Szczecin, Poland

This week-end, I went to Poland. It was a country I wanted to visit for a long time, I had several attempts to get there while I was living in  Czech Republic (and so not that too far away) but never made it. So for my 1st week-end out of Berlin (Xmas trip to France doesn't count) I went to Szczecin, not very far from the border, used to be German, 2 hours by train, perfect.
I took the train around 8am on Sat morning and arrived there around 10am. And when I got controllled I realised I've been screwed, the lady controling my ticket asked me why I had not bought the Brandeburger ticket for 10€... well because I didn't know, so I paid 55€...

When I arrived, I took the tram and met J., my great host for this wonderful week-end. We started with a breakfast, before going to visit the cute city centre, she wanted to have me taste a Polish speciality, but the place where they make the best ones was closed, so we head off to a bakery, they had poppy cakes! I used to eat tons of this while living in CZ but never found them in the other countries I visited/stayed in afterwards.
We had quick lunch at McDonald's, I kinda like to try McDonalds in different countries, good thing in Poland: they got ice tea!
And then we continued with the visit and ended with shopping! And there was a shop of Bata shoes! A shop in which I hardly can enter and leave empty handed (which is not in Germany), plus it was sales, so I bought a beautiful pair of pumps! ^^

After the shopping, we went home, she cooked me a nice Polish specialty boiled potatoes with "medalony", some meat with oinions and spices, that was very tasty. After this, the party started, some of her friends came by, I was surprised to surprise them by drinking pure vodka. We had a nice time, and ended up in a great night club. The club, Cityhall, was free for ladies before 10pm, and it was a special night with a famous DJ coming, and as I love electro music that was just perfect. Except that I got suddenly completely tired and it was quite frustrating not have the power to dance on such a good music. We got a great night!

The next day, we slept late, and when I woke up, I met her Italian flatmate, and we were like: but we know eachother, don't we? I had met briefly met him last year in Oslo for NYE party, he hosted her in Bergem (Norway) this summer and now he's sharing her flat... the world is so small! I love those moments that are likely to happen thanks to CouchSurfing! We had a slow start, had a good breakfast and went for a walk.
We took a shortcut, quite isolated, so there was still ice, and my sneakers were slipping like hell, I tried to walk on the muddy side, was fun, and we met a dog, it was sitting on my side, as he wouldn't move I started to try to cross the icy way to get to the other side, when it started to bark at us and chase us, with something aggressive in its eyes, I'm usually not afraid of dogs, but there I paniked a bit, and wanting to kinda run away, I slept on the ice and fell, kinda hurt me, nothing serious, but I still feel some pain... Well, I'll survive ! :D
Then, we crossed a nice park, walked in the centre a bit, stopped for an ice-cream and it was already time to get home, stopping by the shop to buy a bottle of Polish Wodka! :D

It was an awesome week end, the city is very nice, there are lots of parks, lakes and it's not very far from Baltic Sea, so might be even more beautiful in Spring and summer... and for sure I'll go back!

PHOTOS


==Greetings from Berlin==