Na zdrowie - A Polish extravaganza

A few weekends ago we attended the wedding of our friends Agata and Theo. She is Polish and he is Dutch, and the wedding was in Warsaw, Agata's hometown.

The city of Warsaw, capital of Poland and its largest city, was ravaged during the second world war. Much of the city had to be rebuilt, and during the communist occupation large prefabricated housing projects were erected. The Old Town (Stare Miesto) was restored in the old style.

We arrived late on Friday night to our serviced apartment in the Old Town. We walked around for a bit, but it was late and everything was closed or closing.

Fun Polish fact: In every one of our four TV channels that we got in our room, the shows were dubbed in Polish by the same guy! So say you were watching a scene with four different actors -maybe a grown man, an elderly lady or what-have-you - it's all that one guy doing the voices! on every channel! Also, he doesn't really "act", he just reads off the words. Kind of takes the fun out of it. Luckily there was no MTV, i would hate to see what that guy sounded like in a music video. Just kidding.

On Saturday, we grabbed a map and walked the King's Path that passed through all the major sites. It was a very long walk, and we stopped by the Botanical Gardens (not recommended) and ended in the beautiful park that has the palace on the water. We somehow managed to find a bus that went back close to the Old Town - this was not easy as the bus routes are not very easy to decipher and the older people in the city, namely the cabbies and the bus drivers, do not speak very great English, if at all. So we were quite proud of ourselves for that. We did have a Polish phrase book, but we had no idea how to pronounce anything. The Polish language is not a fan of vowells.

We met our friends Sara and Rien for lunch in the old town, and feasted on greasy meat and cheese pierogis to prepare for a long night of vodka drinking.

The streets in the Old Town are much worse to walk on with heels than in Amsterdam, and believe me, that is saying a lot! Unfortunately, it was too late for me, and as we left our hotel to try to find a cab to take us to the church, I wabbled about, getting stuck between the cobblestones. There were about 50 weddings going on that day - and the weather was perfect for people wandering about in the Old Town. So finding a cab was difficult, but we managed to score one eventually. We asked them to take us to the only Protestant church in the city, which wasn't hard to find. When we arrived though, we had no way to know if we were at the right wedding, b/c we didnt' recognize anyone.

The ceremony was very nice. We understood nothing - the ceremony was in Polish, with some in Dutch. If you can believe it, it was actually comforting to hear Dutch because we could recognize it. That will probably be the last time I say that though, b/c I find the Dutch language repugnant.

After the ceremony, a nice Polish couple recruited us to drive with them to the reception, which was held in a very beautiful wine cellar-y kind of place. It was quite lively as there were two other weddings being held there that night, but it didn't really complicate things as they were in different rooms.

We were served champagne and when the happy couple arrived, they were promptly handed their first celebratory shots of vodka, which they then threw over their shoulders. After their arrival we were escorted inside. About 20 minutes after we sat down, we were given our appetiser - a medley of delicious fish nibblets with a shot glass full of vodka in the middle. We embarassed ourselves a bit by taking a picture of this (see above). Shortly thereafter, the waitress came with a bottle of red, wine and a bucket with ice and a bottle of white wine and a bottle of Absolut.

As the night progressed, the tables emptied a bit as some Dutch boys proceeded to drink too much and wind up in the unisex bathroom vomitting and passed out on the benches aside. The shots of vodka continued, and we ate a lot of hearty Polish food to absorb them. We danced around quite a bit, and at one point I decided to ditch my shoes - classic drunken wedding move.

All was dandy until the bouquet toss. All the single ladies circled around the bride and shuffled about in a circle to same crazy Polish tune. When the music stopped, Agata threw the bouquet and our little Sara Lopez caught it. We were all still clapping and laughing when her boyfriend Rien came over, got on one knee and proposed! A night of surprises it was.

Around 3am we headed back to the hotel. The next morning was brutal. A shame, because it was a beautiful day and it would have been nice to have some more pierogis! Instead we relaxed, slept and read in the room, all the while listening to the string quarter playing right outside our window, which was quite lovely. We headed back to Amsterdam in the afternoon.

Poland was a very interesting place to visit, and we would like to go back one day and visit Krakow and some off-the-beaten path cities. It was so great to be part of Agata and Theo's special day, and what turned out to be Sara and Rhijn's special day as well.

P.S. Na zdrowie means Cheers in Polish. Use it.

Random Musing: The Dutch Lemonade

In celebration of some hard-to-come-by decent weather last Sunday, Matt and I went out for a run around the Vondelpark in the morning then out for a walk around the Jordaan in the afternoon. We stopped at a cafe on the Singel canal that has a huge terrace that we frequent on warm Friday nights.

Matt had himself a bloody mary, and I ordered a lemonade. We had to pay in advance, and we probably should have taken this as a warning of what was to come, given that these people don't even have faith in themselves to complete a transaction properly and in a normal fashion.

Five minutes after ordering and paying, Matt gets his bloody mary. I get a sprite.

"This isn't what I ordered," I say.

"The ticket says Sprite," says the waitress.

"Ok. But I didn't order a Sprite. I ordered a lemonade."

"Oh. But this is just like lemonade."

"No, this is a Sprite."

"So you want a lemonade? Like, water with syrup in it?"

"Um. I guess."

"Ok. I will get it for you."

Fifteen minutes later, Matt has finished his drink and I was still waiting. The waitress runs by, "I will be right back with your lemonade."

"Thanks."

Ten minutes. No lemonade. If I hadn't paid for this drink, we would have left. But this was a matter of principle now! The service in Amsterdam is so bad, and something must be done!

Matt calls over the waiter we placed our orders with and explains the situation. He said he'll take care of it.

A few minutes later, the waitress comes back with a drink.

"Here is your lemonade!" she says. "No gas!"

Matt and I look at this thing.

"What the hell is that?" asks Matt

Does this look like a lemonade to you?

I sip this thing. Sure enough, it is water, with syrup in it. No gas. I tastes like a flat shirley temple. I leave the drink there, and vow never to return.

Moral of the story - do not order lemonade in Amsterdam, unless you want to wait 30 minutes for syrupy red water that tastes like an old liquified cherry.

your gay pride is showing

This past weekend, 4th August, was Gay Pride Day (aka Amsterdam Pride) in Amsterdam. One of the largest GLBT (Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transexual) events in the world, Amsterdam Pride sees 350,000 to 500,000 visitors every year. There are several street parties, mostly limited to the "pleins" (squares) and the well-known gay streets, but the big fun is on the canals. Instead of a parade with trucks, the Amsterdam Pride parade is on boats - lushly decorated boats with dozens of dancing men in speedos. Not a bad way for a gal, or a gay, to spend an afternoon. There were also a handful of lesbian boats, but these were nowhere near as fun. Many companies sponsored boats - like ING, ABN AMRO and TNT (the mailmen). There were also a few heterosexual boats that came by to ruin the fun, and hilarity ensued when tourists out on their paddleboats meandered into the Prinsengracht and had to navigate their way out. The parade was limited to the Prinsengracht and only lasted a few hours. We celebrated properly with eleven bottles of rosé between five of us - but it did take us all day.

We missed this event last year because we were in Spain, so it was great to catch it this year. I think I prefer it to Queen's Day because there were less people and funnier music (think theme song to "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"). Plus it happened to be on the nicest day of the summer so far - even the sun came out of the closet today!