Vijay and Shefali's TAtW

Shefali gets credit for the title. From Berlin we came to Poznań, a small city with a rich history and a thriving underground. It’s also the cheapest place we’ve been. Seriously, it’s like third-world affordable here. Finally, the pendulum swings the other way and we get to recoup some of that Scandinavian damage to our budget. On multiple occasions I’m like “8$ for dinner? for both of us? That can’t be right. These humorless monobrows must be ripping us off some other way.” They didn’t have the usual walking tour here so we had to fend for ourselves. Except for that when we arrived, we didn’t prep well with the directions, and failed on multiple occasions to communicate effectively enough to get some proper advice. Now, don’t misunderstand – people were mostly friendly – we just don’t speak Polish at all. Not even a Da or Nyet, and I’m told that trying to speak in Russian is a poor political choice to make here. We asked at a bus stop and they gave us some general pointing, but it was complicated enough that we weren’t getting the whole picture. The kind old woman whom we had asked then asked a few other people. One person looked particularly disagreeable. He looked straight up mad. After a minute he says to us something to the effect of “You speak English? Good. As I have the afternoon and the evening off, it would be my pleasure to escort you to your hostel.” And he beamed with proud hospitality. Like many medieval towns, it was a labyrinthine path of cobblestone alleyways and tiny clearings, and even our guide Maitse confessed that he still gets lost when he hits the old town center. “If I have to meet someone there, I just get there 20 minutes early and walk around. I can never remember the street names.” He gave us a few great suggestions and even his phone number in case we ran into trouble (though thankfully, we didn’t need it). We parted ways grateful for his help and happy to have made his acquaintance. Night quickly came and the center square just lit up. This is a party town and we are party people. We got eaten alive by mosquitoes, followed Maitse’s advice to some good local beers and then experienced possibly the largest single thing I’ve ever eaten in one sitting. I went a little too hard on it and we had to pass on some drum and bass, but there’s no regrets over it. And that’s just the first night! We continued our tradition of trekking all over the city by foot to see as much as we could, hit up a cool cactus and reptile garden and generally tried to squeeze every minute out of the place since we were only here a couple nights. And for the first time, we left a city with full bellies and cash to spare.

Vijay

[1]http://www.flickr.com/photos/97388931@N08/sets/72157634689785483/