A party with strangers
Trip Start
Sep 12, 2006
1
9
100
Trip End
Sep 08, 2008
Wroclaw,
Poland
Saturday, October 21, 2006
After a big night in Opole playing pub guide to Chris's friends from Krakow and Gliwice, we left Opole at around 3pm for Wroclaw. Wroclaw is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country, with over a thousand years of history and the second largest town square in the country after Krakow. Before I came to Poland this was one of the places I really wanted to visit, but after hearing constant stories about how great it was from one of my colleagues, I became less motivated to visit. Maybe that sounds a little strange, but I've always wanted to discover places for myself, rather than being force fed stories about it from other people who've only spent a short time there. Incidentally, this is why the city of Lviv in Ukraine is now more of an appealing destination for me than Prague for the coming long weekend. Anyway, we arrived in Wroclaw at around 4.30pm, and made straight for the square. We had about 90 minutes to kill before we met the hospitality club crew, so we went for a walk around to take some photos before finding an outdoor restaurant to get a feed. The square was particularly attractive, maybe not quite as nice as Krakow's or the old town square in Warsaw, but it was still quite something to look at.
Chris and I both thought it was more than a bit weird that we were meeting a group of more than forty strangers to socialise with for the evening, but nevertheless we made for the statue 'iglica' in plac solny to meet everyone. One of our friends from Opole, Bogna, was there so we knew we'd found the right group. At first we were a little shy, as we were the only native English speakers there, but it wasn't long before we were introduced to people. As we began the short walk to the pub (7kotow) where a room had been hired, I began to feel like I was on a school camp or something, wandering through a new city with a big group of people.
As strange as things felt at first though, the evening went really well. We met a lot of people, not only from Wroclaw, but from other places around Poland, and most people seemed to enjoy practising their English with us. Our host for the evening, Justyna, turned up soon after 11, and once the party started to thin out a small group of us continued on an all night pub and club crawl of old Wroclaw. It was a great evening!
The following morning Justyna and her partner Kryshek (spel?) prepared a nice big breakfast for Chris and I and we spent a few hours getting to know each other a little more and practise our Polish. Sometime early afternoon we bade farewell, and went for a walk south to Ostrow Trumski, an island with centuries of history. It was the first part of Wroclaw to be settled, and there were a number of stunning gothic cathedrals and parks lining the Odra River.
Later on, we met one of our new friends from the previous evening, Ania, for lunch and an iced coffee back on the rynek. Ania studied in Wroclaw, but coincidentally came from Opole which gave us plenty to chat about. Hoping to save a little money and get a decent night sleep before the week ahead, we left soon before 5pm in order to make it back to Opole before dark.
Although we didn't do the tourist thing, it was a fantastic 24 hours (with very little sleep) purely because of the people we met. Special cheerios to Justyna, Bogna, Isa, Ania, Patrick, Marta, Karol, Alicja, Alice, Tom, the Poznan crew and anyone else I met who I've forgotten!
Comments
yeah, that was a good laugh, wasn` it?
Hahah I was laughing a couple of times reading the story, it`s a good one and describes everything as it was in real, indeed. Looking forward to HC meeting in Opole, at least catching up with ya, guys, and Ania next Friday, uh?:) Otherwise I`m sure we`ll bump into each other somewhere in Opole. c ya xxx