Summer Nostalgia, po polsku - 18 July 2006

40 degrees. Friends, fires and the hell in the cell match. Chronicle of a short polish break.

Vegetarians, stay away from us. Or we'll eat you.



SkokiI felt a bit sorry for my grandparents, living them after just one day to go and have fun with my friends. Maybe I should reformulate the last sentence.

The plan was simple: get to Skoki, a location miles away from Poznan, in the purest polish countryside (fields of corn and potatoes, forests and lakes), and have a lot of flame cooked/grilled food, drinks, play some football and swim in the local lake, and then come back the next day in the evening to play a football match.

Eating in skokiMichal and the italian flagThis (the football match) was one of the purposes of my trip. I played for few summers for Grottger, the local team, and they decided to celebrate something by playing against their archrivals, Archanioly. They played against each other many times, and I did too, mostly winning every grudge match.

Do you know a better way of getting ready to a football match than relaxing in the countryside? Training? I don't.

TSuzanna and the italian flaghe two days spent in Skoki were just great. The weather in Poznan was hotter than hell, 40 degrees and up. The company was great too; I was surrounded by all my old mates and their wives/girlfriends/kids. Usually I hate spending my time with kids, but fortunately Dominik and Michal took care of it, by creating competitions and awarding prizes for all of them.

I spent most of the afternoon cooking with Dominik and talking with the girls (all taken; only a smelly dog gave me some company) and the boys.

Going to the lakeTroubles for MichalAfter a break in a park playing football (too hot for it), we decided to refresh ourselves by swimming in the fantastic lake 10 minutes away from the house. Best lake ever. Hidden by a hill, and surrounded by the forest, approaching it was the closer I got to a dream like sequence.
The water was nice and as clean as a lake can be (not much).
I didn't have anything on me: no mobile phone, no laptop, no wallet. Just a big smile and my shorts.
Sometimes I'm so happy I decided 7 years ago to learn how to swim.

Later Marcin built up a fire where we could flame our sausages. In between, just music and drinks.

Olaf the cavemanPerfectionAfter a long night I woke up fresh and ready for the Sunday. For the old times' sake, I even went to Church on Sunday Morning.
I don't remember much of the service because it too hot inside.
I closed my eyes for a moment and thirty minutes later and the noise of an old man losing balance while kneeling (I found it quite funny and I laughed maybe too hard) woke me up. Time to go back.

The boysOlaf and the girlsAfter our (me and Dominik) efforts, this time Marcin was in charge of the food. He grilled some great chicken and sausages and I secretly cheered to all those miserable vegetarians struggling to cope with the deliciousness of meat. ANY meat. It made me even happier.

We had one more session playing football in the sun with the kids, and one more session in the lake.
Then, it was time to go. We had a match to play in the evening.


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