Just don't push me, ok?

Have you ever heard of St. Bronisława? I have to admit that I had never heard of it before last Friday. We were invited for some cookies and coffee in the training room. The occasion: our secretary’s name day! We ate homemade “black woman boobs” cakes and drank some champagne so the day at work was pretty nice.

In the evening, another party showed up, in one of our colleague’s home. I got there a bit earlier so I got to admire the house and to watch some interview in TV (device that I hadn’t seen in months). The other people from work showed up and there we were 9 people and a table full of tasty dishes made by Arek’s mom and glasses with vodka or fruit juice. Before eating we have to toast, they said so everybody took his vodka little glass and cheered and drank it all like a shot. I couldn’t do the same, as I don’t usually drink strong drinks so I just took a swallow. They were shocked: “what’s that? You have to drink it all! Come oooon!!!” I succeeded in convincing them that I cannot do that and that I will throw the vodka in the apple juice so I’ll drink them all together.

Every 10 minutes (or even less) another shot was drank, making them become more and more funny, noisy and laughing louder and louder for almost any word. They got empty 4 bottles of vodka. When they were opening the 3^rd one, they noticed I’m still drinking form my alcoholic apple juice glass. The words pressure began:

“Come on Cori finish it so that you can get shots of vodka!”

“But I don’t want any more vodka.”

“What? No, that’s not right! You HAVE to drink! You’re in Poland now so you have to drink! Don’t even think that you’ll leave here without any shot drank!”

“I won’t drink anymore because I don’t want to. And yes, I’m in Poland but I’m still myself and I’m still Romanian. So I’m sorry but I just want some juice.”

The party in Arek’s place ended after 4 bottles of vodka, I-don’t-know-how-many boxes of juice and a lost of sandwiches and salads. We left for some club where I had to meet a friend from AIESEC. On the way they told me that poles use to say that the one that doesn’t drink in party is considered either sick either spy. I told me it’s not the case for me – it’s just how I am; I don’t drink (that much)!!! We couldn’t find my friend so we were heading for another club. On the way some people decided to leave and I said I’ll leave too. The 2^nd round of pressuring:

“Come on Cori, why do you leave?”

“Well, I’m a bit tired and I want to leave.”

“But it will a cool club and we’ll stay there till 5 or 6 in the morning, come on Cori, don’t leave, come with us, you’ll love it, why do you want to leave???”

“Ok, I’ll tell why: because I don’t you to push me to drink again or to stay till morning. Because you’ll all speak Polish like always and I’ll stay all by myself. I don’t want that anymore so I’d like to go home before it will get me down.”

“Come on, we promise we will speak English and you’ll see it will be fun and we’ll stay there till morning.”

“Ok, I’ll come just for one hour!”

In the club, the beer waves started flowing. And after more than 10 shots of vodka and half a liter of beer, everybody was thinking about broken heart, sad love stories in their lives and anything that relates to it. I tried to cheer them up but it seemed impossible to fight with all that alcohol so I left home with the beautiful Marzena and her fiancé.

On Monday everybody smiled, telling me about the sleeping Saturday they had. It was interesting to discover the true polish party and the true alcohol lovers Poles.:))