So this past weekend, I traveled to Poland with 6 other wives to shop for pottery. I didn't really want to shop for pottery, I just wanted to get out of the house for a few days. And to me, pottery meant flower pots and clay bowls. Not any more!
Getting there was a bit of an adventure. I was in a car with two of the wives, Sarah and Erin, and we had left later than the other girls because Sarah had parent teacher conferences that morning. By the time we reached Poland, 5 hours into the trip, it was dark and too foggy to see past the highway. I was OK with that until our GPS decided it didn't like the new highway and, according to it, we were flying in a field. That (non-existent) highway only had 2 exits for like 30 miles too, so I was a little nervous. However, despite my mild panic attack, we made it to the hotel in one piece.
We were just in time to catch the other girls for dinner. The hotel had a restaurant with a wonderful menu full of inexpensive dishes that were awesome... $3 for the duck! As we had the dining room to our selves, we helped ourselves to several courses each before spending the evening playing pool and darts.
The next morning we left bright and early to begin our shopping adventure. It seemed neither of our GPS's was fond of Poland, and we spent an hour on a wild goose chase looking for a store that didn't exist in that location any more. However, we finally found the first of many many many pottery shops we would end up visiting.
The first store was slightly overwhelming. It was very small, but as it had lots of sales, it was very crowded. The shelves were packed tight with thousands and thousands of pieces of pottery. I was slow to become interested in any of the pottery houplah, but I found some cute Christmas ornaments and my large blue rose serving platter. By the next store, I was gaining steam and acquiring new pieces. Pretty soon we found ourselves at lunch with our receipts on the table adding up the damage. The shopping continued until the last store had closed, and we made our way to a friend's hotel for dinner. The next morning we found an outlet store that was open on Sundays before making our way home. I found a beautiful crystal wine glass set of 6 at that store. I won't name names, but now I only have 5.
I got plenty of non-pottery gifts for Jeff and Ginny, including Poland's best vodka, and an old-fashioned sled! I can't wait to get Gauge a harness and let him pull her around. =D
All told it was a wonderful trip, not just for the pottery, but for the experience of traveling with friends without the stresses of kids and dogs. However, even though I had a good time without the family, seeing how happy Ginny was to see me when I got home lifted my heart more than the whole trip did. It's good to be home.
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