As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’ve been in Poland for a week, visiting family and trying out a bunch of new things that I don’t normally do. The real purpose of the trip was for my dad to go settle some business with his brother, and I just tagged along because I could. Turned out pretty well though, and I met a lot of family that I haven’t seen in 5 or more years. I’m just gonna go over some of the highlights of the trip.

Toruń

Apparently this Copernicus guy was a pretty big deal.

Most of the trip was spent in the town of Toruń, and this is where most of my friends and family live. Toruń is known for being the birthplace of Copernicus, and having a medieval town center full of pretty buildings, including churches and clock towers. Here’s some pictures I took a few years ago on a previous trip.

I went foraging for mushrooms in the woods, since that seems to be a popular activity in Poland. We were told that most of the mushrooms would have been picked by now, but nope, there were plenty. Largest one we found was 15cm wide and almost as tall. I actually quite like treasure-hunting activities like this, and wonder if there’s anything similar in Scotland.

Apator! Apator! Apator!

I also attended a Speedway tournament, because a lot of people we knew were also going. I’ve never been to watch live sports before, but it was pretty much as I expected; loud, crowded, and hard to see the action. It was still enjoyable though, especially once I figured out how the teams and scoring system works. It was Toruń’s team against some other Polish teams, and we won. Hurray! There was also a neat fireworks display at the end. Worst part was that it took us an hour to leave the stadium and get our car out of the car park due to the crowds. I don’t know if other stadium’s are better at handling traffic, or if this is normal. (This stadium held 17,000 people, and I know there’s much bigger ones out there.)

I had to live with these two assholes.

Finally, the person we lived with in Toruń owns two cats, so I made a bunch of videos. Here’s the best one. They did make me realize that I really don’t like cats at all. One of them slashed me for being friendly, and another one pissed on my bed because I left my bedroom door open. Yup, cats are dicks. Why anyone would ever want a cat as a pet is beyond me. The only good cat is one with no legs, because then it can’t cut you or jump on your furniture.

Kwidzyn

A very tall stack of red bricks.

We visited the town of Kwidzyn because that’s where my dad’s brother lives, and it’s also my dad’s home town, so he wanted see a few places too. We also own land in Kwidzyn now! It’s not worth much yet, but the hope is that it will once the town expands a bit.

The only noteworthy place we visited was the cathedral, which is pretty similar in appearance to most others in Poland, with red bricks and pointy towers. It was interesting though, because there was no other visitors, so one of the keepers gave us a personal tour. We got to explore areas not meant for visitors, including the attic and one of the small towers. These areas didn’t have any sort of lighting, and we had to use our phones to light the way through complete darkness. They were also full of traps, such as low ceilings, spider webs in your face, and slippery stairs, due to hundreds of years of pigeon poop piling up. There wasn’t much to see, but it was fun exploring an ancient place that very few people have seen in the last few hundred years.

Inowrocław

We also briefly visited the town of Inowrocław. Didn’t do much here, just visited a few people. My dad’s other brother lives here, and he’s got a lot of fruit trees in his garden, so we collected a bunch of apples and plums. I also hung out with his grandkids, and showed them my games. Turns out that they visit Kongregate and recognize my characters, even though they haven’t actually played my games. I feel like I should hang out with more young kids now, since I’ve probably got more of an audience there than I realize. (They’re hard to count since they usually don’t have Facebook, and won’t appear on my page stats.)

Anyway, I think that’s everything worth mentioning.