I’m going to cut to the chase, today February 4^th at 4:30 PM most of Poland will be watching the final of the Handball WC (not the Super Bowl XLI), yep you are reading it right, HANDBALL!!!  Currently there is a WC of this in Germany and the Polish team managed to get to the final, stories about the team are in every magazine and newspaper, even though nobody know their names J, much less the ones of their opponents, to be honest, I really doubt that people even know the rules or that there was a WC of the sport itself (just to clarify this sport is mainly played in Europe so to call it a WC is being a bit pretentious but hey, in US they call the World Series to their annual baseball championship final), but people ARE GOING INSANE with this.  On Thursday Iwonka and I went to a night club that was showing boxing on TV (I have no clue why they were doing that), and people were screaming every time the results of the handball WC semifinal were put on the screen, Poland beat Denmark after a double overtime.  You should see the faces, it’s so funny, people really care about this thing even though they didn’t know the sport existed one week ago, I feel like watching Dodgeball – The movie when watching these matches, the players look like porn actors and the trainers like corrupt politicians, during the semifinal between Germany and France (which Germany won after, you guessed it right, TWO overtimes) the tension in the public was really really strong and at the same time so laughable, I actually went to youtube.com and looked for some evidence of the match and of course I found it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBciw5Oyvio).  By the way, in Germany they are even worse, how the hell can they fill a 30000 stadium I have no clue and second comment for some reason aljazeera has paid a lot of money in publicity during this tournament.

To explain this we have to go back to the real WC back in June, you are right, the football one. It all started in Germany, it is well known (and god knows very well documented too) that during the WC Germans showed a bit of emotions, I still can remember people crying after the Germany-Italy match.  Some of this must have gotten into Poland too, since at the end of the WC people here were quite sheered up, watching every match, showing the flags that a beer company (Tyskie) did for the national team and there were a bunch of commercials with old football stars like Boniek (the first polish player to be in Juventus), but I didn’t see this coming.  I even wrote an article before the beginning of the WC about the lack of enthusiasm in Poland for the event, even though historically the national team has been pretty good (I post it in my blog today).

Around October, Poland got their first Formula 1 driver (Robert Kubica), and you can imagine that people started watching Formula 1 more and more, but again, Formula 1 is a pretty popular sport around the globe.

Then in December everybody went crazy about Poland getting to the final of the Volleyball WC in Japan, but that made a bit of more sense, since people in Poland are good in Volley (actually it has beaten Venezuela several times), the women team has won several times the European championship, and people do follow the men team, plus the sport has improved a lot lately thanks to a change in its rules. Nonetheless nobody thought the polish team was going to do so well in Japan, and by when everybody got fired up watching the games all the commercials were of toys (I would say some TV people missed an opportunity of cashing some money).

But how did we move from football to handball, is still an enigma, but I’m enjoying it a lot, I like the fact that people are getting to watch sports (which I love) plus I can make fun of sports like handball (I’m actually curious about which sport will come next? Bowling? Dodgeball?).  To finish I just want to put 4 more things that show that things are changing:

1. Yesterday we were at a party where people at some point of time turned on the TV to watch a Poland-Estonia friendly football game, that for some strange reason was being played in Spain, people wanted to see the match even though Poland was winning 4-0 and we were at a PARTY!!!.
2. Some people are going to watch the Super Bowl today.
3. People even have faith on the new young football team.
4. Night clubs are putting eurosport on their TV’s instead of the Fashion Channel.

Exactly two months ago I wrote about the Polish Wedding, I have to say that after these two months not a lot of things have happened, but here I am at the Mexico City's airport (which has the weirdest gate logic I've ever seen at any airport), waiting for a plane to Caracas that departs at 01:05 AM, completely asleep and hearing a bunch of drunk Venezuelans (have to say is not only men, but whole families) that just got from Cancun or something (with Mexican cowboy hats and everything) screaming how good they are, how many "dollars" they spent, calling their kids names and even trying to imitate the Mexican accent (yep we Venezuelans love to do that, I didn't remember I missed this that much). So I think I have some time to write even more about weddings :)

In this one, both countries are quite the same, you can choose the fancy church or the church you feel attached to (yep that one where you even know the priest, or even played volleyball with the young guys that help the priest - of course I'm talking about Iwonka here).

So no surprises here we are getting married at the church Iwonka feels attached to:), I actually have a pretty good story on this church when I thought the priest was going to perform a human sacrifice, but at the end was just some kind of activity involving fire and torches, but don't worry none of this will be done while we are getting married (actually now that I think, maybe is pretty cool).

As I told you usually weddings in Poland are pretty small, so that allows quite a big range of options for the party, restaurants being quite popular, specially the ones that have big yards and if they also happen to have an artificial lake in the yard (which means that the yard is rather a wood, and probably the restaurant is in a small hotel and the whole hotel is reserved only for the wedding), then you are hitting the jackpot, super duper price if you also have farm animals for the children. The place doesn't has to be close to the city center (is completely fine to do your wedding 45 min outside the city), actually, sometimes is even considered not good to be close to the city center (because of the lack of woods and animals). Of course people do get married at hotels in the city center and ballrooms (called dom weselny), is just not as popular.

In Venezuela (since parties are usually of 200+ inv.), people get married at big ballrooms that can be located at hotels or at fancy neighborhoods, its not seen to do weddings far from the city. The interesting thing is that there are no many places, so they are usually very busy, and some people have to wait up to 2 years if you want to do your wedding party at the place you really like.

In this one we went against the Polish tradition and reserved the ballroom of a city center hotel, so yes, I'm usually answering the "why are you guys doing it there?" question. I have to say that there are also some Polish people excited about it, but won't ever admit this in public.

The party in general is very different between Venezuela and Poland, maybe the thing that is most different of all, but for that let's wait for Part III.

Ohh my god, here things are so different, there are so many hidden rules in both countries on what to put there.

In Poland, there is usually a quote about love written, the couple invite and you have to have different types of cards if you are inviting people only to church or if you are inviting people to the whole package (church + party). To write in the invite how do you want your gift is considered a bit impolite (and hinting that what you want is money is even worse), the best man and best woman usually keep a list of desired gifts and invitees contact them, you can imagine that is pretty usual that people come with gifts that they thought are important for you (so you just have to pray they were right, if not maybe 3 blenders at your housewarm party can become handy).

In Venezuela, parents usually invite people, and invitations in general are much more formal than in Poland (where you can put even cartoons btw) but then what is a whole art are the small "extra cards" that are also in the envelope, the reason for them to exist is for two reasons: 1. To inform you what the couple want you to give them (for example money or the store where they have the list), 2. To share with you how important you are to the couple. There are messages like "You are invited as a best man" which means you are important for the couple (and also you will have to buy a more expensive gift).

Again for women, this is very similar in both countries. Women usually invite their friends to help them with the choice of the dress and usually like models that are going to be done for them in Italy, Spain or France. Maybe a small difference is that in Venezuela girls also like famous dress models (specially people from the jet-set).

For the groom things are completely different, in both countries the groom uses tux, but the difference is that while in Venezuela is completely fine if the groom rents a tux, in Poland is no way accepted, questions like "why would you use something that somebody else used already?" are usually very frequent here, of course that means that your already big budget just increases since tuxes are not the cheapest men accessory ever.

I'm still thinking what I'm going to do here, I assume this weekend I will go and check prices and then make a decision (probably if I go for renting I will lie to people so you will never know the truth :) ).

Well this is all for this part, I'm still missing 3 important things: The Pictures, The Wedding and The Party. I think I will put each of them separated since here there are many things to discuss and comment and make fun off :D.

People, it's been quite some time since I don't write, but to be honest I've been crazy busy, between the apartments (yes there are more than one, suddenly Iwonka and I decided to be the Donald Trump's of Warsaw) and my new assignment at work (that by the way I really like ;D ); nonetheless since January, we decided to spice up the amount of "stuff" we have to do this year and put on top of everything THE POLISH WEDDING!!!! (and yes I know there is a movie with Claire Danes with the same title).

Although both Venezuela and Poland are very catholic countries (95+ % of the population, and please let's go by these numbers, I don't want to enter to the discussion of who is a real catholic and who doesn't, or how Iwonka, my sister and my mum believe I'm the son of Satan or something like that because I don't go to church...), the differences in the ceremony and traditions are pretty big (let's say there is a couple, the parents, the friends, the priest, the church and a party after it, but that's pretty much everything that is similar :) ), so I was thinking it would be interesting to compare them (since this is my day-to-day lately, even here I'm negotiating like crazy).

This is a very interesting one; for both cultures is pretty similar... The man will choose a kinky place (top of a mountain, a beach, a lake with swams, etc, etc) or a cheesy situation (movie theater, dinner with family, Italian restaurant, or god help us, sports stadium) to declare love to the woman, of course showing a ring (if you ask what I chose, I went for the cheesy situation the day we got our apartment - the first one).

The are some small differences (like which "rock" to use for the ring, or the size, etc) and there is a MAYOR difference... While Venezuelans would get engaged and marry in a year or less, in Poland you can opt for the "undecided when we will get marry" engagement or the "we don't want to get marry anytime soon but love each other so much that find it cool to get engaged" engagement, I know several couples that have been engaged for 4 years or more (personal record is 7).

So you can imagine that when people get engaged, friends and family usually ask what type of engagement you got :D.

In Venezuela this is a pretty simple one, you try to not to put it close to holidays and sensitive dates for the family (death anniversary of a relative for example), special mention deserve the "patriotic" dates, just in case there is a coup, or a march, or a bunch of people throwing rocks, or just thousands of people trying to demonstrate that they can walk in masses while being drunk (I'm serious here!!!!), these are important dates for the followers of Chavez (our president in case you are wondering) and there are several during the year (Feb 4th, Feb 27th, Nov 27th, Apr 11th, etc), of course these dates range from the date he tried to do a coup (and ended up crying in a city tunnel) to the date he was with 4 friends below a tree talking nonsense and a dove shit on him... Ahh and before I forget, a very special mention for election days (lately a yearly december tradition :) ), since we usually have dry law during those (of course that doesn't apply to everyody...). Ok but other than that things are pretty simple :D.

In Poland is a bit more complicated :), you don't touch the holidays as in Venezuela (specially eastern, unless of course you are insane) and sensitive dates, but you have to add a couple of things... First, Polish tradition say that people should marry during months that contain an "R" in the name, which are (in English): March, June, August, September, October and December, of course there is no problem getting married the other months, but well, you usually like to keep the tradition. And Second and most important, there is a small fact, that we don't consider in Venezuela --> THE WEATHER. From October to December is raining all the time and is already very chilly, and from December to April is very very cold (this year we broke once again my personal record to -30 C, and that was for 5 days), which makes pretty much Spring and Summer as the best (not to say the only) seasons to get married, if you mix that with the tradition, then you only have 3 months where you can marry :D (June, August, September), now add thousands of couples using this same logic and BINGO!!! we have the 3 busiest months of the year for fotographers, priests, video men, restaurant managers, etc, etc (at the end we chosed September 2nd, I assume you didn't doubt at any time that I was going to go with the tradition ehh?).

With this one I will have to go with my Polish friends :D. Parties are usually pretty small (100 would be the average, with everything more than that considered already a big party), so basically you invite people that are close to you (making parties almost impossible to crash, but hey, everything is possible), most of the invitees are people the couple know, but here goes the funny one: couples invite people to the church ceremony that are not invited to the party, which is basically in my personal opinion a way of telling a friend something like: "I really like you and would like you to be with me during this important day, nonetheless I don't find you close enough to me to spend on you and your significant other the 60 Euro/person that you would cost me at the party" :D. The amazing thing is that people actually do go, and they feel good about it, and buy flowers and everything (I have to accept that I have gone to church this way already like 2 times, and still feel humiliated when I say hello to the couple, put my straight face and say: "I hope you enjoy your party", while I want to hit them with the bouquet I bought :) )

In Venezuela the thing is exactly the opposite. Parties are usually of 300+ people (anything below 200 is considered a small party), of course that means that the couple is inviting a bunch of people that they don't know, usually friends from work or the club of the parents, the current girlfriend of the best friend of the girlfriend of your brother, all the family with their children and significant others, and you can keep counting on. also the invitations include both the ceremony and the party, but only close friends and family go to the ceremony (plus the ones that are not close but for some reason feel they are).

I will continue with the rest soon :D.