Warsaw, Poland Day 1

So... Poland.

Already on the plane to Poland from Dublin, I have to kick a girl out of my seat because she didn't understand that 17E was not the same as 7A... then while standing in the narrow aisle being courteous and waiting for her to move, this Polish man tells me to step out of the way and as I try to calmly explain what I'm doing by saying I was trying to get to my seat, pointing at mine, he harshly accuses me of trying to steal his seat... great first impression of Poland...

I land in Poland and get off the plane so tired and just ready to sleep...

and then I see Magda. Clearly, I'm not going to bed anytime soon even after traveling for 12 hours on pretty much no sleep. She and her parents pick me up and we drive to her parents' friend's place where we would be staying the next two nights. I get acquainted with the nice apartment and about an hour later Magda and I hit the town, Polish style, and let me tell you, these Polish people really know how to dress. I completely realized where Magda got her style from. We took a taxi after Magda asked to go to the "pancake" instead of the "palace."

Anyway... we went to Lazenki palace. It was unbelievable looking at just the building itself and its beauty and then we went inside and walked around giving ourselves a tour. (I should note now that clearly before we went we grabbed a beer. duh.) After that we went to a restaurant.

The restaurant, like all restaurants, was a gated place outside with tables and chairs and umbrellas covering it all, and for good reason. We ordered a pizza of some sort with a beer. We soon found out why there are umbrellas covering everything because it started to rain so we decided to sit there and just grab a few more beers. Now normally I would have downed about 3-4 pops during this time, but unfortunately in Europe soda is both expensive and packaged in small bottles, AND not unlimited refills... (One major thing I miss about the states already as well as text messaging...) We start trying to figure out where to go that night and the waitress comes over to help, another waitress then comes to help. and then two guys sitting a few tables away come to give their opinion. This was pretty much the first time someone from Poland was extremely nice.

After the rain ended we went around shopping for a bit looking at the Polish labels, nothing too special though. At this point though I'm fading fast. I'm almost falling asleep walking. Magda was trying something on at H&M and I literally almost fell over from being so exhausted, but I will not let myself go home yet on my first night in Europe. So we found an internet cafe, thank god because that was the longest time I had gone without the internet. As we were leaving I noticed they had redbull so i purchased one and that helped so much. This was also the first time I've ever used redbull to keep me awake and active.

After walking around trying to decide which bar/club to go to (this is around... 9 pm I'd say) we find an Irish pub and decide to just grab a drink there. We got two different kinds of beer and switched because we liked each others better and I also had a vodka/redbull and magda a whiskey and coke. There was karaoke going on. Polish karoake. Polish is defintiely not a language I want to hear in music....

After walking around a bit more we went to one of the clubs suggested to us by the people at the restaurant earlier. It was a darker place and we grabbed a huge booth for the two of us since no one was really there. Now we ordered a couple of beers and what we thought was going to be a nice apple drink... turned out.. we made a huge mistake. It was a shot... so, clearly we took it and then things get fuzzier.

We arrived home around 3 am after wandering the streets with Magda asking everyone where a good club to go would be. People kept directing us places, but nothing was actually open. Eventually we admitted defeat and moved onto dreamland.