Poznaj Poznań!

WE MADE IT! One of my dreams came true and I have managed to organize a meet up in Poznań :)

First of all I would like to thank all those who came and had fun; you guys were great and hope you enjoyed my beautiful city, wish we could do it again sometime. To all those who were suppose to join in but never appeared (you know who you are…) - you don’t know what you’ve missed.

The attendance list (in order of confirmation):

me ;)

Christine (TB flying_dolphin7)
Grzegorz (TB jegs76)
Mike (TB mikevirgo0824)
Lena (TB lena31)

Ada (TB Inari-sama)

Marika (TB supermariq)

Now I will write about the Meet Up day from my subjective perspective...

I had to wake up ridiculously early (7am!argh!) to catch a bus so that I can appear in Poznań at noon. We were suppose to meet up in front of the castle at 1 pm but somehow the group ended up by Muza Cinema which is like 2 blocks away. Finally I managed to catch up with them and as soon as I hugged everyone I knew it would be a good time.

For a start we decided to take a slow walk to the Old Market Square, we sat in front of a café and everyone but me ordered cafe late (I don’t drink coffee at all and it was too early for alcohol so I had to pass). Lena and her adorable baby daughter Amelia said bye and we explored the neighborhood for a bit. Mike and Christine bought a bunch of nice postcards so we found a post office to send them at once. To our amusement, when Christine asked for a stamp to Malaysia in answer from the post office lady she heard “WHERE?!” :D I know Malaysia is not that close from Poland but come on!

On our way to the restaurant where we had our late lunch/early dinner reservation we stopped by the food festival at the Old Market Square. Christine and Mike had a chance to try oscypek - a specific kind of a salty cheese manufactured in the south of Poland from goat milk - and bought krówki - a kind of Polish fudge candy, yummy! On our way to the restaurant me and Mike talked a lot about Asian food and we got soooo hungry. I was kind of worried Christine might get lost or something because she would always stay behind and either take photos or just observe everything around her very carefully.

We arrived to the restaurant at 4pm, right on schedule, and there was a table already set for our group, just as planned. I will write the review of the place later on… It was quite smart and neat. It took us forever to figure out what we want and even longer to actually get the food on out table (or maybe that’s just me since I was hungry already, hahaha!). I assume the gang enjoyed the meal since it didn’t take us long to actually get the plates empty. Well, except for Mike who was “enjoying the conversation” and was bullied by Grzegorz because of that. We ate, we drank, we chat, we took photos, I changed my shoes from high heels to sneakers and than we took off for more sightseeing!

We took a walk round the Park of Adam Mickiewicz and me and Grzegorz took the opportunity to say something about the history of Poznań and Poland so at least now our Singapore travelbuddies know who Mickiewicz was and what happened in June of 1956. Soon we were heading our way for Stary Browar - one of the biggest malls in the city to take even more photos. We discovered it was high time we had taken Mike to the train station, as he had a train to Berlin to catch. On the way the Singapore duo talked about differences explained to me the difference between Singapore and other South East Asia countries which was interesting. Now I want to go there even more! :D

Sadly, by 8pm we had to say our farewells to Mike and after getting all the train tickets we needed the sun was starting to go down so it was the perfect time to go for sightseeing the cathedral of Poznań. On the tram ride Christine was scared we would leave her all on her own or something, but we would never do that!

Grzegorz had some plans to meet his friend in the city center so we parted our ways for a while. He went back and because it wasn’t quite dark yet me and the girls first took a walk around Malta Lake. The whole district is so different ever since the new mall was built but never the less the sunset was nice to observe. Next, off we went to the cathedral. Of course we also had to make a detour to my favorite Malta Cinema. The girls were amazed with all the posters and Christine and Ada HAD TO HAVE a photo with James Dean :D After that we enjoyed the architecture of the old churches and even met by chance a newlyweded couple who were taking their photos on the bridge by the cathedral.

Last but not least we took a tram back to the city center and met Grzegorz for a drink because he stole Christine’s candy! Well not really, he was carrying them for her in his backpack and we forgot about it. Something about half past 9 we had a drink. Christine had her first żubrówka with apple juice, when in Poland… ;) It was really late and the girls had to catch a train back to Szamotuły - a small city in the outskirts of Poznań and I had to make my way to my friend’s place. It was such a wonderful day that I didn’t want to say goodnight to the gang :(

Instead of saying goodbye with Christine we promised to write letters and who knows, maybe we’ll meet in Singapore next summer? :) I got the cutest gift from her! I have no idea how do you call it in English, so let’s just say it’s “a thingie with pockets that you hang on a wall to store some small things” - just see the photo. But it’s got real Singaporean dragons on it, I love it!

After an eventful day I finally made it to my friend’s place and we talked over beer to 3am. All in all, a fantastic day!

Here are some links to blogs by fellow travel buddies who participated:

an entry by Grzegorz: http://www.travbuddy.com/travel-blogs/58691/The-first-polish-TB-meet-up-Pozna-4

Christine's blog: http://www.travbuddy.com/travel-blogs/59332/mini-TB-meet-up-in-Poznan-Poznan-6 [LOTS OF PHOTOS!]

My photos will be uploaded quite soon. I hope...

Ok, a couple of comments concerning my photos: I did take more photos than that but some are not good since it was too dark for my camera or are just crappy composition and stuff so you just have to enjoy what you have for now.