Poland.
I came to this country with one particular image in mind: a sinister Rob Zombie paying homage to A Clockwork Orange and it’s Milk Bar sequence in his music video, Never Gonna Stop (The Red Red Kroovy). Moreover, I’d recently read a book by George Friedman (the head honcho of the STRATFOR intelligence company), titled The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century, in which he suggests Poland will be one of the world’s super powers by 2050. I was intrigued as to what gave him that idea.
And so for 2 months I called this place my pissing ground. For 2 months I met, spoke, and drank with the people of this land. For 2 months I told people I’d find a job here. For 2 months I didn’t.
On March 6th, 2011, I finally boarded a train and left Poland.
Sad?
Yes.
Do I want to come again?
Absolutely.
Poland was a great country to me and I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. When I landed I immediately felt a sense of being “home.” That’s a scary word because whenever I talk to ex-pats they always mention how their new country immediately felt like “home.” And, as I was to find out later, I do indeed have some Polish roots, so maybe they’re starting to spring up? (Well, technically, they’re Austro-Hungarian roots, but I’d like to avoid that whole argument.)
Perhaps that’s why I spent so long in the Land of the Po. After reading over my first, second and third impressions of Poland, I take a look at a map and see that I’ve covered a good part of the country. In the next few posts I’ll give a brief overview of my adventures through Poland, including almost everything ranging from the sights of Warsaw and the goats of Poznan to the dwarves of Wroclaw and a search for a cemetery in southeast Poland.