Day 6) After some limited sleep, and after stifling the building irritation that comes with chronic lack of sleep, I roll over in bed and look at my phone.
4AM. Really?
I'd averaged about 4 hours of sleep per night for the entire trip. The alcohol probably wasn't helping; I'd been an enormous lush this entire trip. My liver hurt. I think. I guess it could have been a strained abdominal muscle, maybe I strained it lifting up that bottle of Absolwent. Reasonable assessment.
I rolled over in bed and shot Dontuan the usual morning text message - 'how'd it go last night', then threw the phone to the other side of the bed and tried to sleep some more.
Air-dried clothes have a peculiar crispiness to them. The apartment didn't have a dryer, only a washer; and a lack of a clothes drying line left me draping socks and underwear all over the apartment. If I was ever going to bring Magda back here, I'd have to fix that..
The morning eventually brought a trip to McDonald's at Galeria, and I sat with my laptop grinding out a post for the forums. Again I couldn't help but marvel at the sheer quantity and variety of beauty on display here. A stunning girl with huge brown eyes and dark hair ate alone at a table behind me, and for want of Polish skills and feeling a little self-conscious for it, I said nothing. Would I have approached her in America? What exactly would I have said anyway?
At least the McDonald's served lunch food early, and an order of fries and a cheeseburger for about $1.75 American was a pleasant wakeup call. I wasn't feeling like working too hard, and forced out as much text as I could stand, but closed my laptop and prepared to stand.
The pretty brunette was standing as well. Fuck fuck fuck.
I threw my trash away and slid my laptop into my travel bag. Careful maneuvering here. She hovered outside of the McDonald's for a minute, and ... a ha.
"Excuse me, do you speak English?"
"Yes, a little," she said, and to see her up close revealed her to be so minutely flawed that she seemed all the more beautiful for it.
I regathered my senses. She looked minutely like the girl on our first album cover. "Good, good.. do you know where I can get a pair of headphones?" It occurred to me that it was silly that someone who had a first album should have such a hell of a time talking to a girl in the first place.
"Hmmm, like for music?"
"Yes, for my iPhone." I mimed the gesture. Coulda been smoother.
"I don't know. Maybe ask information?" She nodded toward the information desk near the Carrefour's grocery store at the end of the mall.
"Okay. I'm sure I'll find it." Fuck, now what else to say.
"Okay, great."
"Thank you," I said, admitting defeat. At least it hadn't been to nerves.
She nodded and walked away, and in the lucid seconds following I realized I should have shown her the goddamn album cover. Ugh.
The day perked up, though, when Dontuan got back to me. He hadn't scored particularly well lately, last night being a minor bust, and he'd grinded it out in the club all night to score one phone number total. Prospects were immediately brightened, however, when he hatched a plan.
"So I know this Ukrainian girl," he said through bites of rice and salmon. "She's got a friend, they're both salsa dancers. The Ukrainian girl has a boyfriend but her friend doesn't."
"Yeah? Good luck on her."
"No, I'm not really interested in her."
I scowled a bit in disbelief. "Why not?"
"I dunno. I don't think she's all that pretty. Here, I'll show you."
He flipped through a few screens on his smartphone to show a picture of a lovely, mild-looking Eastern European stunner with sandy blonde hair and a gentle face.
"Are you kidding? She's gorgeous."
"You think so?"
"All day."
"I guess she's just not my type. Anyway, we'll meet up with them tonight and hit the club."
That sounded good to me. At 8ish I remembered to text Hertinto, getting him in on the action. He was suffering from the aftereffects of a hangover again, and had existing plans to meet a girl again from last Tuesday, but promised to make it out if things didn't go the way he liked. In the meantime, I was suffering again from fatigue.
I bid him good luck, and Dontuan and I synced up at McDonald's in Rynek to head to Klub Puzzle. Klub Puzzle turned out to be an interesting place, up two flights of stairs in a mostly unmarked doorway. Inside was a bit of a flashback to the United States, with decidedly urban gear being the de rigeur dress code here. A circle of young men and a girl were taking turns breakdancing; it seemed to be some sort of informal competition, complete with announcer.
"Nothing going on here," Dontuan observed, and we hustled out to Casa de la Musica for a drink to wait for the girls.
I sunk down into a soft chair on the upstairs patio, thoroughly drained.
"You should have a Red Bull," Dontuan offered up.
"I've had three Monsters already."
"I'll get you a Red Bull vodka," he said, and headed to the bar. Seated behind his position were two mildly attractive women at the same kind of tiny table. I took notice, but the logistics on this approach were going to be hard.
"The girls are usually not right on time," Dontuan said as he sat my drink down on the little table between our seats.
"Thanks," I said, taking a sip. "So they just kinda show up whenever?"
"Basically."
"Women." I was starting to recoup a bit of energy, but it would be a long slog toward that lofty goal tonight. The girl furthest from Dontuan got up to leave for a moment, and I gestured my head toward them. "Go for it."
He craned his neck to see, and then immediately said something to her. I had to hand it to him. If nothing else, he thoroughly lacked approach anxiety.
They chatted for a few minutes, and I got up to leave them alone. It hadn't been long, however, until their conversation had died out, and when I returned Dontuan was staring off into space.
"No dice huh."
"I tried. We didn't have much to talk about."
"It happens. At least you tried."
With that matter settled, we headed to Szjaba. Szjaba was a pretty ordinary bar with a huge tented area out front, and a small dance floor indoors. I braved the waters on the dance floor for a few scant minutes, but at length we retreated to the awning to relax.
Hertinto and the girls showed up at nearly the same time, and introductions were made. Anastasia, the salsa dancer, was slender, with long, sweeping black hair that probably would have swatted me in the face if I spun her in a dance. Her friend, Sylwia, was a little shorter than Anastasia, and had a gentle, doe-like beauty about her. Her hair was lighter than I remembered from the picture that Dontuan had showed me, and longer. She was pretty, and I was a little taken by her, but before I knew it Hertinto had moved in, and they were speaking rapid Spanish together. I didn't mind; the last thing one can be in Wroclaw is to be jealous of one girl. Pretty girls here are just a drop in a bucket, a very large bucket.
We went to Domowka again. The girls cheerfully conned us out of the 5 zloty entrance fee, and we suffered the indignity of a 15 zloty entrance fee ourselves. Sexism is real, ladies and gentlemen. This sort of thing, for whatever reason, irritates me so I should probably avoid places that engage in this kind of trickery in the first place. Or I could just soldier through it. But whatever.
The club was busy and fun during our last visit there. This time it was a zoo. I eventually found the pleasure of a short, slender girl's company, and we danced a little bit on the floor, but she seemed to want to keep some distance between us. I'm still not a strong proponent of the 'grab and hold' strategy so comically employed by Polish men, and when I didn't force the issue I suspect that I may have left her a little confused.
Hertinto's flight left early the next day, and we decided to cut and run back to his place to kill the rest of his vodka and chat. I was the third man out.
On the way I balked. I didn't mind calling it a day. My social calendar had already begun to fill through the next week and I was, again, bone tired. Sticking around would likely jeopardize the admittedly slim chances of Hertinto and Dontuan; would have taken some serious logistical issues being solved to get any banging done, and I was too tired to navigate that weave. Ain't nobody got time for that.
"Hey guys, I'm gonna cut out of here."
"No way, man, come hang out with us a bit," Hertinto encouraged. "Vodka!"
Fuck, he knows my weak points. "Maybe for a bit."
The girls were getting noisier, which was strange because we hadn't poured any shots down their throats in a few hours. (I presume Dontuan and Hertinto had done so; at the very least I don't recall doing so myself.) And before we knew it they'd started speaking entirely in Polish to each other.
Now. I accept that I need to learn Polish to properly integrate here, and that's not going to happen for awhile. But speaking in a language that the people around you don't understand when you're perfectly capable of using a language that they do is rude. And after a gentle reminder from Hertinto that they ignored, I was more blunt about it. I didn't want to kill the buzz for Hertinto and Dontuan, obviously; if they were two girls with me alone I'd have torpedoed that shit quick. (Well, maybe I wouldn't have really, but at least I wouldn't have been cockblocking anyone but myself if I did.)
"That's pretty rude," I said as genially as I could muster. I was already irritated. This business carrying on was like fingernails on the chalkboard.
Hertinto backed me up, but the girls weren't paying attention. We got tiny shots of vodka to celebrate Hertinto's last night (it was all he had left). The girls took theirs in champagne in a quirky mimosa style drink. I hit mine as quick as I could.
We stood on the deck overlooking the city; if nothing else, Hertinto had chosen an excellent base of operations. Dontuan asked me to reprise a salsa demonstration I'd shown him. The girls seemed to approve. In Polish.
Without acknowledging the girls as I stepped inside, I caught Hertinto looking for the remainder of his champagne. "I wanted to stick around a bit longer, but these girls are pissing me off. They're being rude. And I don't want to ruin it for you or Dontuan, so I'm just going to jet."
He nodded, understanding. "No doubt, no doubt. I've got something good going on with Sylwia. I think it might work."
I took his hand in a firm handshake. "Best of luck. Seriously, I mean that."
"It was good to meet you. Facebook."
"Facebook."
We did a bro hug and then I left. I don't tolerate shitty female behavior anymore. But it's not up to me to tell someone else that they can't, especially if they think they can get the last laugh.
BONUS ENTRY
Day 7)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLexgOxsZu0
Next up: Playing With Fire, and Revenge of the SIF