Currently the title should make little to no sense for most of you, but even when I explain it, it will still be stupid. Pronounced in Polish, Wroclaw sounds almost exactly like “What’s love?” reminding us always of that damn song… Thus is our next stop, the Polish gnome town of Whatslove.
15.Oct.08
We had it all planned out through the Czech travel website. We were to board a bus from Prague at 11am from the main station, though sometimes shit happens. We got to the station with plenty of spare time, but apparently our particular bus going straight to Wroclaw hasn’t been running for the last year; how about a site update people! So instead we took a train at 2pm and bummed around a couple hours in the station. Finally we were on a series of three different trains zig-zagging through Czech & Poland to our destination. After much reading and conversing with a crazy Swedish guy we arrive at the Glowny (main station) around 11pm. Now in Poland, we took a walk past all the drunks, over a bridge, then through a park along the river where we met our hosts at their apartment.
Russ is a tall, slim vegan fellow from Texas studying Polish and Esperanto, and his girlfriend Anne is a Polish vegetarian working and studying in her home town. Both love board games and met each other at a super nerdy Esperanto conference somewhere in Europe. For the layman (like us) Esperanto is a language made up a good while ago to be the next major world language. Every piece of grammatical structure and vocabulary is designed to be basic, yet rhythmic and beautiful. It is no countries official language, but everywhere in the world contains a community of enthusiasts. The people obsessed with this language would be similar to the people who want to have Kelvin become the primary form of temperature measurement because of absolute zero logic; in other words: nerds (but cool nerds like us). We met our hosts and another Couchsurfer they were hosting, but after a short chat we all went to sleep.
16.Oct.08
Today we went gnome hunting. Wroclaw is the center of an anti-communist movement called project Orange, a small artistic group who went around dressed as gnomes and protested against the commies by giving out menstrual pads and other items difficult to come by in those times. The idea was that the government would look foolish arresting gnomes trying to do something essentially good; a well planned political statement. The group and their leader got in bits of trouble here and there, but altogether gave good hope to the people of Poland and was among the reasons Poland was one of the first countries to drop Communism like a red hot coal. As a part of their movement they hid 13 gnomes throughout the city of Wroclaw to remind the people of their struggle. The gnomes still exist for our enjoyment, like this cute one:
Continuing our gnome hunting we headed to the city museum where we wandered through more medieval and modern art exhibits. After that we headed to the gem of the city, a massive domed building containing a stunning 360 degree oil painting of a battle fought in the name of Polish independence from Russia (they lost the battle, but the fight increased Poland’s morale). It sounds silly, but the details of the piece and its massive scope made it quite stunning. As a play by play description of the battle scene was given through a headset it truly felt you were part of the action happening all around you. Pictures were forbidden, but I snuck this okay one.
With ocular cavities fully satisfied we headed back towards our hosts apartment grabbing a bunch of groceries and beer to cook dinner for them. We cooked roasted veggies and cabbage with onions and apples. We taste tested all the delicious local beers and played a few of their stacks of board games all night.
17.Oct.08
Russ and Anna had work again so Jess and I explored more alone. Gnome hunting was tough, we managed to find about five, and an alley filled with a bunch of bronze animals. They (I don’t know who ‘they’ is; the tourism industry?) claim that Wroclaw is the “Venice” of Poland, but the only resemblance we saw were a couple of islands surrounded by water. The islands were very pretty with lots of trees and fun art sprayed on old communist tenements. We explored a series of remarkable churches and climbed to the top of one’s steeple. It is all very splendid, but you know…the churches and art in Europe do end up blurring together a bit after so long traveling here. It doesn’t get boring I suppose, just repetitive, oh how we long for a Mosque.
We discovered an unbelievable year round local market in a big old brick building. Like two excited little pigs we skipped around buying a wide assortment of fresh veggies; most excitedly a couple varieties of foraged mushrooms! Our hosts had gone out to a performance for the evening, so Jess and I had a nice night to ourselves and cooked a delicious mushroom soup. We played more board games when they got back and went to bed.
18.Oct.08
Longing for a day of doing nothing, we simply stayed home with our hosts, read, used internet, and played board game after brain-busting board game. For you at home who have some silly idea that we were playing kids games like Monopoly or Life, you are wrong. The games we played required brainpower to a larger degree than even chess. After too much constant play our heads would hurt like when you drink or eat something really cold too fast and it cools your pulmonary artery, pumping the chilled blood to your brain and making your face shrivel up like a constipated pug. Near brain aneurysms aside it was a relaxing day and mostly ugly outside anyway. We managed to leave the house once to get groceries, cooked dinner, and went to bed early having to wake up long before the sun rises.
Wroclaw Flickr Photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/flufflebuns/sets/72157608558633848/
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