Do they have tortillas in Poland?: Guest blogger: Poland and Prague, through the camera of Meg Sullivan

The following was written by my dear friend Meg Sullivan, who visited from Chicago with Robyn in October 2011 (yes, it's been a year). Special thanks to Meg for finally finishing her blog post! I hope this entry will convince more people to visit me!!

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It’s only taken me a year but I’ve finally completed my blog recapping Robyn’s and my visit to Prague and Poland. I’ve decided to document our trip the best way I know how… through pictures. Here is a Top 15 list (in no particular order) of reasons to visit Tristan in Poland.

1. Tristan is the best tour guide a person could ever ask for.

Even in my hometown of Chicago, Tristan would plan amazingly fun things for me to do (most of which I’ve never done) when I’ve lived there all my life.

2) It’s not often that it is completely acceptable to sexy pose in front of castles, churches and other historical sites.

A year later and I still haven’t figured this one out. It’s must be an Eastern European thing but women feel the need to do the ‘sexy pose’ in front of landmarks where us Westerners might consider it inappropriate to do so.

Obviously we weren’t very good at the sexy poses

3) You can fight with castle guards that make the infamous drunk girl “duck face”

4) There’s countless beautiful churches, castles and bridges but there’s also really unique (weird) stuff like this…

5) You might get to be in a Grolsch beer commercial

I’m still on the lookout for my commercial debut but at least we have the pictures to prove it. Also, I’m still not sure why the cameraman asked Robyn and me to act out a seen from Jaws but I guess we’ll do anything for 15 (more like 3) minutes of fame.

6) You get to meet people from all around the world

On our visit we met people from all over the place. Tristan had a party and I felt like I was at a United Nations meeting (with a lot more Vodka). You know what’s even more fun than just meeting people from other countries, coming up with stereotypes for them. What’s also fun is reading aloud Polish words with American pronunciations. While it may me us sound like ignorant Americans, it still makes for a good laugh. Jackie Jest!

Vampires from Romania

Italians that use over-the-top hand gestures

And giggling Japanese school girls?

7) You will drink some of the best beer and vodka you will ever have.

I still dream about the most delicious beer I’ve ever had. If someone can ship me a keg of this Staropramen, I’d be most grateful. As for the harder stuff, most of you probably don’t know but I do not do shots. While visiting Tristan, I DID SHOTS. And lots of them. I can only guess it was because of the really GOOD vodka.

8) Vodka is the same price as water and soda

Enough said

9) You’ll get the opportunity to add more “jumping” pictures to your collection. If you don’t have a collection, it’s a perfect time to start.

Based on the lack of air, Robyn is just starting her collection.

It only took about 10 attempts to get this picture right

I also could use a little more practice since I went down hard a half a second after this picture was taken.

10) You can meet friends of Tristan in Prague and go to a local bar (without Tristan) and it will seem like you’ve known each other for years.

As a result, you may throw up in aforementioned local bar with your new best friends you met just 3 hours prior. I’m not sure if this picture is pre or post puking event. I’ll let you be the judge.

11) Maybe not as cool as some of the other points but you will learn A LOT.
This is an area of the world that has such a great amount history and I think it’s important for everyone to experience at some point in their life. There are some great sites to see and museums to visit. While not the most uplifting, they are very powerful.

Oh wait, that’s not an educational picture. How’d that get in there?

There we go. All of that’s carved out of salt people. Salt! Amazing!

12) You will meet some of the kindest people you’ve ever met in your life and a lot of them have some really great stories to share.

A big shout out to Pavla, Martin, Michal, Irina, Jessica, Cristina, Natalia, Patrizia!! I somehow don’t have a big group picture to share.

13) It’s just plain beautiful

If the 4,000 pictures I took in my week in Prague and Poland don’t convey that point, then I don’t know what will.

14) The food!

While I had to be adventurous at times (since I’ve been known to have a cowardly palette), I was never disappointed. I still miss pierogi and PierogiWorld by Tristan’s apartment. While I know that’s not what it’s called, that’s what I will call it forever because I think it was the best pierogi in the world. Also as a side note, to date, the best Thai food I’ve ever had was in Warsaw so there’s that.