch the rest of the triathlon.  It was so much fun to see all the athletes tearing around corners on their bikes, occasionally crashing, and jumping off to start their run.  It was a little bit odd though, that no one was really cheering.  All of the races that I have been to in the US have cheering crowds along the route, yelling for everyone.  In this triathlon, people only cheered for those that they knew.  We didn't know anyone, so we cheered for everyone.  I think it took them by surprise, and some looked genuinely shocked.  

After lunch we went back to our huts to start prepping for the wedding.  Eduardo wisely left the three girls alone for a while while we freaked out about hair and makeup.  Despite some of us (read: me) being totally inept with these things, we all came out looking pretty fantastic.  We made it to the inn and over to the little island in time for the wedding.  It was such a perfect setting, and Ania and Dominik looked so happy. 

Everyone wants a piece of
the bride and groom.

The queue to congratulate.

After the ceremony and the congratulations, we went into the inn for dinner.  There were three long tables, one for Ania's family, one for all the friends, and one for Dominik's family.  You could also call these tables the Polish-speaking table, the English-speaking table, and the German-speaking table.  Every speech, statement and toast was translated from Polish to English to German or vice-versa.  It was really wonderful.  The dinner started soon after, with delicious chicken soup.  Apparently it's a good idea to eat chicken soup before you drink vodka.  And boy, did we drink vodka.  Polish people don't mess around, I tell you, and when the bride's father gives you a shot of vodka, well, you drink it.  Nostrovia! 

After the soup we had some beef and potatoes and other goodies, and then we were all called to the dance floor for some getting to know you games.  We were divided up by how far we had traveled to come to the wedding, (one guy came from New Zealand!) and how many languages we spoke, and then we were given a bingo game to introduce us to each other.  We had to find, among other things, a Polish man with a mustache, a German with glasses, a person who was not German or Polish, and a German who realized that the German football team was only successful because of the Polish players.  It was a good time.  After this, we were directed to the desert and coffee table.  I was happy and satisfied, and ready to start dancing.  Then they brought in a plate of fish.  Followed by more beef, and cabbage and vegetables.  The food was family dining style, so the plates just piled up on all of the tables.  I had mistakenly thought that the food was in the beginning, and then you dance and drink.  Oh, not so with a Polish wedding.  The food continues all night.  And I mean ALL NIGHT.  Every 40 minutes or so the waitstaff would bring out another round of plates.  I think it was about 2 AM when they rolled through the dance floor with a ham.  A HAM.  And they never took the old plates away if they weren't empty, so the table got more and more crowded.


Oh, and there was Polish sausage available at all times, naturlich.

Naturlich. 

This may sound a little strange, but I think it's actually quite brilliant.  You aren't forced to gorge yourself in the beginning, and you can pace yourself.  Plus, as you are drinking through the evening, there is always food to pick at and new food to try.  This is probably a major reason why the group was able to drink so much vodka.

No comment. 

And of course, we danced.  It was a fun group of people, and the dance floor was jumping.  Even though the DJ wasn't very good, we made the best of it, and towards the end of the night Natalia just told him to move over and she picked all the songs.  It got a lot better at that point.  We were energized all night, (possibly sustained by the food) and danced until 5 AM.

We had been having so much fun that we didn't realize that it had begun pouring rain.  When it was time to go home, we were so thankful that we had designated a driver to bring us home.  We piled about 10 people into the car to drive the 500 to 7000 meters to our various hotels/huts.  When we got back to our huts, the rain had let up a bit, but the ground was a mud pit.  Our hut was on top of a hill, and while there were stairs that went up the side, they were a bit out of the way, so we normally just hiked up the side of the hill in the grass.  Normally this was fine, but that night it was a poor choice.  Eduardo and Jehona were smart and took the stairs but Natalia and I were, well, not smart.  As we eased up the hill, just a few feet from the porch of our hut, I said out loud, "I'm going to fall in the mud, aren't I?"  And then I did.  I heard Natalia start laughing behind me, and then a schquelp as she fell in the mud too.  She grabbed my leg and we slid back down the hill.  At this point, clever people would have taken the stairs, but I guess we had gotten a taste for mud after our drive in the morning so we repeatedly attempted to crawl up the hill, only to slip again and slide back down.  Eduardo had the choice of helping us up or getting the camera, and I don't think I will ever understand why he opted to help us.  Tsk.  Fortunately we were smart enough to pull out the camera after we were back on dry land.  I felt pretty good, but Natalia was really upset that she had gotten a hole in her stockings.

 

It was honestly one of the most fun nights of my life, and I'm so glad that I was able to celebrate with Ania and Domi as they started a new journey.  After the wedding, they left for their honeymoon- a year traveling through Asia.  I'm happy for them, a little jealous, and a lot sad that they aren't part of my daily life anymore, but that's how life goes, I guess.  I'll see them again someday, I know that, and until then I've made some incredible friends who were a major piece of my life in Germany.

Until next time, stay dry.