mywayaround.com

on Polish-German relationships

It’s been a year now I’ve been working for a German company. I’ve spent quite some time in the lovely country of beer, schnitzel and pommes frites. For the anniversary I wanted to write a serious note on Polish-German relationships, stereotypes and so on. But I won’t. I will tell you a bullshit story instead.

Last week I was out with 2 other Polish guys to a pub in Heildelberg. Sitting, drinking beer, speaking not too loud (not to scare anybody with our Slavic language). Then a group of drunk young German guys came. 15 of them. And of course they started talking to us. I was expecting troubles. So when the question “where are you from?” finally came up I thought “oho… it’s coming”. “Poland.” “Whaaaat?” “We are from Poland.” “Aaaaaa, Polen…. VODKA!” Yeah – so, finally. The best words we could hear from the young Germans. No “Polish people still cars” as we heard so many times before, but “vodka”. So we ended up drinking Polish vodka with them, buying each other a round and sharing these magnificent moments. Nice.

What does it mean to me? The new generation of Germans again starts to value and respect Polish people for the good stuff and our uncommon abilities (vodka!). Hopefully I soon will no longer have to deal with assholes calling Polish people thieves so I would not have to give them a quick history lesson about WW2, 50 years of communism and poverty. And our not-always-good relationships will become a song of the past. And the day will come when we would really forget the memories and just sit together and drink. And make a toast. Für Grünewald!

This week I am again working in the German HQ. Staying in a village close to Speyer and driving a tiny car that makes me smile. :D Sleeping a lot! Today driving to Nürnberg to meet up with Tina (German girl met in Mexico, too nice to be German ;-) ). Feels a little bit like vacation.