Dwarfs

This morning started out relatively slow - there's not that much to do per se in Wroclaw. Most people say one day is enough. However, it is such a gorgeous little town that I could easily spend more than one day just wandering around admiring the architecture. At any rate, we were in no rush.

By the time we got to the main square area, we decided to look for breakfast/lunch. We kept seeing chalkboards advertising "omlettys" which we really hoped meant omlettes. I haven't seen any American breakfast food advertised like that the whole trip! It was kind of yucky weather so we found an omletty place and sat inside. An omelet sounded great, but so did a cheese, ham, and lettuce "tosty" (small sandwich). So, naturally, I just got both. That's the beauty of being an American in Poland - food is cheap. For the (seemingly) millionth time, my food arrived, and my freaking sandwich had a freaking LAYER of mushrooms on the bottom. Again. SERIOUSLY POLAND? Why do you keep doing this to me? What is your obsession with NOT putting mushrooms on the menu and then putting them on ALL of my food?? I don't get it. Bah. That aside, breakfast was great.

Then the cool stuff starts. Ross had a great idea yesterday for us to post on CouchSurfing, within a Wroclaw message board group, that we were in town and wanted to be shown around. Ross had school so he was busy until 6. Luckily for us, a really nice girl named Marta responded to our message and agreed to meet us in the city center at noon. Then, on our way to meet her, somebody else called us (Ross let us borrow a phone, whose number we posted on our CS message board post), and also wanted to meet up. His name was Karol and he was new to CS. I looooove helping newbies get acquainted with the beautiful world of CS. So then the four of us bummed around all day and got our own little private tour. Marta has been really involved with CS for quite some time and is about to graduate university, so she knew a lot about the buildings and things that we saw. Karol is in his first year at university and knew much of the same things Marta did. It was so awesome to pal around with locals and explore the cute city.

Ross had also told us that the city had tons of dwarfs - somewhere between 50 and 100 - all around the inner city. These dwarfs are little miniature statues that decorate the outsides of lucky buildings. I got totally sucked into this adorable trap and was searching for dwarfs all day. I now have way too many dwarf pictures on my camera - but they're all so cute! And they're all doing different things. The dwarf outside of the bank is depositing a little dwarf check. The dwarf outside of the kiosk is selling newspapers. The dwarf outside of the casino is rolling dice. How cute is that?! I was in love.

Some things that Marta/Karol taught us...the main square in Wroclaw is the second largest in Poland and in Europe; the first largest is the main square in Krakow where we just came from. Both squares are unique in that they have a large building, the town hall, in the middle of them; most squares are void of buildings in the middle. Then we passed by the most popular meeting point in the city. It used to be used as a flogging pole, so that's gross. But, now people just meet up there and sit on the steps. The date on it is 1492 (I think), but it's cool because it's so old that the 4 is written as half of an 8 (kind of like the shape of an awareness ribbon or something). There's also another 'meeting point' where girls tell guys to meet them if the girl doesn't want a relationship but just wants to meet up platonically. So the guy says, "hey let's hang out" and the girl says, "ok, meet me at this place that signifies that we'll just be friends," and that's the guy's way of knowing that he's been romantically rejected. Haha. They also pointed out a bridge to us that they used to throw witches off of. Great. Then they took us by this hilarious fountain in the university area. The legend says that the first virgin to graduate from university will cause the naked man atop the fountain to fall off. He's been up there for centuries. Legends are so fun haha. After that, we went to their main university building - which was GORGEOUS! There was a crazy picture of the exact same building in 1944 after WWII bombings had ruined quite a lot of it, and a newer picture from 2006 or something showing the current building. Incredibly impressive how they were able to preserve the ruins and build it up again to be how beautiful it is. Then we walked across the cutest bridge in the world. All along the railings of both sides are locks. The locks have lovers' names written on them and sometimes a date. Couples go to this bridge to put their lock on it, and then throw the key into the river below. HOW CUTE!?!! I really love this town. The railings are just FILLED with locks, it's amazing! Close to the other end of the bridge is the main huge cathedral in Wroclaw. This also got bombed by the Nazis when they were fighting with the Soviets over who would get the city. There's a picture inside the cathedral of the cathedral after the bombing with literally no roof and sunlight pouring in. Really crazy to see all this stuff in person. After this Marta took her leave and we thanked her graciously for kickin' it with us for the afternoon.

Then Karol, the newbie, was stuck with us! Haha. Not really. He was such a nice guy, and totally unnecessarily paranoid that we were bored of him or didn't want him there or that he was being a bad tour guide. Every 5 minutes we had to be like, 'dude, relax! We like you!' He was super funny and a total gentleman. He walked us to the famous panorama in Wroclaw. The panorama is a really old painting that depicts a war scene between Poland and Russia. During WWII, the canvas was all taken down, rolled up, and stored in a basement to preserve it. After the war, they brought it out again. It is super cool because it is a 360 degree painting that took I think 3 lead painters and all their minions 9 months to complete. Then, it gets cooler, because the painting is partially 3D. Not only is it panoramic, but the museum has it so that real-life-type artifacts blend in with and come out of the painting. So, for example, there was dust/sand/gravel/grasses that seemed to just pop out of the bottom of the painting. In the bramble were broken wagons, a sword, an old fire pit, etc. I'm really glad we went to it and learned a little Polish history.

Karol, who had already seen it multiple times on school field trips, picked us up promptly when it was over :) Then, knowing us so well, took us to his favorite ice cream shop! Yes, he was a keeper. I tried green apple ice cream (weird, but good!) and some creme ice cream that is a favorite among Poles. Yum yum. After ice cream we strolled back to Students' Island, where we were yesterday evening. We hung out on a park bench looking out at the river and the island across the way and chatted. I wrote postcards and Karol entertained us with his quirky humor and stories. He almost felt like our private stand up comedian, it was so great! Ross met us at the park, and the baby sitters traded shifts :) Haha. Karol went home and Ross took us on a slight detour on the way back to his place. We went to an old meat market where they used to kill animals, and now there are sculptures of all the animals they used to kill there with a plaque apologizing for killing them.

At home, Ross whipped up some pasta for dinner. Sometime, somehow, around making dinner, it was decided that Ross was "Daddy", Laura was "Mama", and I was the child, obviously. I think this came about because there was this yogurt that Laura and I bought. She ate her half on the train yesterday and I hadn't gotten around to eating mine yet. Ross (jokingly, I think) wanted it out of his fridge, and was trying to make me eat it before dinner and before I could have a beer with dinner. I think this is when he said, "Daddy says so. No yogurt, no beer." It was kind of creepy but more funny than anything. After that, there were lots of references to Daddy saying something and Mama either agreeing or not. Really bizarre. The things we come up with to entertain ourselves...During the course of dinner, I obviously managed to spill spaghetti sauce on my grey nylon pants which means they are officially dirty (they were definitely already dirty, it was just less in-your-face before). Which means, since I avoid wearing my jeans since they're fragile due to all the ripping and almost ripping occurring in less than ideal places, I had to resort to the ugly green nylon pants I'm borrowing from my wonderful sister.

Finally, dinner was over, ugly green pants were on, and Ross was taking us out to some bars. We did the most literal definition of bar-hopping ever. There were maybe 7 all within a few steps from each other. Ross just kept saying, "Go in, see you if you like it, tell me if you want to stay." So we popped into bar after bar after bar and then naturally realized that we liked the first bar the best. This first bar was called the Old Sofa, and was filled with mismatches sofas, seats, and armchairs. We chose a cozy spot on the second level and soon Karol joined up with us. The four of us had a splendid evening enjoying one last night of Polish beer and funny, CouchSurfing/travel-related stories. Eventually, we were the only people left (it was a Monday night, after all) and the bar kicked us kids out. We went back through a couple other bars, stopping at one to dance for maybe 20 minutes or so. Then, without any of us buying a drink, we simply decided to move on and it was no problem, we just walked out! Amazing. Then we went to the main square which was all lit up with glowing streetlights. The fountain in the middle looked especially amazing with the orange colors of night gleaming off the glass and shimmery water. Then we parted ways with Karol and the three of us went home.

It was actually very sad because Ross kept saying multiple times how sad he was that we were leaving. He tried to talk us into staying longer, like up to two months longer. And we were like, sorry dude, we're going to Prague. But he seemed so genuinely sad and kept calling us his favorite CouchSurfers! (I think he's only had one other surfer though lol.) Nonetheless, we did what packing we could before crashing for the night.


Quotes:
"Bud'mo; Hey! Bud'mo; Hey! Bud'mo, Bud'mo, Bud'mo; Hey!"
(Ukrainian cheers-song that Karol taught us so that we could impress Ross, who is Ukrainian. Bud'mo is pronounced "boo-jee-mah". Very fun to chant. I wish we had drinking songs/chats/cheers. Cheers is boring.)

Accomplishments:
Found so many dwarfs!!!

Travel Tip:
Networking is important even when traveling...putting ourselves out there on that message board really paid off!!