In a nutshell: Easy drive, no traffic, Polish pottery is amazing and Polish food is super yummy! However, watch out for window washers and rude waitresses....
Here goes:
Chelsey and I successfully made our way across the country and across the border into Poland without causing an international incident, which for some reason is what many people predicted would happen.... huh.... why would anyone think that we would cause an international incident? Can't figure that one out.
Oh, wait, maybe it's because we're two crazy blonde American girls being let loose on the autobahn to cross into another country with nothing but time on our hands and money in our wallets, and a basically endless supply of Polish pottery!
Yeah, well, psssh on all those people, because Go Us. We did awesome!
Somehow Chelsey was able to convince me that we should leave at 0530 on Friday morning, and believe it or not, we did just that! It was perfect actually. We were checked into our hotel in Boleslawiec no later than 1 p.m. Guess what that meant? Time to start shopping!
We browsed around several stores near our hotel (the Protea Hotel - yes, we recommend it). Chelsey found a pattern she absolutely fell in love with in the second store we went into. She basically bought the place out. Then we went to more stores. Then it was time to eat!
We felt a little bad at some times because we know absolutely no Polish, and most people there spoke only a little English and a little German. We managed though. Anyway, we spent the rest of the afternoon browsing stores, then had a nice dinner in our hotel restaurant, then chilled out in our room for a while before going to bed. (There wasn't much to do in such a short amount of time in Boleslawiec except shop and eat - but that's what we wanted to do anyway!)
Saturday we had a nice Polish breakfast and headed out for more shopping.
Watch out for window washers: We had been warned of the kids who surround your car and demand money to wash your windows. Since it was raining Saturday we thought we'd be ok.
Umm, yeah, not quite!
We started out by parking in a Kaufland parking lot, looking at our map and trying to program the GPS. All of a sudden we hear a "thud" and look up to find two probably 15- or 16-year old kids doing what else but washing our windows and asking for money. I had put together a baggy of Euro change for just this sort of run-in, so we pulled it out and handed over some change. Surprisingly enough, even after paying them, the kid kept going and washed all the windows on my car, then the headlights and taillights! We finally had to just drive away!
Alright, since we made it through that, it was really time to shop! One of our co-workers had supplied us with a great map of all the stores, so we were able to venture to the outskirts of town and find some of the good shops....
....We only ended up in the middle of a field once!
After that slight miscalculation in directions, we were well on our way to a great day of bouncing from shop-to-shop. We even made it to this awesome glass factory where we watched them making these amazing sculptures.
Yay for a fun day! We basically shopped till we dropped. We ran into a few people we know. We ate a fantastic lunch at the Blue Beetroot Hotel's restaurant (Perogies...yumm!)
Our only mishap was that somehow halfway through our meal, the waitress decided she hated us. I mean Hate with a capital H.
This girl had been so nice and friendly and helpful until all of a sudden she was rude and spiteful. The only thing we could think was that Chelsey accidentally dropped her Coke bottle and it made a loud noise. That's silly to think it would cause such an attitude change, but that's all we've got.
So what did we do? We went back there for dinner! Ha, we showed her!
Really, the food was just worth it and we knew people staying at the hotel that we wanted to see. Sure enough, she was just as rude for dinner. Strange. Oh well. We didn't let it stop us from ordering lots of delicious food. Seriously, the prices were amazing. I had a giant main course, a hot chocolate, a Sprite and a desert for 10Euro! Was?! (That's German for "What?!") You can't beat that!
Sunday morning we got up early yet again (uggghhhhh was all I felt -- but it was a great idea) and hit the road by 0600. I was back in my house by 1 p.m.! Amazing. Only a slight bit of traffic when we hit some rain but other than that we had smooth sailing.
My car was struggling a bit though from the weight of the pottery...!!
Overall the trip was awesome and I am so glad we went! I got quite a bit of pottery too, and I'll try to take some pics and post them sometime this week. My favorites are a cute little tea pot, a baking dish and a muffin pan.
Chelsey thanks for an awesome weekend! I know you missed Robert but you were a trooper and I had a super fun time :)
Sunday afternoon I relaxed, cuddled with Churro on the couch and watched the rest of Reba season one. So sad it's over! I must go find season two at the library ASAP!! That show is SO stinkin' cute!!
Sunday evening I made my way all by myself with no GPS to the kennel, a.k.a. German Language Camp, to pick up the red babies. They were happy to see mommy and muddy from a weekend of playing on the playground. I was happy to see my babies too and we had lots of hugs and kisses for each other :)
Today at work was spent catching up and getting ready for the week ahead. It was fun to talk to people about our trip because so many people have either been there already, are hoping to go soon - or were there at the same time! A weekend to Poland for pottery shopping is a must-do for those of us living here. Honestly, I know Carl is probably not the least bit interested, but I'd like for us to go back next year when he's home. It's just too unique of an experience and I think he'd really enjoy it.
Today my mom had some surgery and I have received a couple updates from dad that she's doing fine. I am looking forward to speaking to her tomorrow and hopefully Skyping so I can show her all her new pottery, too!
Whew, there's my update. Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment