The Polish Underground

I thought that The Pierogi Diaries would be a cute, witty name for a blog about Poland. Little did I know that I would be eating Pierogies almost daily and that the name would quickly become a too-literal-for-comfort title.

Other than my constant pierogi overdose, this week as been a good one. After my terrible, hot, hateful Monday, it really picked up. Tuesday, the other international students and I went out for Kebabs and beers. Wednesday was our official welcome party, where we met all of the local Aiesecers. Last night we met with some people we found on Couchsurfing. And tonight there's a picnic behind our dorm building.

The Aiesec party was at a club called No Name, where we just drank beers and talked about traveling. Not only was I meeting all of these Polish students, I also met Samuel from Nigeria, Monika from Romania, Whiter from New Zealand, Katia and Anton from Russia, and Antonio from Mexico. Jarek, a Polish Aiesecer, has his sailing lisence and offered to organize a weekend Yacht trip on the Baltic . Tomasz, another Polish student, offered to take Jackie and me to the flea market on Sunday to try and find bicycles.

The kids we met last night, however, the ones Jackie found through Couchsurfing, were considerably more . . . I don't know, alternative. They took us out for pizza and to this bar called Strefa Zero. The regulars at this bar sarcastically call it P-Zero, because there's an ultra-trendy techno club on the other side of town called P-One. P-One is where somebody tried to buy us. But this bar, Strefa Zero, was dark and dank and covered in graffiti. The music was a mix of Polish rock, Polish metal, and some English stuff . . . Beck, U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers. We drank cheap beer and passed around sniffing tobacco. It's tobacco, but it's a fine powder that you snort. Very strange. Our guides, Rafel and Domenika ran into some other friends, including this guy named Kostek who I ended up talking to for the rest of the night. He has dreads and he's studying engineering. He's also a fire-spinner, capabera dance-fighter, and talked to me in great detail about his pet spiders. Aydan and I were going to go to Prague next weekend, but these kids invited us to a bonfire party outside of the city. I think that might win.

As much as I'd like to collect stamps on my passport, maybe this trip isn't for that.

Polish Song of the Day

Szla dziweczka do laseczka, do zielonego
do zielonego, do zielonego.
Napotkala mysliweczka bardzo szwarnego,
bardzo szwarnego, bardzo szwarnego.

This is a song our Polish teacher taught us in our last lesson before she goes to her country house for the summer. It's about a girl going into the woods and meeting a very handsome hunter. Very handsome, very handsome, very handsome.