It’s already been one week!
I can’t believe that I have been in Poland for a week already. I returned for the summer after receiving an awesome opportunity to volunteer at Auschwitz! Because of that, I came a full week early to see my family, of course. And this first week has been full of football! Oh, also known as soccer.
Let me tell you, train travel with your luggage from plane travel is tough. Well, unless you can lift both at once and are a bit taller than me. Nonetheless, it is still enjoyable, because sometimes you luck out and get on the changed-to-2nd-class-from-1st-class car (six seats in one division as opposed to eight). Word of advice? If you are in Europe and plan on traveling, try to have a home base for your luggage!
Seeing family, of course, has been very enjoyable, but the more noteworthy event to people who are not my family? Why, being in the host country for the duration of Euro 2012!!! The European version of the World Cup, just to be clear. :)
Yes. It has been super exciting. You see, Poland is not a country that typically waves its flag from every doorstep and balcony. But now, it is difficult to go a day without seeing a car which has a Polish flag attached to its side. The team? Polska Biało-Czerwoni. Everything is saturated with Euro 2012 Poland-Ukraine logos and excitement, and yeah, it’s really cool. Everyone talks about the games going on. There are four groups, and three of the groups have completed their games.
In Group A, Greece and the Czech Republic are moving on, much to everyone’s surprise! Everyone was convinced that Russia would definitely go on, and of course, they were hoping that Poland would leave its group as well, but sadly, it lost to the Czech Republic.
However, the team fought very hard and played very good games in the two games I saw (vs. Russia and vs. Czech). In fact, they shocked the public by tying with Russia! I’ve watched at least a bit of every match (from all the groups) since I’ve been in Poland. While I was with family, I watched every match in its entirety, but now that I have work at 7 am, I like to get my sleep the night before, and the games start just a little before 21:00 (9:00 pm), which consequently means they end at around 23:00 (11 pm).
Each game has been really interesting, and the fans have been a pleasure to listen to in the stadiums. The days when Poland played were super exciting, because you could hear the fans in the streets, honking their horns, whistling, being loud and excited and proud of their team, with visions of the Polish team winning 5-0, for example. The entire country is united, and it is really cool to be on site and feel the atmosphere that comes from the excitement of its people.