October 2011. First trip away with the new job. Early start for a Sunday. I don't remember the last time I saw 5-30 on a Sunday morning. Meet Paul and Vicky in Starbucks Liverpool airport. Slightly nervous. Easyjet flight - great, no assigned seat; newbie gets the middle. So tired, cannot go to sleep on the flight; not because I'm not tired, because socially, sat between two people whom are chatting this is unacceptable. Note to self: Easyjet bacon butties are crap. And burn your hands. Don't get one again ever.
3 hour drive from Krakow to Sandomierz. Poland looks exactly like I imagined; poor. Its full of grave yards, churches and is very agricultural. Not much to note. I fell asleep. Sandomierz is tiny, yet manages to cram in half a dozen churches, and you never see anybody around. First week flew by, nothing much to note except for the food was awful. Egg or pickle with everything. Krakow for the weekend!!
So we arrived in Krakow on the Friday and after a pretty poor attempt, ended up in an Irish pub. Not before going into a quite local bar where we got stared at a lot and had the strangest picture on the wall. Quite an early night but the drive was tiring.
Saturday morning started off with breakfast in the hotel. Hotel Unicus - smart! Restaurant was is the basement which was like a cavern; lots of exposed brickwork, this please Paul. We went for a wonder around Krakow, down to the Palace and onto the Jewish quarter. It was pretty, but the whole city was covered in about an hour so we headed for a coffee and then to a few shops. Krakow has a cool square, one of the best I've seen with St Marys Basilik in the corner. Went for lunch to a Mexican, it had lampshades made of desperado bottles and the waiter and a toy gun but the food was crap.
Bored and pretty cold we headed to a bar for our first drink. The vodka is so cheap it would be rude not to. Poland still has smoking rooms so that's a little odd and it's hard to imagine smoking in bars at home now.
The evening we went to Bar Barok to sample the cocktails, thought the light pink one tasted as I imagine sweaty feet would. Minging!! This was Bar Barok; it had a nightclub downstairs where we partied the night away to old school dance and met a guy called Conrad. He dressed and danced like Carlton ofफ Fresh Prince but was white. Bad combination.
Not so fresh from Saturday night came Sunday morning. An excursion to Auschwitz. Obviously not enjoyable, but learnt an awful lot and it was difficult to truly imagine the horrors that took place. Definitely worth visiting and glad that I went. The pictures are the Auschwitz gate and the tower famous from Schindler's List.
One hot chocolate and kfc later, we were back on the monumental drive back to Sandomierz and the joys of the Basztowy hotel. The second week dragged; the joys of Sandomierz had been seen or had they??
The Wednesday was the last full day of audit, Thursday for the closing meeting so the FC had arranged for us and the finance team to go for a meal at the nice hotel. During the meal it was demanded that we tried the local vodka the polish way. This means neck a 50ml shot straight.
Now I like vodka, in fact I really like vodka. I don't like 50ml shots straight. I definitely don't like 3 or 4 shots of the stuff in the space of an hour. And neither did other members of the team. The vodka resulted in 2 out of 3 of us being sick and possibly one of the worst hangovers I have ever had.
SO...the original plan of Krakow night out Thursday before flying home. We were all far too hungover. So after an amazing Italian (his name was Antonio haha), we went for dessert and hot chocolate under blankets at a cafe on the square.
All was good with the world again, I had got through audit/trip 1 relatively unscathed and lived to tell the tale.
Lessons learnt:
1. Polish people know how to drink vodka, the English don't.
2. When a Polish person says one more drink, say no.
3. Don't buy Easyjet food.
4. Don't plan on doing much in Poland other than drinking.
Song of the trip: Haddaway - What is Love.
3 hour drive from Krakow to Sandomierz. Poland looks exactly like I imagined; poor. Its full of grave yards, churches and is very agricultural. Not much to note. I fell asleep. Sandomierz is tiny, yet manages to cram in half a dozen churches, and you never see anybody around. First week flew by, nothing much to note except for the food was awful. Egg or pickle with everything. Krakow for the weekend!!
So we arrived in Krakow on the Friday and after a pretty poor attempt, ended up in an Irish pub. Not before going into a quite local bar where we got stared at a lot and had the strangest picture on the wall. Quite an early night but the drive was tiring.
Saturday morning started off with breakfast in the hotel. Hotel Unicus - smart! Restaurant was is the basement which was like a cavern; lots of exposed brickwork, this please Paul. We went for a wonder around Krakow, down to the Palace and onto the Jewish quarter. It was pretty, but the whole city was covered in about an hour so we headed for a coffee and then to a few shops. Krakow has a cool square, one of the best I've seen with St Marys Basilik in the corner. Went for lunch to a Mexican, it had lampshades made of desperado bottles and the waiter and a toy gun but the food was crap.
Bored and pretty cold we headed to a bar for our first drink. The vodka is so cheap it would be rude not to. Poland still has smoking rooms so that's a little odd and it's hard to imagine smoking in bars at home now. The evening we went to Bar Barok to sample the cocktails, thought the light pink one tasted as I imagine sweaty feet would. Minging!! This was Bar Barok; it had a nightclub downstairs where we partied the night away to old school dance and met a guy called Conrad. He dressed and danced like Carlton ofफ Fresh Prince but was white. Bad combination.
Not so fresh from Saturday night came Sunday morning. An excursion to Auschwitz. Obviously not enjoyable, but learnt an awful lot and it was difficult to truly imagine the horrors that took place. Definitely worth visiting and glad that I went. The pictures are the Auschwitz gate and the tower famous from Schindler's List.
One hot chocolate and kfc later, we were back on the monumental drive back to Sandomierz and the joys of the Basztowy hotel. The second week dragged; the joys of Sandomierz had been seen or had they??
The Wednesday was the last full day of audit, Thursday for the closing meeting so the FC had arranged for us and the finance team to go for a meal at the nice hotel. During the meal it was demanded that we tried the local vodka the polish way. This means neck a 50ml shot straight.
Now I like vodka, in fact I really like vodka. I don't like 50ml shots straight. I definitely don't like 3 or 4 shots of the stuff in the space of an hour. And neither did other members of the team. The vodka resulted in 2 out of 3 of us being sick and possibly one of the worst hangovers I have ever had. SO...the original plan of Krakow night out Thursday before flying home. We were all far too hungover. So after an amazing Italian (his name was Antonio haha), we went for dessert and hot chocolate under blankets at a cafe on the square.
All was good with the world again, I had got through audit/trip 1 relatively unscathed and lived to tell the tale.
Lessons learnt:
1. Polish people know how to drink vodka, the English don't.
2. When a Polish person says one more drink, say no.
3. Don't buy Easyjet food.
4. Don't plan on doing much in Poland other than drinking.
Song of the trip: Haddaway - What is Love.
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