We dug deep in our backpacks to get to the tightly wrapped plastic bags that held our going to wedding clothes. Ironically, they fared well in the bottom of backpacks and required little attention. We arrived by taxi at the rented nightclub. Matt and Michalina met everyone at the door of the renovated hunting lodge and we walked under the flags of Poland and the United States. Each place setting had the standard fare, in Poland, coffee cup, water glass, wine glass, and shot glass. Each table had two bottles of Polish vodka and two bottles of Czech wine.
We met Michalina’s parents, Stanislov and Dauda. Sweet people. He said, “I want to come to America for the christening of their first child and drive a big car on a big highway.”
The ceremony was in Polish with a smattering of English at important places, so it was legal. The wedding song, Stola, was sung and culminated with the traditional toss of champagne glasses over the shoulder. The broken pieces signify how many years of happiness you’ll have, so Matt and Michalina stomped on the chards of glass to get the maximum years. Matt composes techno music and streams a show on line. His fans are now his friends and they traveled from Bulgaria, Columbia, Netherlands, and Ireland to attend the wedding. The youth and the energy were contagious as the disc jockey got into the fun dance music of the wedding. An amazing assortment of soup, beef stuffed with garlic and onions, pork steaks in sauce, chicken, fish, salads, fresh vegatables, and trays of strawberry, lemon, and chocolate desserts. While sipping red and white wine from the Czech Republic there were calls for toasts. This is where the shot glasses filled with vodka kept toasting and toasting and me getting toastier, I was requested to speak. After a few stories of Matt growing up and revealing that he was a very good football (soccer) player, a bit about our journey to Poland, I proposed another toast to the joining of our two countries in this marriage.
Later we ate raw chunks of fillet mignon with more vodka. More desserts, coffee, and then more toasts with the vodka. I remember midnight, but we didn’t get back to our apartment until the wee hours. See you Wednesday or before.
