A Different New Year’s Eve
Krakow, Poland, December 30th, 2016. It had been a great few days on this winter city break: cold weather, a visit to Auschwitz, evenings in the main square and in Kazimierz, vodka, beer and food. But now it was time to head home and enjoy the new year celebrations in our village pub back home.
Our base, the Europejski Hotel, austere on the outside but with the charm of a bygone era within, had a hidden jewel with its Polish breakfasts, which are still up there on our “best ever” list. We bade farewell to the friendly old guy on reception in his starched and dated uniform and headed out to the airport train.
Two stops from the airport, an unexpected text lands. “Your flight is cancelled” being the basic message. Unbeknown to us, the south of England had become fogbound, and all of London’s airports were closed. Arriving at Krakow airport, the terminal was in chaos, thronged with distressed passengers, some inexplicably angry with staff, long queues forming at help desks, one of which we joined, not quite knowing why.
Easyjet’s first offer was a flight on 7th January, which, given that we were still working then, was impossible. A second airline offered their “last seats” at eye watering prices, trying to sting us £500 EACH for a short haul flight. As the panic set in, we even considered hiring a car and driving to Calais, until we remembered that “panic” never finds sensible answers.
In the end Easyjet came good, found us a flight on 2nd January together with two free nights in the airport hotel, for which we were very grateful.
The evening of 30th was fine, but we couldn’t relish the thought of New Years Eve in a sterile airport hotel bar, so with apologies and gratitude to Easyjet, we booked one more night back at the Europejski and headed back into central Krakow.
Krakow’s main square was alive with the spirit of new year, drink flowing and street food everywhere, but the bars were bad news. Suddenly, bars we’d been drinking in all week wanted a £40 entry fee, so God knows what they were charging for drinks. At £40 each we weren’t about to find out.
It was OK in the square but we felt pretty flat walking back to our hotel after midnight, pretty sober and thinking of that party back home in our village pub. As we trudged in the cold from the tram stop towards the Europejski, we could hear music, fun, parties, making us just that bit more flat. Until, that is….
Until that is, we realised that all that noise of revelry was coming from….the Europejski! The entire bar/breakfast room had been converted to a dance floor, the party was in massive full swing, drunken revelry everywhere. It was a private party, but by 1am, of course, nobody cares, so we are called in – well, pulled in, in truth – and within minutes the vodka is flowing and we are dancing with strangers.
It went on for hours. To this day we have no idea what time we hit the bedroom, but it was an unforgettable, brilliant night, and purely good fortune.
We didn’t make it to breakfast.
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HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL