a visitor from Berlin... it was a fatty weekend

Circa December 2008: "You're studying in Berlin, I'm studying in Wroclaw?"  

"Oh, then we're neighbors... eastern europe adventures!"

My friend from Chapman, Nick Nader, visited me in Wroclaw this weekend, it was a lot of fun and much needed, but made me a little homesick for my southern cali homies.

Nick arrived and we wasted no time getting some DELICIOUS pierogi ruskie.  Nick asked me previously if there were any gay clubs in wroclaw and I was skeptical, Poland isn't known for its social tolerance after all, but alas, we found a list of several clubs right in the area, brilliant!  Oh yeah, and we ate bueno chocolate, it was way bueno.

So, after some pre-drinking in Olowek with some other students, including the Germans we hit up a jazz club called Rura, I've been dying to see live music.  There was a Polish James Brown cover group that was actually not bad, it was fun, but we wanted to hit up the gay scena, surpisingly enough we were able to get about 10-20 kids to go with us, finding the club wasn't too difficult, but then when we arrived...

NO ONE was there.

Literally, one guy, who I think was just friends with the bartender.  So, we had enough people to start our own party, so to speak, but lesson learned: no homo scene in Wroclaw.

During the day we saw some sights including, but not limited to the MOST POSH pizza hut in the world.  Pizza hut= Olive Garden in Poland, I had the gourmet chicken wings.  We visited the Polska National museum in Wroclaw which had an AMAZING contemporary art exhibit.  The kind of contemporary art that nightmares are made of and vice versa. If I visited there on any kind of drug I would most certainly be traumatized.

We had a ambrosius dinner at Akropolis, this fancy greek restaurant in Rynek.  Probably the most tender lamb I've had in my entire life, oh and the spinach feta, to die for.  We polished off a bottle of red wine and set out into the night.  Meeting up with the Germans, we were on a mission to find a "squatter" party.

Anna had met some squatters in a house and went to a party in the house last week when I was in krakow.  There was supossed to be a party this evening so we set out with a intersection and a sense of adventure.  30 minutes later, no avail.  We asked several people, well mostly the Czech people did because they had the best Polish, they all seemed helpful and assured us it was close, which was why we continued and continued and continued.  This very drunk guy said he knew exactly where it was and offered to show us where that was, but not before saying something quickly to his friends in Polish, before they parted.

sketch.

We were in such a big group though that I wasn't too worried, although large groups in panic are some of the most dangerous evils.  This guy never lured us from the main road because we were too divided, now some of us wanted to go some didn't, the Czech girls kept asking random people on the street.  We were fucking cold by this point so decided to just head to Rynek.  

Went to a typical club, I talked at length with this polish fellow in cargo pants, who confessed that I was the first American he'd met in Poland.  It's a very weird feeling to realize that you are the sole representative for an entire country in the immediate eyes of an individual.  A lot of the Polish people I've met, although their English is usually pretty good, they have qualms with the euphemisms in the language.  The don't appreciate how indirect English is, which in reality I don't either, I think I'm just so used to it.  The indirect sugarcoated nature of our speech in formal and casual dialogue is what makes us English speakers, specifically Americans, so awkward.  I may just notice this more though because most of my conversations involve introductions, meetings, although this Polish girl that I know decently well had a similar discrepancy while speaking to me, she wasn't sure if it was out of place to compliment my hair.  Anyways, tangent!

NIck and I returned to olowek at 5am and finished an entire bag of paprika chips!  We skyped our mutual friend Blake and decided we should sleep at least 2-3 hours before going to the train station.

I miss Nick, he is lovely. :)