Gnome-one's home in Wroclaw, Poland

8 April 2012

Full of ganas (excitement) for our trip to Wroclaw, Prague, Vienna, and Munich, I left my house singing the "So long, farewell..." song from The Sound of Music.

I arrived at Mercado (the market) to meet up with my friends (one American and two Spanish teachers who work at my school) before heading to the airport. I was both excited and nervous for our trip--excited because I was finally getting the opportunity to see Poland, but nervous because I absolutely can't stand flying.

Check out the Alps!

In the end, the flight wasn't too bad. I was definitely nervous--especially as we passed over the sea and the Alps--but I managed not to think too much about it while conversing with one of my friends and the father of a family in Valencia. The father from Valencia had traveled to a couple of the cities that we are going to visit and so he gave us some helpful advice.

In no time, we arrived in Wroclaw, Poland. Our first order of business was to figure out how to get to the hostel. We debated using the hostel instructions to take the bus and then a tram to the hostel. However, these seemed a little more complicated than we wanted to deal with. Ultimately, we decided to just take a taxi--which meant we wouldn't get lost!

Next, we had to decide what to do about money. Even though Poland is part of the European Union, it isn't a Eurozone country--meaning it has its own currency. The currency is called the zloty and one euro is approximately 4 zloty. Since we were only spending about 24 hours in Poland, we tried to take out the minimum amount of zloty possible. In fact, most places either accepted debit/credit cards or would allow us to use euros.


Even though we were in Poland, it almost felt like we never left Spain--given that we probably ran into more Spaniards than Poles. I figured that this was likely due to two factors:

1) It was a Sunday and most things are closed on Sundays;

2) It's also Easter Sunday so most people were probably with their families.

I thought about adding that it was a little chilly (nearly 32 degrees!), but the Polish people are more accustomed to cool temperatures.




Since everything was closed (and I mean just about everything), we wandered around the city--discovering its beauty.

In between passing groups of Spaniards and walking through the city, we encountered one unexplained oddity.

Gnomes. Lots of them.

The first one seemed random, but then we started noticing them everywhere. We knew that there had to be some story to explain their presence all over the city.












Apparently, the city commissioned them from an artist in 2005. Originally, there were only 25, but soon business owners wanted to have their own outside of their shops. Now, no one knows exactly how many there are within the city!

We saw gnomes at ATMs, holding flowers, riding a motorcycle, skiing, etc.

After a while, we sought refuge from the cold in one of the few bars/cafes that were actually open. There, I had some hot wine and one of the best pieces of carrot cake that I've ever had! Instead of a layer of frosting on top, there was dark chocolate--enhancing the flavor of the cake!