"Wanna put your teapot in my box?"

Tis' that time where women get that itch for Polish pottery and make the great migration to Poland to get it. I know it probably sounds silly to drive all the way over there to get pottery, but, it's totally worth it. 

The last time I went to Boleslawiec, the trip was rather stressful and not all that enjoyable. In all honesty, I was rather hesitant to even go back there because I know the town is rather...uhhh...dumpy. Ya see, Poland is extremely under developed and so incredibly poor, it's blatantly obvious once you enter the country, literally. One of the gals I know here is leaving soon and she wanted to go to Poland for one last "smash and grab" for some pottery, so, I figured we could make a girls trip out of it since I know some other gals wanted to get some stuff. Polish pottery is literally some of the best in the world, mainly because it's made extremely well and you can do all sorts of stuff with it. If you go online to buy any of it, it's outrageously expensive verses what you'd pay in the actual store. 

Once we managed to figure out who all was going (we originally started out with 6 people, but ended up going with only 4), we rented a 9 seater van from Germany since you REALLY do need a lot of luggage space to bring back your Polish treasures. When I picked the van up from Enterprise, it was a little funny to see the guy write down all the countries I'd be traveling through: Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany and Poland. Makes me feel like a seasoned traveler! lol

 This van was enormous! I ended up nicknaming it "BOB", which means "Big Ole' Bitch"...the funny part is, the guy that helped me through Enterprise was named Bob. Go figure!

Tons of room for me as well as my co-pilot :)

Plenty of seating space for the ladies. Only two sat in the back, so they each had a row of seats to themselves.

A little added pressure to take care of the van, was that this thing was very brand new. I mean, BRAND NEW. It only had 407 kilometers on it!

Here's the "before" picture of the storage space before it's loaded up with lots of pottery:

We ended up leaving early on Thursday morning to make our way to the pottery capital. From what I remembered from the last trip, it takes about eleven hours to get there due to crappy traffic and what not. LUCKILY, we got there in eight and a half this time..and that was including pit stops! I was VERY happy with that considering there was tons of road construction last time, although, there was some on this trip, but not nearly as bad. The only bad thing during the drive was that a random rock came, literally, out of no where and chipped the wind shield :( I'm hoping it's not gonna cost an arm and a leg to fix since it's a rental car!

Before we got into Poland, I warned two of the gals (this was their first time going to Poland) that the country was really poor, and it literally felt like we were going into Sleepy Hallow because everything looked dried up, dead, and crumbling. Not very "welcoming" looking. Well, sure enough..it's like the second we crossed the Polish border, the road conditions went from "fabulous" to "AGH!"...ya see, when places "patch" up roads, they use tar in pot holes, wait for it to settle then level out the excess tar so it's a smooth surface to drive on. Not in Poland! They left the gloppy, goopy piles of tar in the holes, so you got to drive over massive bumps, dips, and whatever else you can think of. I'm honestly surprised the tires on the van didn't pop off! The speed limits varied from 40 kilometers (roughly 25 mph) an hour to 60 kilometers (roughly 40 mph)...ON A HIGHWAY! I really wish I could've taken a picture of the conditions, but it was impossible since I was driving (a manual) and I had to keep shifting and adjusting the speed due to the ever changing road. It literally felt like someone hooked the van up to one of those old school vibrating weight loss machines and turned it on HIGH for...ohh...50 miles. It SUCKED!

 

Actually...here's a better visual:

After testing out BOBs suspension and all of us getting rather nauseated from the jostling we had received, we finally made our way into Boleslawiec to find our hotel. Apparently my Tom Tom was a bit confused because it directed me to an area that wasn't any where near our hotel, but after a half hour of being lost, asking (hand signing) for directions from some locals, we finally ended up locating the Hotel Elite. 

Oh.... what is there to say about the Hotel Elite. The term "never again" comes to mind. I was actually quite angry with this place by the time we left...correction, by the time I got our room keys and got into our rooms. The "hotel", which is actually a motel, stated that it was a smoke free place...when in fact, you can CLEARLY smell cigarettes in the room. Then, they tried to mask the smell with an overpowering, headache causing perfume. Sorry, but the perfume made it 10x worse..and...the bedding had burn holes from the cigarettes. Yup! Now, when I booked the room, I booked two doubles, which is supposed to have two twin beds. The double room we got had a full size bed and a cot shoved in the corner of the room with barely any bedding on it. Seriously? The BATHROOM was bigger than the room with the beds. I wasn't happy, nor was my roommate, so I went down to the front desk to ask about getting a different room. The gal picked when she felt like understanding and speaking  English...when I asked for a different room, she said "No, no English. Sorry", but when I said "Ok, we'll be leaving and find a different hotel then."..all of a sudden, she understood and said "Oh, here. You can have two single rooms instead for the same price". Funny how that works! Truth be told, the singles weren't all that much better, but at least the perfume wasn't AS bad.

The light in the bathroom was tempermental...sometimes it'd work, sometimes it wouldn't. LOL. And, you only got one towel, which was barely large enough to be considered a "small" towel. Oh...and no room service for new towels. Ha.

And here's their sign to warn you about the step...ya know...you see it once you've hit the floor and see it since it's by the staircase you're walking up. The other sign is hidden behind a couch ...oh so visible.

 

Between guys talking VERY loudly / rough housing on our floor and the other gals floor (one floor above us) at...ohh....1am-3am,  guys (possibly) moving furniture at all hours of the night, the free breakfast you were supposed to have that never really happened since their restaurant was never open, and their lack of customer service, I can easily say I'll never stay there again and I will NEVER recommend that place to anyone. Ever. EVER.

We set out early the next day to attack all the pottery stores since there were several places we needed to go to (I think we went to ten different locations). I thought every where opened at 7am, but apparently I was totally wrong since no one opened till 8am, SO, we killed some time at one of the local gas stations and had breakfast there since no one else was open (literally). Once 8am rolled around, we went to one place I remember going to last time since they have a massive selection of stuff. They even had my chile pepper pattern!! I was so excited! 

As you can see, there's A LOT to choose from! It can get a little over whelming when you're trying to figure out what type of pattern you like. But, if you already know what you're looking for, it's way easier to get your goodies. Since this place had the majority of the plates & bowls I was looking for, the majority of the other stores we went to were basically to pick up extra goodies and what not.

Tons of deep dishes, bowls and platters...

Teapots, deep bakers, stools, jars, canisters, etc..

Of course I went to my favorite place, which is "Happy Pottery". They're the place I originally bought my pattern from since they're the factory store for Vena (the company that makes my print). I managed to score some cool things there as well as a Christmas ornament that matched my chile pepper stuff (don't laugh!)

Shopping and spending money really works up your appetite, so we took a break and went over to one of the local restaurants for some lunch. Oh my gosh..this place was AWESOME! SO delicious! Their menu was in Polish, English and German, and your options varied from salads, steaks, potato pancakes, fish, etc. Since I love me some perogies, I ordered the spinach perogies with a side of onion soup. UHHH MAZING! Actually, all of us ordered the soup and were extremely happy with it, then all of our extra goodies were just as delicious. So, I'm glad I picked this random place..I'll definitely go there again the next time I'm in town. 

Fabulous onion soup with garlic toast:

Spinach perogies...seriously, the best perogies I've ever had:

One of the pages from the menu; Shannon wanted a picture of it since it offered steak with "moldy" cheese. The price is in Polish Zloty, so you're looking at about $8 a plate!

After lunch and recharging our batteries, we set out again to finish invading the stores. In fact, we actually made second and third trips to some places that we really liked. We made VERY good time with our shopping! I mean, we were completely finished by 5pm! Given, we had been shopping nonstop since 8am, but still, I was anticipating on spending a day or two on pottery shopping, so the fact that it was done in a day made me &  the gals very happy! 

Here's Marissa at one of the places we made a second stop at:

Josie & Marissa having a tea party:

Here's an "after" picture of BOB full of our pottery  :) Keep in mind, it's two boxes deep, so there's more behind the ones you see in the front. No, it's not a sickness. I swear.

Happy campers!

We made our way back to the hotel, relaxed a little bit before heading to the restaurant that's next door for dinner. They went over there the night before and had drinks, so they were familiar with it while I ended up going to bed very early since I had a throbbing headache after all the driving I did. Turns out, they got to experience quite a few of the drinks, lol.

They had everything except the #8 Black Russian:

SO, when we went in there to eat after all the shopping, the waitress that had served them the night before smiled when she saw us walk in. This was gonna be good, lol. The drinks were not along the lines of what we were used to. Well, and the fact that the waitress was using a manual to make stuff made things very entertaining, but here's a perfect example as to what I'm talking about:

Apparently, this is a White Russian. Ummm...

The drinks that they ordered looked nothing like what we're used to. When one of the gals ordered a Long Island Iced tea, it came out looking like a 7 & 7...and she looked like it was poisoning her every time she took a sip of it. Then when time came to order dessert, they were telling me about this thing they ordered that they thought was an apple strudel..and it totally wasn't that. So, I figured I'd just randomly pick some thing and hope for the best. This is what I ended up with:

Turns out that I picked an Apple Strudel even though that's not what it was listed as! Ha!

During dinner, we all agreed that we'd go ahead and head home a day early since we had all finished our shopping...plus we didn't want to deal with the hotel any more than we had to. My headache started to come back in full swing, so I turned in early while the rest of the gals stayed in the restaurant for a few more hours to drink and be merry. When it was time to leave the next morning, we checked out and the hotel staff wasn't comprehending why we were wanting to leave early. Your hotel sucks, nuff said. Then we rolled over to the gas station to top off the van, grabbed some junk food for the road since one of the gals had a ton of Polish Zloty to burn. In fact, we were able to get a ton of stuff in there for very little money... one of the gals even ended up with some spiffy tiger glasses!

Luckily, we didn't have to deal with the crazy road on our way out of the country. It seriously looked like Poland ran out of funding for their road maintenance, so one side of the highway was done while the other side was completely horrible with warning signs, lol. After dropping off everyone, we managed to add 1760 kilometers ( 1,093 miles) round trip...the original 60 kilometers pictured earlier were from me driving BOB home from The Netherlands.

And once everyone's boxes were unloaded, you can see how much was actually mine:

Once I got home, it felt like Christmas all over again cause I was so excited to unpack everything! Tons and tons of stuff! I'll list prices since people tend to ask me how much stuff was, even weeks down the road...and I have a horrible memory. SO, hopefully this will be helpful for those people, as well as myself, when prices are asked! If you click on the picture, it'll get larger so you can see things better...

From left to right:

 Chili Pepper platter with handles: 148.20 Zloty = $54.15

Chili Pepper dinner plates: 52.50 Zloty (each) = $19.18

 Chili Pepper leaf shaped bowl: 41.10 Zloty (each) = $15

 Chili Pepper small plate: 22.50 Zloty (each) = $8.22

Chili Pepper large bowl: 84.40 Zloty = $30.84

Chili Pepper cereal bowl: 44.30 Zloty (each) = $16.18

Chili Pepper tiny bowl: 26.20 Zloty (each) = $9.57

Chili Pepper napkin holder: 20.30 Zloty = $7.41

Chili Pepper ornament: 22.10 Zloty = $8.07

Floral clock: 172.30 Zloty = $62.96

Humidifier: 22 Zloty = $8

Oil bottle #1: 45 Zloty = $16.44

Oil bottle #2: 37 Zloty = $13.52

Oil bottle #3:  57.10 Zloty = $20.86

Chile Pepper soup plate: 52.50 Zloty (each)  = $19.18

Christmas tree: 10 Zloty = $3.65

Tiny bowl with red flower: 14.70 Zloty = $5.37

Corks (three different ones) totaled up to 26.60 Zloty = $9.72
 

I managed to find some cute lil Bubble mugs! Plus, I found one that's perfect for Stef since she asked me to find one for her while I was shopping, she loves cows! How perfect is the cow bubble mug??

Star mug: 17.59 Zloty = $6.42

 Poinsettia Mug: 37.60 Zloty = $13.74

Blue flower mug: 32.10 Zloty = $11.73

Orange flower mug: 44.40 Zloty = $16.22

A sugar jar with my pattern, but I'll most likely use it as a coin jar :) 

(69.30 Zloty = $25.30)

A small round baker which will be perfect for hot dips or small chili's. I was REALLY excited when I found it in this pattern! The chili peppers are cute and all, but I like the grapes for fancier things, if that makes sense. (82 Zloty = $30)

I even managed to find a nice rectangular baker with the same pattern (170 Zloty = $62):

I was damned and determined to find myself a teapot! Last time, I didn't find one in a pattern that I liked, and I definitely wanted something that was cheery and bright. I originally started out looking for one with a sunflower pattern, but all I could find was the warmer portion with sunflowers, but no teapot. For reference, the warmer is pretty nifty because you stick a candle inside of it and it keeps your teapot warm. When we made our way over to one store, I saw this one and instantly fell inlove! I showed it to Eric and the first thing he said was, "It looks like a hippy barfed up flowers"...nice, hunh?

Floral teapot: 68.90 Zloty = $25.17

Teapot warmer: 43.30 Zloty = $15.82

Regardless of what he thinks, I totally love it and it's the perfect size!

SUPER cute chicks! I really wish I would've picked up a few more... I know when I go back again, they won't have 'em since they're an Easter kinda thing. ( 12.18 Zloty (each) = $4.45)

Most random thing from the trip is...Leroy. When we walked into one of the stores, I instantly spotted him by the main entry way. The colors on him are really vibrant and I kept looking and looking... then debating.. I figured I'd wait it out till later in the day since I knew we'd be coming back. Once we were done with the majority of our shopping and we went back there to get some gifts for people, Leroy had moved and wasn't where he was when I left. So, I figured someone had bought him. Ohhhh well. Once I started walking around the store some more, turns out they moved him to a different area. I got all excited, which told me I needed him. Since I had given one of the gals a Polish pottery platter I had bought from my last trip, she wanted to pay me for it but I didn't remember what it had cost me. Luckily, the place I bought it from had the exact same one there with the price. Leroy turned out to cost less than the platter, so she ended up getting him for me in exchange. Nice, hunh? He's so quirky, but I love him! I know he's meant to go in a garden or something like that, but I'll find a nice little spot for him in the house somewhere.

I even picked up a wicker basket. Honestly, I needed it because of all of the individual purchases I made..so the stores just put my pottery in bags verses the safety of a box. So, I just put 'em all in the basket, which worked quite well! ( 48 Zloty = $17.54 )

Some gals from here have made comments about the Air Force plate I picked up from my last trip and asked if I could snag one for 'em if I found anymore. Luckily, the same store I bought mine from had several available, so I grabbed two since one lives here while the other lives in the States:
(100 Zloty = $36.55)

Here's Eric's disapproving look regarding Leroy and my teapot. I think he's just jealous that I didn't find a teapot that was manly for him.

Aside from the hotel flop, I actually had a great time! The gals I went with were awesome, hilarious and were all around great shopping buddies.There's a possibility we'll be going back again in December, but we'll see :) Hopefully the winter won't be too rough or snowy, otherwise, we might have to postpone till February so we won't have to deal with icy roads and all that nonsense.