POLSKA!!!
Whew, crazy weekend. Lukasz had to go home to Bialystok for the weekend so Bina and I decided to join him for the trip! He dropped us off in Warszawa Friday night and then we went around sightseeing on Saturday and took the train to his town Saturday night. We got to experience both a Polish houseparty and a Polish club, very entertaining. Plus, his mom cooked for us, it was so great. We cook here, but there's just something special about food prepared by a mom, it tastes so much better. It was my first home/mommy cooked meal in almost 4 months! So, here are some of the highlights:
-Warszawa-
I was pleasantly surprised by Warszawa, mostly because I've had a few people tell me it's a horribly ugly city. Considering the fact it was almost completely destroyed in WWII it's not looking so bad these days. The center is really nice, even though quite a bit of it still has that communist chic look. Bina and I had fun looking around, going to the museum and seeing the palace. It was our last romantic trip together!! Tears. It was funny, on Friday night in the hostel we stayed at I woke up around 2am to the sounds of a guy in a top bunk hitting the guy in the bunk below him with a pillow and telling him to go take his snoring spray. It was understandable though, because the guy snored really loudly. Sadly, the spray didn't help and the snoring continued ALL NIGHT.
-Partying Polish Style-
Me, Bina, Lukasz, and Lukasz's friend Beret went to some house party of one of their friends. Bina and I were obviously a walking freak show since we were random foreigners. Here's some dialogue from the night:
random guy: You know, Poland is much more advanced than the Czech Republic, we can drive faster here.
[me and Bina thinking...yeah ok...good logic...]
the same guy a bit later on
random guy: Oh, but Germany is the best because they don't have speed limits
[me and Bina thinking...mmmm....yeah...can't he make better conversation than this?]
and the same guy again
random guy: So what are you guys doing here?
Bina: Well, our roommate Lukasz wanted to bring along some beautiful, clever girls, so here we are!
random guy: You're not clever
me and Bina: What? Are you telling us we're not clever? Are you calling us stupid?
random guy: Yes.
Bina: You have a bad approach.
Honestly, how do some people ever expect to get action?
Later on a bunch of us were dancing to the song by Juanes -Camisa Negra. Afterwards we were in the kitchen and Bina and I were saying something in Spanish and this one girl who was wearing a black shirt said something to the effect of "Kurva [bitch]! I have no idea what the hell they are saying!" And since the only word Bina and I understood was kurva I turned to Lukasz and was like, "Lukasz, is she calling us kurvas?" It was so funny, she was just like...no, no, I am not calling you kurvas. And then we made friends with her and called her Camisa Negra (it means black shirt and she was wearing a black shirt...we are so funny).
Also, the owner of the apartment we were at (Kamil) was telling us how he was trying to impress this one girl that was there, and we were like...oooh which one is she? And so he said something to the effect of "the one with the shirt that shows her boobs". The rest of the night when he came over to talk to us we would just say, "Kamil! What are you doing here?? Go for the boobs!!" It was probably funnier in combination with Polish vodka.
After getting our party on at the house, we decided to head to a club to meet up with some of Lukasz's other friends. It was great, we managed to make friends even through the language barrier. Even though Lukasz and Beret helped out with translating ;)
-Lazy Sunday-
The next day we slept in late and went for a tour of Bialystok. It was cold so we only got out of the car once to take pictures with the palace, but it was still good. While we were busy being touristy Lukasz's mom made us food and it was delicious.
-On the Road Again-
We finally hit the road about 4:00pm back to Ostrava with the beginnings of a snow storm. Luckily, we left that behind in Bialystok and mostly just had fog to contend with the rest of the way. It was so weird, the fog would just come out of nowhere and disappear as quickly. Kind of creepy. It was funny though, the first few times we would drive for a bit through the fog and Lukasz would say "What the fuck!" and the fog would clear up right away. Divine intervention maybe. ;) We were making decent time until.....
-Border Crossing-
Generally, the border crossing is not that difficult. It usually takes about 5-10 minutes. However, on this occasion the border control people decided to be evil bastards and hassle me about a missing stamp. I went to Krakow last month and evidently I was missing a stamp for my way into Poland even though I gave my passport on the train to the passport control guy. They didn't care when I entered the country on Friday, but apparently on a Sunday around midnight when people are tired and want to go home it becomes an issue. We were stuck at the border for over an hour while they filled out some form. The form had like 10 blank spaces for name, address, etc. but apparently it takes a very, very long time to fill out. Idiots. Incompetency. We were getting so annoyed at the border waiting while we saw all the other cars go through that we decided to take some pictures. Then we were still waiting. Finally, things were sorted out. We were all a little cranky since we were tired and just wanted to go home. I've been trying to regulate my emotions and not become frustrated and yell at people lately but that trend ended at the border crossing. It was something like the following:
Border control guard to Lukasz: [blah blah blah in polish blah blah blah]
Lukasz to me: The border control guard says that you should make sure to get your passport stamped
me: But I gave the passport to the guy on the train! He was supposed to stamp it! And why is it a big deal now when it wasn't a big deal on Friday? [getting a little heated here]
guard says to Lukasz: [blah blah blah in polish blah blah blah]
Lukasz to me: He says to make sure you get your passport stamped
me: I GAVE IT TO THE BORDER CONTROL GUY! HE WAS SUPPOSED TO STAMP IT! THIS ISN'T MY FAULT!
Mmmm...yeah. I might have yelled a little. And ranted to Bina and Lukasz about how I was going to write an angry letter to...someone. Then we realized that we were free and we ran to the car and drove back to home sweet Ostrava.
So basically, Poland was amazing and a lot of fun although the Polish/Czech border control guards are totally on my shit list. Check pictures in the Warszawa and Bialystok album of 'My Pictures'.
-Warszawa-
I was pleasantly surprised by Warszawa, mostly because I've had a few people tell me it's a horribly ugly city. Considering the fact it was almost completely destroyed in WWII it's not looking so bad these days. The center is really nice, even though quite a bit of it still has that communist chic look. Bina and I had fun looking around, going to the museum and seeing the palace. It was our last romantic trip together!! Tears. It was funny, on Friday night in the hostel we stayed at I woke up around 2am to the sounds of a guy in a top bunk hitting the guy in the bunk below him with a pillow and telling him to go take his snoring spray. It was understandable though, because the guy snored really loudly. Sadly, the spray didn't help and the snoring continued ALL NIGHT.
-Partying Polish Style-
Me, Bina, Lukasz, and Lukasz's friend Beret went to some house party of one of their friends. Bina and I were obviously a walking freak show since we were random foreigners. Here's some dialogue from the night:
random guy: You know, Poland is much more advanced than the Czech Republic, we can drive faster here.
[me and Bina thinking...yeah ok...good logic...]
the same guy a bit later on
random guy: Oh, but Germany is the best because they don't have speed limits
[me and Bina thinking...mmmm....yeah...can't he make better conversation than this?]
and the same guy again
random guy: So what are you guys doing here?
Bina: Well, our roommate Lukasz wanted to bring along some beautiful, clever girls, so here we are!
random guy: You're not clever
me and Bina: What? Are you telling us we're not clever? Are you calling us stupid?
random guy: Yes.
Bina: You have a bad approach.
Honestly, how do some people ever expect to get action?
Later on a bunch of us were dancing to the song by Juanes -Camisa Negra. Afterwards we were in the kitchen and Bina and I were saying something in Spanish and this one girl who was wearing a black shirt said something to the effect of "Kurva [bitch]! I have no idea what the hell they are saying!" And since the only word Bina and I understood was kurva I turned to Lukasz and was like, "Lukasz, is she calling us kurvas?" It was so funny, she was just like...no, no, I am not calling you kurvas. And then we made friends with her and called her Camisa Negra (it means black shirt and she was wearing a black shirt...we are so funny).
Also, the owner of the apartment we were at (Kamil) was telling us how he was trying to impress this one girl that was there, and we were like...oooh which one is she? And so he said something to the effect of "the one with the shirt that shows her boobs". The rest of the night when he came over to talk to us we would just say, "Kamil! What are you doing here?? Go for the boobs!!" It was probably funnier in combination with Polish vodka.
After getting our party on at the house, we decided to head to a club to meet up with some of Lukasz's other friends. It was great, we managed to make friends even through the language barrier. Even though Lukasz and Beret helped out with translating ;)
-Lazy Sunday-
The next day we slept in late and went for a tour of Bialystok. It was cold so we only got out of the car once to take pictures with the palace, but it was still good. While we were busy being touristy Lukasz's mom made us food and it was delicious.
-On the Road Again-
We finally hit the road about 4:00pm back to Ostrava with the beginnings of a snow storm. Luckily, we left that behind in Bialystok and mostly just had fog to contend with the rest of the way. It was so weird, the fog would just come out of nowhere and disappear as quickly. Kind of creepy. It was funny though, the first few times we would drive for a bit through the fog and Lukasz would say "What the fuck!" and the fog would clear up right away. Divine intervention maybe. ;) We were making decent time until.....
-Border Crossing-
Generally, the border crossing is not that difficult. It usually takes about 5-10 minutes. However, on this occasion the border control people decided to be evil bastards and hassle me about a missing stamp. I went to Krakow last month and evidently I was missing a stamp for my way into Poland even though I gave my passport on the train to the passport control guy. They didn't care when I entered the country on Friday, but apparently on a Sunday around midnight when people are tired and want to go home it becomes an issue. We were stuck at the border for over an hour while they filled out some form. The form had like 10 blank spaces for name, address, etc. but apparently it takes a very, very long time to fill out. Idiots. Incompetency. We were getting so annoyed at the border waiting while we saw all the other cars go through that we decided to take some pictures. Then we were still waiting. Finally, things were sorted out. We were all a little cranky since we were tired and just wanted to go home. I've been trying to regulate my emotions and not become frustrated and yell at people lately but that trend ended at the border crossing. It was something like the following:
Border control guard to Lukasz: [blah blah blah in polish blah blah blah]
Lukasz to me: The border control guard says that you should make sure to get your passport stamped
me: But I gave the passport to the guy on the train! He was supposed to stamp it! And why is it a big deal now when it wasn't a big deal on Friday? [getting a little heated here]
guard says to Lukasz: [blah blah blah in polish blah blah blah]
Lukasz to me: He says to make sure you get your passport stamped
me: I GAVE IT TO THE BORDER CONTROL GUY! HE WAS SUPPOSED TO STAMP IT! THIS ISN'T MY FAULT!
Mmmm...yeah. I might have yelled a little. And ranted to Bina and Lukasz about how I was going to write an angry letter to...someone. Then we realized that we were free and we ran to the car and drove back to home sweet Ostrava.
So basically, Poland was amazing and a lot of fun although the Polish/Czech border control guards are totally on my shit list. Check pictures in the Warszawa and Bialystok album of 'My Pictures'.
posted by Aruna at 3:44 PM
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