The first time I came to Poznań was back in October 1999. A few months before I had been working in a bayside hotel on a remote Greek island called Lemnos. It was quite a summer and it was there that I met a bunch of Poles from Poz. The blokes were cool, despite wearing speedo trunks and white socks with sandals, and all the girls were mysterious and gorgeous, but one in particular was quite special. Marta didn't speak much English at the time but we quickly fell in love. It was a summer romance like a dream, but all dreams have to end when the morning breaks. Marta had to return to Poland, a country that I knew nothing about except for Pope John Paul the 2nd and the images from the news back in the 80s about the Solidarnosc movement when everything looked desperate and grey.
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| we fell in love at Lemnos Village Hotel |
So Marta went east and I went west. It was a time when mobile phones and the internet were only just taking off. At first we only managed to keep in touch via air mail before I learnt how to send emails at the local library. I decided that I couldn't go on without her and I had to get to Poland. But there were no cheap airlines to Poland back then, only the separation of a 2 day 1,000 mile road trip. The things we do for love.
I managed to get a couple of friends together and without much thought we headed off in an old Ford Fiesta for a far off mysterious world. When we finally crossed the German-Polish border we were immediately alarmed by the erratic Polish drivers and the tired and worn out roads. We feared for our lives and wondered if we would we actually make it to Poznań alive.
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| a kick about on Lech Poznan's pitch |
Of course we survived to tell the tale and it was a journey that changed my life. I fell in love with Poznań and I fell even deeper in love with Marta. We drank Zubrowka, partied every night for 5 days, made new friends and even got to play football on the Lech Poznań pitch. We both eventually set off together on an even bigger adventure and travelled around the world, before settling down in Poznań in 2007. We've been married for almost 14 years now and with our beautiful daughter Ela we are all living happily ever after.
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| living happily ever after |
Vocab Builder
- Poles - people from Poland
- Bunch - a group of things/people
- blokes - men
- Trunks - a swimming costume for men
- Desperate - a hopeless situation
- To take off - to become common/fashionable
- To keep in touch - to communicate regularly with someone
- To head off - start a journey
- Erratic - out of control and unpredictable
- Tale - a story
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