The Motherland

Finally! After 22 years I have made it to the only country I really KNOW is part of my heritage: Poland.

Okay, so I am in Wrocław not Włocławek (where my great great grandfather is buried) but still. This town is really interesting. It was completely destroyed about 65 years ago at the end of WWII and they have worked really hard to rebuilt it to its pre-war glory. You can definitely feel the WWII vibe and the buildings are this strange mix of bright colors and gothic architecture.

Celesté and I arrived on Sunday afternoon after a really great but long week of Torino, Florence, Milan, and Rachel/Jason/Liz visiting. When we got to the hostel, we literally thought we had been scammed because the building when you walk in looks run down and abandoned... but luckily the hostel is lovely and everyone super nice and helpful.

We walked into our room and immediately met our bunk mates: some polish men, a british guy, an asian guy who was sleeping, and two australians. We got to talking to the Australians (Joey and Jeremy) and decided to venture out and explore the city with them. When we stepped out of the hostel, it was down pouring. We decided to brave it anyway and wandered towards the center, well what we thought was the center. We ended up in a coffee shop where we got four cappuccinos. Then, out of no where, some random polish man who came in with his wife and daughter bought us and the workers all cake! So sweet. From there we decided to get something a bit stronger. We found this bar (Carpe Diem) that was down some alley, down some creepy stairs into the ground, and dark because there was no electricity. However, it was an amazing choice. We started with a shot each of this Polish vodka, Żubrówka, which was incredibly smooth. Then we each got a Polish beer. We stayed in this place for like 5 hours just chatting about life. When we got hungry we ventured out of the dark bar and got kebabs. Never again. They reminded me why I never get them. By the time we finished eating we headed back to the hostel to do some work and sleep. 

Proper Pierogis

The next day we headed out under cloudy, but dry skies to explore the city for real. We wandered all day finding gnomes around the city and taking in the polish sights. We stopped to get coffee again and to rest our feet. There isn't too much to say because we literally just walked for hours exploring the city center and trying to make sense of the Polish signs that none of us could read. At one point we went back to the hostel and played some cards before heading out again to find the lamplighter who in cape and top hat walks around Ostrow Tumski lighting lamps the quasi-old style way. We caught him just as he lit the final lamp. We were a bit bummed but all will be remedied the next day. For dinner, we went to this place recommended to us by one of the hostel workers to experience some good Polish food. We ordered a huge plate of pierogis to share and had planned on getting something after, however, we were so full when we finished that we decided to just call it a night. With dinner we all got Polish beers again, well I had mulled beer which was like happy in liquid form.

Also, being that it was St. Patrick's Day, we headed to the Irish Pub we found, where we were seated in the VIP section (because the waiter loved us- well because there were no other seats...) Still fairly early, we called it a night. 

The next day, the boys were off to Berlin so we played some cards and said our "see you laters" and Celesté and I headed back out to attempt to do some studying in a cafe and then explore some more. We made a point of getting back around 5:30 to stalk the lamp lighter, which we successfully did. We got dinner at the same restaurant as the night before and Celesté got Goulash while I got Bigos. Delicious. Then we called it a night as we were exhausted.

The final day, we saw the Panorama depicting the battle where the Polish beat the Russians, and visited the architecture museum. We ran into one of our new bunk mates and ended up grabbing lunch with him and walking around the city one last time. Then we headed out to catch our flight back to reality.