Time for another weekend recap!
This weekend was an interesting one. I joined the Couchsurfing community about 9 months ago, but hadn’t really utilized it until lately. Basia (my host) is now working for Couchsurfing, which has prompted me to develop my profile a little more. She also suggested that I meet up with locals in Krakow via this website. About 3 weeks ago, I contacted a 22 year-old student named Bartek because he had a lot of references and received rave reviews by those whom he hosted. He responded very promptly to my message and we decided that we should try to meet up soon. I gave him my Polish cell number, but I later found out he had entered in one of the numbers incorrectly, and so three weeks went by before I heard anything from him. I got a text this past Friday that he was having a small party at his place with a few friends and clubbing afterwards, and that he wanted to me to join them. I was feeling a little hesitant because I’m still a little scared to navigate the city at night (since I’m horrible with directions), but I agreed to go.
The walk through Kazimierz
Fortunately, the bus route wasn’t at all complicated, and we met up just fine. Bartek and his two friends picked me up at the bus stop, and we walked together to their house (which they share with a few other students) near the Vistula river. All three were incredibly friendly, outgoing, charming, and had perfect English. It was so great to hang out with such fun-loving people, although I have to admit it felt a bit like I was a university student again because they are still in that “party hard” mindset 🙂 Regardless, we talked about a huge range of topics, listened to music, played some pretty intense drinking games involving of course, plenty of vodka. Pre-partying was an awesome time in and of itself. After we were all sufficiently “warmed-up”, we walked through Kazimierz and eventually ended up at the main square.
This is when a series of hilarious events ensued. Bartek, at some point along the rather long journey to the square, fell and landed on his face and was bleeding at his mouth a bit. The rest of the walk he was embarrassed because he was convinced he was bleeding everywhere and looked horrible, at which point I assured him he still looked fine. Regardless, he didn’t believe me and still refused to uncover his hands from his mouth and nose for a good 30 minutes.
What happened next came as a complete shock to all of us. At some point walking along the main square, Bartek reached the pinnacle of this drunkenness. Now, thank God I’m a very tolerant person in general, and never an “angry drunk”, but I have to say even I was pretty irritated. Bartek decided it would be funny, or I-don’t-know-what…to pour some of his coke/vodka mixture onto my head. WHAT THE F#$*?! At that moment, I thought “he is officially the WORST Couchsurfing host EVER and I am going to give him terrible reviews”. It took him a minute to realize what he had just done, and his friends went off on him for what he had done. I’m glad they were on my side 🙂 He apologized profusely for his stupidity and proceeded to get down on his hands and knees and kiss my hand as an “apology”. And the rest of the night he kept apologizing. I kept giving him angry glances and muttered a couple of “I hate you’s”. He actually took me literally and started to walk the opposite direction home. We all yelled at him to come back and stop being so sensitive, which eventually worked. Anyway, the issue that concerned me most was how my hair looked since it felt sticky and totally disgusting, although the guys tried to convince me I was just sporting the “hot, wet hair look”…right. When we entered the club, I fixed my hair in the bathroom and all was good in the world. In fact, I got over that whole incident pretty quickly. For some reason, Bartek is one of those people whom you can’t stay mad at for very long.
The club itself was AWESOME, but I don’t remember the name of it. Bartek and I had this debate about Polish guys being unable to dance, and I told him I observed that 90% of the guys I saw dancing had no sense of rhythm whatsoever. He set out to prove me wrong. His other friend Artur, also wanted to prove me wrong. So, there I was, switching off between these two dance partners. The club played a lot of Latin music, so they were both trying to impress me with their “salsa skills”. Admittedly, Bartek was pretty decent, and was a good dance partner. Artur on the other hand, tried to get a little fancy, and dip me….but unfortunately we were near a wall, and on my way back up he caused me to bump my head pretty hard on the wall. I was actually bleeding a little and woke up with a bump on my forehead the next morning. Note to self–do not allow a very drunk Polish guy to try any fancy salsa moves again!
At about 3am we were all exhausted from just prepartying way too early, and sustaining one too many injuries. I actually wanted to take a cab home that night, but ended up taking one the next morning. I had left a bag at their place, so Bartek offered his bed and slept on the floor. What a gentleman. Needless to say, we were all either hungover or hurting, but after recounting the events of Saturday night, all we could do was laugh. Despite their foolishness, somehow these guys were endearing and I would really like to hang out in the near future with Bartek & his crew.
Blackboards and Borscht 