Boys Trip: Top 7 Things About Poland

This year the big international Formula Windsurfing event in Poland was the “boys trip” for the summer. My old vegas crew who now reside in LDN – Timmy and Ads – made the epic journey to Poland for one week of sun, wind, beaches, parties, sunglasses, girls and of course vodka. I picked Tim up on the way through Berlin and Ads somehow managed to drive from LDN to Leba, Poland in his right-hand drive car. After the event; the boys and I sat around discussing the week’s onslaught, and came up with the Top 7 things we liked most about Poland … and why its a country that should be “at least” in your Top 5 if you manage to leave Australia one day … enjoy:

Top 7 Things We Like About Poland In Ascending Order:

Number 7:

Hotdogs. If you’ve ever had a polish hotdog you will know what I’m talking about. Get a large round breadroll, cutout all the bread inside it then fill it with garlic-mayonaisse sauce – I said FILL it with sauce. Now place a TINY sausage in that pool of sauce and continue to fill the bread capsule with shredded carrot, lettuce, beetroot and onion. Now when the bread capsule is full, dowse it in another 400ml of the sauce … I want it DRIPPING all over the floor by this stage. Then wrap it very tightly in paper so that the sauce cannot get out and hand to customer… Greatest Hotdog you will ever have. Period.

Number 6:

Beers on the beach. This is illegal EVERYWHERE in Australia; even on Australia Day apparently. At Beach B on Leba there was four bars and the convenience store which sold beers in 500ml cans – you had the choice of Lech, Zywiec, Tyskie and Okocim. I’m not going to say that the beer is nice here because its more like drinking a warm XXXX on a hot summer’s day but the fact that everyone on the beach is sinking talley’s while they watch you windsurf really adds to the laidback atmosphere on the beach. Once the DJ had the tunes cranking and the beach volleyball tournament fired up, it was really an entertaining day even if there was no wind for windsurfing. Eye candy, tunes and big sunglasses played a key role …

Upping the Price. Now part of the EU, Poland seems to be enjoying more and more tourists every year; and it seems the residents know this … and like to exploit it. Being a “non-polski”, when we’d ask for a free room at a hotel, or two beers at the bar, or donor kebabs, we’d get the special “western” price – which is about 60% more expensive. The stupid thing is that Poland is so cheap compared to most of western Europe that this special price is not expensive enough to get the alarms ringing in your head that you are getting ripped off. If you’re like me and have been to Poland 5-6 times before, you know what things cost and when you question that price they will almost INSTANTLY drop the price to the standard. They’ll do this without a hesitation or even an ATTEMPT at giving you a weak excuse like “oh, sorry, I was thinking you wanted 7 scoops on your ice-cream, otherwise the normal price for 2 scoops is…” – its just straight off the bat: new price. Haha, classic! One such experience was Timmy asking the hot girl at our hotel if we could use the sauna … she replied, “yes of course, its 45 zloty, and you must book 3 hours in advance”… Tim looked at her like, 45 zloty? huh? I don’t want to pay that much… two seconds later she says, “ok, how about “free” and you meet me back here in 10 mins and the sauna will be ready”. Thank-you Poland.

Number 4:

The Language. I don’t understand plenty of languages around the world – hmmmmm, I guess that’s because I’ve only “just” mastered English. I have quite a few sentences down in Dutch and can do the basic forms to get myself around in Germany, France, Spain and maybe England, however Polish makes no sense to me but it rolls off the tongue of a sweet girl like wiping your face with silk. I’m not sure what it is about the language, it must be the softness of the first consenants of each word (there’s no harsh k’s or rolled g’s like in German or Dutch) and its spoken quite fast compared to English so it can become almost one long rolled sound if you’re not listening too closely. It then gives rise to one of the sweetest accents you will hear when a polish girl speaks to you in English. I think Polish, Dutch and Scandinavian accents sound the best to my ear when they speak English … but Poland would so far be my favourite.

Number 3:

The beach. Imagine 20,000 people coming to YOUR beach and bringing their umbrellas, towels, windbreakers, kites, beach volleyballs, beer cans and dt’s. This year was no different to any other; when the sun comes out its pretty hot in Poland (up to 30 degrees on a good day) and the beach is the best place to spend the warmth. Every one of those girls you saw dancing on the bar last night is now in front of you in a string that’s so small you couldn’t cover your watch with it. Admittedly, on their arm is a 140kg Polish bodybuilder with tattoos of a ninja star on both arms but that doesn’t matter because you are just on the beach to go windsurfing right? Seriously, there must be 10,000 girls on any beach in Poland smaller than size 6. Its just not healthy.

The nightclub. Every Polish beach town has it. In Leba it was Mozart’s. Now, I’ve been to a few nightclubs in my time…heck, I’ve even been to a few 5 story SUPER-clubs in various countries around the globe, so I’m not going to try and say that these Polish clubs are actually cool, or that the music is great (well, it would be if you like dancing to Shakira or Metallica dance-remixes) but its the vibe and the clientele of these clubs that make it worthwhile. Mozart’s was full of 80/20 (girls/men) smoking hot girls each night and the drinks are so cheap you could buy rounds for the doormen. Although it was 10 zloty a night to enter, by the 3rd night we’d already got the doorman under our finger and could not only get in free – but bring any guy or girl we wanted in for free. At the bar, Polish guys would buy US drinks because we had game, and their girlfriends would ask to take pictures with us when their boys were in the bathroom. Its a funny experience. Kinda like being a celebrity, but I think its really just because the Polish people are so friendly and really like to show their appreciation of us western visitors.

Number 1:

You knew what I was going to say before you read this. I’ve mentioned them in nearly every one of these posts. The Polish girls. What else can I say about them? I’m not sure what the genetic makeup is of a Polish person compared to a German (the countries are right next door to each other) but natural selection was really kind to this country and not so to the Germans I’m sorry. Speaking of feeling sorry, I really feel for a girl who’s size 8 in Poland because she’s a minority within a minority. Not only are the girls super skinny, long haired (blonde or brunette), blue-eyed, well-dressed and most speak very good english, they are really down to earth and generally interesting (if you find the right one) compared to the vanity and pretentiousness of Australian girls. I think there’s simply not enough “non polish” tourists floating around in Poland that you really do become an attraction when you talk in your Aussie accent; maybe they’ve never seen an Aussie before in their lives. I make a rule to never buy a girl a drink (don’t lower your social value in the early part of an attraction phase with something so lame as buying a drink) but if you really wanted to do it, you’re dropping about A$2 for a vodka/tonic, instead of our usual $8.50. I can really see why people like Steve found a Polish girl and never wanted to come home as in a 6 day trip you can really meet a multitude of really interesting, different and visually stimulating members of the female race. Game on.