Polish Chronicles I: Wroclaw

After VEM I took some days off to make what might be one of the last trips of the year, in Poland. My sister just arrived to Wroclaw to study as Erasmus on September and since I didn't come back to Spain during my whole EVS stay I was really happy to finally have somebody from my family to meet again. In any case, as a proper Erasmus student, she had also some plans for the long weekend of All Saints, so I decided to come a bit earlier to see her and then afterwards continue to enjoy Poland with my friends in Krakow.

My trip started Monday 28th in the night, so in the night that my bus was actually starting at 00:00 of Tuesday. I traveled from Bratislava to Katowice with Polskibus company, really comfortable -and they have toilet and wi-fi. I arrived in Katowice at 6 am and quite sleepy and with a still dark sky I found the train station to get to Wroclaw, what I finally managed by 10 am -yap, I was pretty much broken after that, but a hug from my sister in the station made it all worthy.

She came to pick me up in the station, we walked until Dominikanska square to buy a public transport ticket -quite cheap with the student fare and short-term length-, and first place she took me was the university. See? So if you're Erasmus you're probably having a great time, but before that happen you also have to solve a mountain of bureaucratic paperwork. She needed to finish an online enrolment in her university and also hand some papers to her coordinator in Wroclaw, and because the deadline was only within 2 days I got to know also this student side of the city.

We left my luggage in her residence -she was complaining so much I was really scared of what to expect but it really wasn't so bad, her room is pretty nice and it's a single one, so that's all you need-, and we went to Pirogania, a famous place for pierogi -Polish typical dish- in the heart of the city, the Rinek -which means square in Polish. Geez, they were tasty!

Afterwards we strolled by the center, then headed to the cathedral passing by the national museum and we got there just on time to get a panoramic view of the city from the top of one of their towers, with the sunset light.

 

From the top we could also manage to see a man who lights manually the streetlamps of the cathedral's quarter. My sister have told me about him and she was really excited to finally confirm that he existed. Anyway, we didn't hurry to go down because we knew we wouldn't have the time to reach him, but we eventually did -because it was cold on the top- and kept walking around a bit. We passed by this typical Eastern-style bridge covered in padlocks symbolizing love (?) and just dropped in a former train station which is a current market now to buy some fruit before coming back to the student's dorms.

That afternoon we didn't do much. We had some siesta because I was mighty tired from my trip and we had some dinner with toasts with Spanish ham and oil -hmmm, so good! Also because the two of us being together was kind of a small milestone for my family, we had a Skype call with our father.

The following day my sister had some mandatory lessons she couldn't skip in the morning, so I just walk around the city with a map. I started in the cathedral quarter because I had liked it a lot the previous day, then visit the botanical garden and then walked to another park with a church and a very nice university building -perhaps a library. This path had some road under construction and some street art in the walls. It was not so touristic but I enjoyed it.

Feeling a bit lost and checking on the map, I decided to take the tram to a place closer to the center since the day before I haven't had visited so much. I got from Prusa to Ruska tram stops and walked a bit by the river or channels (I have no idea what that water is, not much in that part anyway). I ended up in Renoma shopping center and headed to the center again, checking the beautiful buildings of a theater, a nearby park and the Opera. At that moment I had a call that my sister had finished lessons a bit earlier than expected, so I just came back to the dorms to meet her -not without stopping by a second-hand shop before and buying two thick sweaters for 6E, score!

'Why coming back to the dorm?', you'll ask yourselves. Well, I told you that my sister and I being together after 9 months was kind of a thing for my family, so I was coming back for the second Skype call of the trip, this time with my mother -anybody that knows my mother in person would realize is not her best picture but, well, is the only image capture we made.

Continuing with the student life immersion, we had lunch together with my sister's friends in the residence. Due to the fact that they share an average kitchen with all the students of the floor, they normally cook for many people together. It's nice, they organize a cooking team -with cooking skills- and a cleaning one -you know, not cooking skills-, and so everybody eats together and cleans afterwards. Smart and tasty -geez, that chicken was so good!

When we finish lunch at a rather Spanish time (3pm), Clara (exactly, my sister has a name) and I went to a park she likes to just have some time together. She told be -as I explained her my morning- that I almost have seen all worth seeing in the city and that I would enjoy this park -she was right. We took advantage of the few remaining light of the afternoon and came back to the residence for resting a bit before going out.

To have a rest before going out, or that's what I thought. But then she told me we could join some of her friends that were preparing costumes for Halloween night -just the following day-, just in the residence in front of hers. And so we joined them and it was actually true that some of them were doing this, but after sometime somebody switched off the lights and from the kitchen of the room somebody appeared with a pile of nutella crepes with whipped cream. It was so nice! I really didn't expect nothing for my birthday, but apparently my sister had a different opinion and she got her friends to collaborate in this warm gesture -I felt so welcome, thanks again^^.

After sharing the pancakes we decided to finally go out to a bar where they have live concerts on Wednesdays -Nietota was the name, I think. Music was great tough because we were a bit late we had the furthest table from the stage -ale nevadi, we luckily found a place to sit. Afterwards we got to another bar, Niebo, and there I enjoyed more the conversation -it was too loud in the first location for talking. I especially remember talking with a Basque girl, who reminded me to one of my best friends of my own Erasmus, nice girl. Anyway, after 2 Polish beers I felt rather more dizzy than with Slovak beer, and since I wanted to also visit something the next morning -and my sister was waking up at 8 am for her trip to Berlin- we came back to the residence not so late.

Next day, Halloween, I woke up around 10 -my sister had already left. I packed my things, had breakfast with her room's neighbor and headed to the bus station to buy my ticket for the afternoon and leave my luggage in the meantime. That day I didn't pull my camera out because I wanted to save some memory space and battery for Krakow, but I wandered close to the train station, then direction to the river, then back to the center to the university area and finally spent sometime in the small islands side having a tea and a walk through the parks -nice relaxed time.

Around 3 pm I started to come back to the bus station, took my bus at 4 pm and arrive at 7:30 pm directly to Krakow, where I met with other friends. But that's another chapter of the Polish Chronicles -named like this after the surprising inspiration I have today to write mountains of words out of few days. Well, they were quite intense after all.

In any case, see you in the next post -if you still can read it! :D

Hugs,
Ali