Every cloud has a silver lining (quite literally)

It's been a very difficult week for us, sick kids, cancelled holidays, plenty of work, changeable weather made us all feel quite low. We needed to get away from it all, at least for a couple of hours so we begged the grandma to stay with the kids till midnight (we call it Cinderella time). Joined by our friends off we went towards Sopot and the sky looked like this

source:trojmiasto.pl

The photos from www.trojmiasto.pl, more here
Well, not really. That was just before we left. When we were leaving it was raining. Raining so heavily that we were soaking wet after a 5-metre run to the cab parked just outside our door. It didn't matter, the five of us were having fun as if we were drunk already. There was something in the air that night.

source:trojmiasto.pl

First place we went to was Zloty Ul which disappointed us so much that we had to satisfy ourselves with giving the inefficient and quite rude waitresses a hard time. You wouldn't believe how amusing it was to ask them to perform their tasks properly like for example to clear the table or give us clean glasses and see their faces when they did. The history of Zloty Ul (golden beehive) reaches back to remote communist past and has undergone countless transformations always falling short of becoming a decent place. This time we were led to believe that something's changed when we saw a billboard showing a bar with over 20 draughts and at least 40 more bottled beers. For beer-lovers like us this seemed heaven. Unfortunately there was a standard selection of 3-4 corporate beers and a very limited selection of bottled ones plus barmen who have no idea of what they're selling or how to operate credit card terminals, waitresses running in all directions without any reason. This is certainly surprising cause the place is located in one of the most expensive streets in Poland, a posh pedestrian precinct where a wave of crowd of all sorts marches up and down so together with high prices you expect something more. Seems like the communist legacy will always haunt the place no matter how it looks.

In the meanwhile the sun came out again so we went out to enjoy a warm, humid evening. Then the last one of our party arrived and in a strong group of six we went to try another place which we found advertised on FB, the Shisha Lounge Bar, which as the name suggests is a Turkish shisha lounge bar. And this was love at first sight! Everything was perfect there. Pillows and cushions, private corners to sit in, nice decor, caring and joyful waitresses, the music, Turkish owners and staff, delicious food, pleasantly mild Turkish beer Efes and above all the shisha! This may seem nothing extraordinary to a Londoner but in Poland, which is ethnically homogenous, such places are hard to find, especially outside the capital. We found hard to leave but Cinderella time approached mercilessly and we needed to go but the minute we left we started planning our return.

Last night was exactly what I was longing for for so long. Even though it started with a torrential rain it turned out to be a warm summer night. We spent time out, with friends. Nobody talked any serious business, I don't even know what's new in their lives, we just went on from joke to joke, comment to comment, ping-pong quick, cried with laughted. I hadn't had such a good laugh since February I suppose. I relaxed perfectly. Cinderella time saved me from overdoing with drink. Batteries charged!