danieru in tokyo: The weekend gone by in Wrocław

Thursday, June 09, 2005

The weekend gone by in Wrocław

It was a simple idea, Remek was turing 30. Halina and other buiddies were in Wroclaw, so Stefan, Andy and I were to fly out for beer over the weekend. I had never met Andy before, but within minutes of the drive over to Stansted, it was clear why Remek and he say eye to eye. Vocal, witty, intelligent and beer drinking. Turbulence and a warm Henieken on the flight over threw Stefan’s stomach off key. Beautiful.

What followed after landing was a simple 15 hour zealed stint of pig and beer consumption, pausing only to sleep at 5.30am after the first trams drew the people into the city for another day.

With all the freedom of design, town planners today refuse to ape a design that works. The pedestrianised Town Square. Perhaps it is just pride of original design, but while the rest of the world suffers, the citizens of Wroclaw smile. There isn’t much for me to say about Polish food, I learned that it was an affair mostly devoid of spice and style. A story of warm beer soup for breakfast brought it into perspective. Whilst we devoured an unseasoned hunk of fried pig neck on a roasting hot summer afternoon, sitting in the Square, I realised that Eastern Europe was not famous for it’s rather peasantry cuisine, but for it’s beer, rustic towns and beautiful women.

After The Square we rode the pigs in true tourist fashion.

And then more people began to appear. Martin, brother-of, and then more randoms whose names I was not set to remember until the next day. Of all the places we visited, the one I felt bore the essence of Poland most eminently was an architects hangout. A courtyard sheltered by a single leafy tree accessed through a gated archway scented the atmosphere with the outdoor life that is so horribly absent from Britain. Then head downstairs to a basement bar with low concave ceilings, low lighting and low benches. A cosy break from the bitter Baltic winters. Here we remained with Krupnik and cordial beer until it was light. When the noise of morning commuters outdid the noise of tweeting birds, we headed home.

Saturday panned out in a similar style to Friday, with some story-lets:
As I sat in a bar, a complete stranger hands me a beer and says “nasdrovia”. I say thank you, drink up, and start talking. “We are here to celebrate the birthday of Remek” he tells me, and quite proudly continues to dictate incoherent stories about the days gone by, and how Remek is a good guy, and how I should meet him. He eventually called Remek over to introduce us, and was suitably embarrassed.

The bar was under a railway line. We started drinking when the trains were running, causing the bar to tremble, and conversation to dip in favour of thought toward the structural integrity of the old, old building. We stopped drinking when the trains started running again, having never noticed they stopped. We left after Mr Jones (Counting Crows) played for the second time; stepping outside was akin to leaving a cinema – blinded by the light.

Figuring that I must be in love with the barmaid - She gave me a drink on the house, and I beamed a schoolboy grin.

The Sunday was journey home day. I got to the airport ok, engaged the iPod, and watched people. Overloaded for the grand journey to Londyn, burdened far beyond the essentials, the couple ahead in the checkin queue turn to tears, as they are left short of the cash needed to pay for excess baggage. As they piled bottles of shampoo and toothpaste into their shopping trolley saying “it’s cheaper here”, the checkin clerk say “but 15 bottles!!!”. The girl behind next in line to checkin grows impatient with the delay. Graced with a supreme and enviable sense of self-confidence, she turned right towards a group of boisterous turbo-shandy characters, flashed her eyelashes and flirtatiously requested to join their group. Only because they knew she would be, they were flattered, and humbly accepted her offer. Light chat continued until my queue moved forward enough so that I was checking-in in time to overhear her begging the checkin clek to let her take the extra 2kg she packed onboard. I am not ashamed to think that the smile I bore was from hoping that one day, her knots will untie, and she will cry. For even then, before waiting to leave Poland, I was sad.

It has been a long time since I have been sad to leave a holiday. Ordinarily, getting back home is a blessing. The need to terminate the seemingly interminable state of transit that for hours after you have said your goodbyes is one reason alone. But this time, I felt no such pleasure from unlocking the front door to the Cat Flat. R & R were floating about, one with new overtly working class dishevelled boyfriend, the other with stories of casual weekend intercourse, which made me feel misplaced. I wanted to go back to Poland that instant, and spend time with people that lived a similar life to me, and had a more common outlook. People whose jokes I laughed at, rather than apologetically smiled at. And so began the post holiday blues, and missing the people, and not the place.

But they're over now, especially after writing this, and remembering the moments. Chin-Chin

- posted by Daniel @ Thursday, June 09, 2005

Comments:

Hi Daniel, this is Patrycja (the one who understood Father Christmas joke) :)) I had a great time with all of you, too. Coming back home was really difficult, so last Saturday I went to Wroclaw again and met some of the people we had celebrated Remek's birthday with. Again we finished at "Bałagan" (MESS) at about 6 a.m. We missed you very much!
BTW, I wonder if you could send me the pictures. If yes, this is my mail: tricia@go2.pl. Hope to c u some day. Hugs.

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