Poznan, Poland 28.06

After seven hours on the road, we arrived in Poznan, the city where Artur went to university. But this time when he arrived, he thought it looked so much smaller than he had thought. We were very relieved to arrive, and eager to get out of the car. We were meeting one of Artur's school friends later that evening, but we were there earlier than we thought, so we decided to check out the city.

We parked our car near the Browar Shopping Centre. This building actually used to be a brewery! That's what 'Browar' means. This was just where our adventures started though. We walked along the cobblestone roads towards the Old Market Square. It was a fair walk, and we saw lots of cool shops on the way, but most things were closed.

On our way, we saw the Fara Church, which is next to the Palac Kolegiarski. In the basement of this church is a wine cellar, with huge barrels in it. Once, Artur's maths teacher took his class there to have a look at the huge barrels. We didn't go down to look at the cellars, but we did have a look at the church.

It was an impressive church, richly decorated with enormous red marble pillars, gilded with gold. At the front of the church there was an altar with small pillars and a painting at the centre. The ceilings were colourful, and artistically laid out with lots of small frescoes.

After a long walk, we made it to the Old Market Square. In the centre of the square there was a town hall with a big clock tower. At particular hours of the day, two mechanical goats come out from above the clock, and fight each other. These two goats are the symbol of Poznan, and you can see replicas over the whole city.

The Old Market Square was similar to the main square in Krakow, but smaller. There were similar looking houses on all sides of the square, and horses pulling carriages over the cobblestone roads. Lots of restaurants had open air sections to their restaurants, sitting along the edges of the square. There were some cool statues in this square too, but the main attraction on this day was the Malta Festival.

The Malta Festival is a theatre festival that is held every year. Most of the performances are quite alternative, and the performers come from all around Europe. While we were there, there was a weird performance by some French actors, on a retro-style set. Their costumes were amusing, and the props on stage were some old couches, a retro car, and a dining table.

Petrol's House

After our explorations, we headed off to meet Artur's uni friend, Petrol. We were greeted warmly, and introduced to Petrol's wife, Ewa, and their brand new daughter, Malwinka. We sat down to dinner with them, and chatted about their new life as parents. They were obviously thrilled with their baby, and Petrol had taken lots of photograhs of her. Petrol is interested in photography, so he took some pretty cool pictures of her.

We had a few drinks together after dinner, and we spoke a bit about our travels. We were all a bit tired though, us from our drive, and them from looking after their new baby. We didn't make it too big a night, as Malwinka wakes up early in the morning, and from then on, they don't sleep.

The next morning, we said goodbye to them, and headed to another of Artur's friends' places. This time we were visiting Kaczy, a guy who Artur went to high school with. Another of their friends, Gorzyn, who we met in Warsaw, was there. They had been messaging Artur, the night before, and begging him to come over and join the party. It was obviously a big night, judging from the state of everyone the next morning.

Kaczy's House
There was even a funny drunken incident, where Gorzyn managed to fall over the railings on the stairs while he was on the phone, and hit his head on the wall. It was quite an achievement to survive the fall actually. We saw the dent in the wall, which didn't look huge, but when you tapped the wall with your knuckles, you realise that the wall is like concrete! He must have had a very hard head in order to make any sort of dent in it.

We rang the doorbell for about 10 mins before anyone came to answer it. The two boys, Kaczy's son Piotrek, and Gorzyn's son Milosz, were running around the house with their toys making a lot of noise. The dads were surprisingly chilled out though, they just sat back and didn't stress about anything. One of the boys was running around with a scooter that plays the same song over and over, but they didn't mind. Considering how hung over they were, they must be very tolerant fathers!

The boys eventually decided to watch 'Cars', and while they were sitting still for a while, we were able to see their resemblance to their fathers. Milosz has the same cheeky eyes as his dad, and Piotrek has the same light hair and similar face. We also noticed that the fish tank was empty. Apparently Piotrek put the whole packet of fish food in the tank, bye bye fish! It must be eventful having children!

Stary Rynek Soon we left to meet some other friends in Stary Rynek (Old Market Square). This time we were meeting three girls that Artur hosted when they came to Australia. There was Magda, Kasia and Karolina, and all three girls are working in Marketing Science in Poznan. They sometimes travel to different countries for Science Conferences, but they make the most of travelling when they go of course. The girls were really lovely, and we chatted about what they were up to these days. Kasia had just gotten engaged, so that was very exciting! Her fiance proposed to her at the top of the Tour Eiffel. Pretty cool!

The place where we were eating was pretty cool. It served it's own beer, which they brewed out the back of the restaurant. We went up to see the machinery, then decided to try some. They had at least three different beers to try, but we started off with just one each :)

Soon, another of Artur's friends, Wojtek, showed up to meet us at the Brewery Restaurant. Wojtek is a guy that Artur met through windsurfing, and he was thrilled to catch up with him again. Soon the girls had to leave, because they were pretty busy that day, so we moved outside to the open air part of the restaurant, with Wojtek. Shortly after, another friend arrived, Piotr, who is also a windsurfing mate. We chatted about their jobs, and about moving house, as Piotr was actually moving house that day. He came out to meet us in the middle of it!

Loren decided to let the boys chat on their own for a while, and went wandering around Stary Rynek and the surrounding streets. Soon we met up at the same place again, and now it was only Artur and Wojtek left. We moved to another restaurant, called 'Lizard'. We chatted about Wojtek's new hobby, which is trading in currency online. He has done pretty well with it, as he has also done with his own business. He is making custom design t-shirts, and selling them online. Artur was pretty interested in the trading, and they chatted indepth about how to do it.

After Wojtek left, we went for a walk through Poznan. Artur wanted to show Loren where he went to university. It was a long walk, but it was all so familiar for Artur. It seemed much smaller than last time, but still so much the same. We saw the tram lines that he used to use every day, and the surrounding buildings near the uni. We finally made it to the uni itself, and admired the huge building.

There was another big red high rise building, that Artur also used to go to for study, but it was a long way away, so we just looked at it from a distance. It was pretty cool to see where Artur had spent so much time, and to walk past and see the old pubs and cafes where he used to hang out.

Football at the Local Pub
At the end of our day of socialising, we headed back to Maciek's house. After a quick snack, we headed down to the local pub, 'Olimp', to watch the Euro Cup. We had reserved seats, and the beer was cheap, so we all had a great time. We can't remember who was playing, but we had fun meeting some of Maciek's friends, and enjoying the pub atmosphere.

Back in Wloclawek The next morning, we drove back to Wloclawek. When we arrived, we found Konrad, Gosia and Sonia, who had dropped in for lunch. Artur's uncle Rysiek was also there, so it was kind of like a family reuinion.

Ciechocinek

We decided to go to Ciechocinek, to visit another of Artur's uncles - Uncle Marek. He was quite a character, very funny and lively. Apparently he was quite a favorite with the ladies :) He spoke English well, so we had no trouble communicating with him. Altogether, we had a great time laughing together and at the funny things he said.

After we visited Uncle Marek, we decided to have another look at the parks in Ciechocinek. We had a look at a park with an enclosure for peacocks. They were very pretty, and there was even a white one, maybe albino. The park was very green with lots of trees, so it was very peaceful there.

We also visited the huge flower gardens that Ciechocinek maintains. They were like carpets of spectacular flowers, in all different patterns and colours. It was so peaceful wandering through the aisles of flowers.

We saw an old amphitheatre made of wood, which has been there for a long time. It was surrounded by beautiful carpets of flowers as well. The seats were all set up and ready for a concert or performance of some kind.

We also ducked into a long building where oldish people come to hang out in Ciechocinek. The room was surrounded by tables and chairs in a big circle, and in the centre was a space left for dancing. It's like a social club for old people. It reminded us of the tea houses in China, where people come when they retire, and play Mahjong all day, and sip tea. But it had more of the feel of a Junior High Disco.

On our way through one of the parks, we saw a fountain of two little children sheltering under an umbrella. The fountain was made as a reference to the Polish story of two children called Jas and Malgosia, who were very naughty and ran away from home. They went wandering through the woods and found a house made of chocolate. An old ugly woman lived there, and tried to feed them with lots of chocolate and other sweets to make them fat and tasty, so she could eat them. They ended up escaping and returning home safely, but they had learnt their lesson. The story is very similar to the fable of 'Hansel and Gretel', that many of you might have heard before.

The next day, we spent hours planning the next phase of our trip. We were leaving the next day with Artur's parents, to tour through Northern Europe. We had 12-13 days set aside to travel through Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and back to Poland! With so little time, we had to have a good think about how we would manage it, and we also had to book our accomodation and a few ferries.