Poland or Bust!

The first weekend of March I headed off to Poland with a group of girl friends to do some Polish Pottery shopping. We left all the kiddos with the dads and set off for our adventure. About 5 minutes into our trip we go stuck on the autobahn in a stau (traffic-jam). We sat there for a good hour and a half. Talk about bad timing. 

We finally made it to Poland around midnight (if I remember right ...) and got settled into our castle room. It was like Girl's Camp all over again, bunk beds, a group of fun ladies, mad dashes to the bathroom in the freezing cold ... but, lots of fun. 

The place we stayed used to be an old castle? fortress? something of the the sort? It was pretty neat. 

And, it was conveniently placed next to an old insane asylum. Creepy? I think so. I'm glad I didn't know where the asylum was the night before and I only had to see it while the sun was shining. 

Then, we headed into Boleslaweic, Poland! I never (ever, ever) thought I would like Polish Pottery. I was convinced it was something my Great-Grandma would have had in her kitchen and she would pass it down as an heirloom. But, I still wanted to see if there were any pieces I would like. 

Well, gosh dangit, Polish Pottery can be BEAUTIFUL. (Don't get me wrong - it can also be ugly ...) But, there were so many pieces that I absolutely loved. It can be overwhelming when you walk into a store, though. Hundreds & hundreds of pieces of pottery are staring at you and you have to walk around, sort through the goods until you find something that "speaks" to you. But, it's so much fun. 

These are the typical stores you will see in Boleslaweic: 

{I found my most favorite pattern at Henry's ...}

Not only did we get to have a blast buying Pottery, I also got to hang out with some amazing ladies from the ward. It's crazy to have such wonderful bonds with these ladies even though we have only known each other for a matter of months. I guess that's what happens when you live in Europe and all our families are over 5000 miles away! 

Tera enjoying the children toys ... 

{Tiffany Clark, Elizabeth Tucker, Mary Anne Miner, Charee Brown}

In one of the stores (Andy's) they had a little room off to the side where you could see them working on the pottery. There wasn't anybody painting when we were there but, we still got to see their work station. 

All the painting is done by hand so, it's pretty impressive to think that each piece of pottery starts out as a boring tan slate and turns into this: 

I had been wanting a big basket for all of our blankets but, hadn't found anything ... until the very last store we went to. Both Mary Anne and I found a basket we wanted and well, I just couldn't pass it up. (It was something like ... $25 for a huge wicker basket...unheard of!) But, there was just one problem with our purchases ... we had already had the van packed up to the brim with pottery. So, Mary Anne and I had to pull out our packing skills and repack the entire back of the van. 

But, poor Mary Anne -- she ended up riding the entire way home with her basket on her lap. (Somehow, mine ended up in the back of the van ... luck? or trickery? I'm not sure which...)

After we had finished our shopping, we headed off to eat at the 'Blue Beetroot'. Um, one word: 

Amazing. 

I wish I could go back there right now and enjoy everything about that place. The environment was so cozy. The staff was incredible. The food was absolutely delicious, in fact, some of the best I've had in Europe so far. 

How can you not enjoy a restaurant like this!? 

Our group of ladies: 

{Left side: Elizabeth Tucker, Pam Emmons, Charee Brown, Me!

Right side: Tiffany Clark, Tera Blackham, Chanda Giles, Mary Anne Miner}

So, the other cool thing about this place is all the food is made fresh, and made, by what I would call, "clean eating" standards. Seriously, the food was delicious. 

I ordered a "pancake" filled with fresh spinach and a creamy garlic sauce. It had a spicy ranch dip with it. Oh man. Can I just tell you how yummy it tasted!? I loved it. And the manager of the restaurant was great and came out and chatted with us a bit (Yarek? I think that was his name...) and informed us that pancakes in Poland are technically a crepe, by American standards. Who knew? 

And for dessert? 

Pumpkin Pie with vanilla ice cream. 

Perfection. 

After filling our bodies and emptying our wallets - we headed home! Mary Anne and Charee cozied up for the ride ... 

I seriously love my friends. I am a lucky lady. 

The ride home is technically supposed to be about 4 hours. But, because we are always down for an adventure, we decided to turn it into a six hour ride home. We got home at about 2am. Church was at 9am the next day. We were all exhausted. But, I digress: We were about 45 minutes away from being home when we realized there was only about 15 miles left of gas in the van. The gas mileage got miscalculated. So, we pulled off the autobahn in search of a gas station. In America, easy peasy, right? Hope off, grab gas, get back on the freeway. In Germany? That is NOT the case. Most places aren't open 24-hours. It takes serious luck to find something that is open past 8:00 pm here and, you cannot pay for gas at the pump, like in America. Here, it requires going in a paying your money to a real, live person. It's kind of obnoxious really. So, we drive around from gas station to gas station hoping we would get lucky. 

Nothing. 

We passed a bar that looked like it was still open so, Chanda and I went in to ask them about a gas station that would be OPEN. Between our broken German and their broken (very broken) English, they gave us directions to a gas station a few miles away. At this point, we were in the negative for mileage left before we would run out of gas plus, we were all exhausted and irritated at the situation. So, we crossed our fingers the Germans were right and headed out. Well, I hope they got a good laugh at us Americans, because the directions they gave us were 1) confusing 2) lead us to a gas station, that had already been closed for 5 hours. 

So, we sat. And tried to decide what to do. Have a husband bring us gas? They all had sleeping kids at home. Call ADAC (basically AAA for Germany)? We tried that but, it ended up not being able to work out because of their policies. So ... we drove. We all prayed hard, and we drove. I am sure we were easily -50 miles by this point with all the gas station hopping we had done. I can't even remember what town we ended up in but, some how, we found a pay at the pump gas station. In Germany. At 1am. 

That's unheard of. 

So, we got enough gas in the van to get us back to our homes and headed off with grateful hearts that we would get to sleep in our own beds that night, instead of in a van on the side of the road. 

I had an awesome weekend, and had a lot of fun, but, I was definitely happy to be home and in my own bed, next to my hubby. The next day Brad left for 3 weeks of training. He's been gone since the beginning of March! But ... the happiest part of all? He comes home tomorrow. 

I love that man. He had a blast with Kason while I was gone and I am so grateful Kason has him in his life. They had a sleepover at a friends house with video games, junk food, movies, and not very much sleep. I wouldn't expect anything less while mom is away for the weekend. Besides, Brad changed the oil in my Jeep - how can I complain!?