23.10.2015, 02:10
An October winter tale

BLOG: EHF EURO 2016 blogger Magda Pluszewska explains what this year's early snowfall in Krakow has to do with tram conversations and why it will add to the list of tournament merchandise

An October winter tale

I woke up by the loud scream of the wind. It was the middle of the night. I don’t know exactly what time, because unlike all these movies, when characters wake up at freaky hours, I don’t have any alarm clock on my bedside cabinet that shows the time passing by with its big red numbers.

My window blind was flapping violently and a wooden stick on which it was pulled over, was tapping a complicated rhythm on the glass. Well, as usual I forgot to close the window. With residual consciousness I lumbered out from under the duvet and slammed it before the cold could make itself comfortable in my room. “Rain… storm.. Yeah, they announced something like this… “naah, okay…” – I thought and then I came back to Morpheus' warm embrace.

- Take me down to the Paradise City, when the grass is green and the girls are pretty ... – Axl’s squeaky voice was coming to me like from behind the worlds, but with each syllable it was reaching my ears louder and louder. "Yeeeaah, I’m coming, I’m coming” – in the dark I groped my mobile phone to turn off the alarm clock.

It was exactly 7am. Outside, it already began to dawn, so I decided to immediately look out the window to assess the damage following the overnight downpour. I pulled the roller-blind quickly and I saw the... errrm... January morning ?! But what’s going on? White everywhere! Frost on windows, snow on roofs, and yet this was only the middle of October! I remember that exactly a week earlier I had been sunbathing at the Vistula River in almost 30oC heat and everyone thought that a similar weather would continue until the end of the month. And here's a prank.

Of course, the no.1 topic in the city's trams was snow. "Did you see it? OMG I didn’t want to leave home at all!” or “Oh no, it’s so cold! The car did not start, and I had to take a tram!" or "Look at my hair, they are totally soaked from the snow!" Typical. The Pole always has to complain. Why did I hear one comment like "Wow, this snow is great! Let's make a snowman!"?

It’s an interesting mechanism, by the way. If you ask Pole, what’s up, what you hear most often respond is "Well, you know, mate, cool, but all in all my boss irritates me. I'm so tired and generally I would prefer going to sleep all day". Amazingly, it doesn’t discourage the other side to speak  - quite to the contrary a verbal battle starts whose situation is worse! "And I have to do a project on stats classes, it’s so useless, and in general all these studies have no future".

The result of the conversation is usually reaching the flagship reflection of existential nihilism proclaiming that generally life has no meaning, and vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas. Thus the interlocutors part in great moods, because if others have problems too, it’s not that bad. Logical, isn’t it?

So when you come to EHF EURO 2016, please, don’t be scared if the answer for your "Hey, how are you?" will be "Naah, it could be better". It is not a signal that this person does not want to integrate, but it’s simply an invitation to chat.

Anyway, coming back to snow, different theories appeared quickly why it came so early. The most popular one was that the news about the qualification of our footballers for the EURO after their win against Ireland reached the Creator himself. The old man was so happy that the next day in the morning he still had problems with balance and instead of the button with a cloud he pressed the one with a snow flake. As soon as he had recovered, he immediately fixed it and this was why on Tuesday there was no trace after snow.

The truth, however, is less complicated. Simply, the Polish Handball Federation decided to test the conditions that will prevail during the tournament in January. “We had to check how much we have to warm up the fan zones, how long it takes us to transport the players from their hotels to the halls and how much delayed the public transportation will be after minor snowfall,” I heard from the organisers. “For all the action we needed 24 hours, so we asked a local shaman to create a snowstorm for one day. Not everything went great yet, so we are planning further tests for the end of November.”

The organizers refused to disclose any details, but they assured me to prepare plenty of winter attractions for fans. According to unofficial information, winter tyres are considered added to the ticket package for groups as well as an ice scraper with the EHF EURO 2016 logo as well. However, as Marcin Herra said at recent conference in Krakow, a respected American meteorological institute predicted that winter will be mild this year. At the same time the Vice President of the Polish Handball Federation noted, that the same institution predicted a rather cool summer, so I wouldn’t rely too much on their auguries.

All in all, I am sure, that regardless of the temperature, this winter in Poland will be hot! Thus book your tickets and visit one of the four host cities! Soon you are going to get to know the places worth visiting during your stay in Krakow, Wroclaw, Katowice and Gdansk. Where to eat, grab a coffee and spend the night celebrating the victory of your team? Look for the answers on this blog come November.

If you want to email me in the meantime, you can do so at blog@eurohandball.com. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

TEXT: Magda Pluszewska
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