Hi everyone! I know our volleyfamily on Tumblr is quite dead right now but I want to share my trip story with those who are still here (of course I hope many of you will come back for the World Championships next month)!

I went to Cracow on Thursday and met with @cichypit at the train station (it’s so obvious, isn’t it?). Then we went to our hotel room to leave our suitcases and freshen up after a long trip. Later we didn’t actually do anything that needs to be written here – just the stuff we usually do like taking photos and having fun over a cup of coffee lmao.

Friday was the only day of the Memorial when we didn’t go to see the matches. We took MANY photos, watched Poland’s match on TV and met with our friend and drank beers.

On Saturday we finally went to Tauron Arena! We were super excited because we waited for it for a very long time. The first match of the day was Poland – France and we almost missed the national anthem. 

Poland won so we were happy and after the match we expected to take some photos with the players. Polish team gave high fives to the fans which was cool and then disappeared as fast as France. BUT I managed to take a photo with Damian Wojtaszek so I can say I’m quite satisfied.

After that we couldn’t wait to see our russian children on the court – especially our golden boy Victor Poletaev. When I saw him one of my dreams came true and I love this kind of feeling. He is so precious and he needs to be protected at all costs lol. I think I don’t have to say how many photos we took when Russia played on the side close to our sector. 

Victor and his fav toy

Victor looking for his jumper...

got it

The match ended in tie break (!!!!!!!! our second tie break after Poland-France and that was so unexpected because we never get tie breaks) and we waited for the russian players to come but they didn’t… The only player who came closer was Alexander Butko (just because 2 men knew him) so we took a photo with him.

THEN we decided to go to the other part of the Arena because canadians hadn’t left yet. And that was just one of the brilliant ideas we had. Imagine that you take a photo with one of your favorite players, like one of your volleyball TOP 4. You know the feeling? I DO. I took a photo with Graham Vigrass and I’m so proud of it. We also took a pic with Jason De Rocco and I have to say that he’s hilarious and I love him.

Even though I was excited I was also a bit sad because Kinga didn’t manage to take a photo with her fav aka Arthur Szwarc. We knew that we would have a second chance on Sunday so we didn’t give up.

On Sunday, just like the they before, we went to Arena but earlier this time haha.

Our tickets were cheaper than those for Saturday but luckily we changed it and sat in the best sector in our opinion. The first match was France – Canada.

Unfortunately Canada lost again but Polish fans love them so who cares? Few minutes later French players started to leave the court and Kinga asked Kevin Le Roux if we could take a photo with him and he looked at us like we were crazy lmao. But we took a photo with Benjamin Toniutti and it was nice.

When players from Canada also started to leave, almost everyone stopped and took photos with fans. THEY ARE THE BEST. I mean, they really are. Even Kinga was brave enough and stopped Szwarc. He was smiling and took photos with a pleasure.

When I saw that Vigrass was coming to us too I decided to take a photo with him with my Instax. When I gave the camera to a random boy standing next to us Graham looked confused and asked Kinga if she wanted a photo LMAO and she answered ‘No’. Probably he thought that we were crazy but I don’t really care hahaha

We fell in love with this team and we can’t wait to see them again. 

We also took a photo with Łukasz Kadziewicz.

The second match of that day was Poland – Russia and I think it was one of the most emotional matches I’ve seen live, even though it was just a memorial. The prize was high – they fought for the 1st place in the tournament. We saw tie break again and it was A-MA-ZING. And Poland won. And Pit Nowakowski was killing it. I’m so proud of my boys. 

The saddest thing was that Victor didn’t play well and I’m a little worried because he looked depressed after the match. I hope he will show us what he can do next time! 

The ceremony was funny, I think the players didn’t like the special effects lmao

After the ceremony Russian players went to their fans from Russia so it’s obvious that me and Kinga went there too anyway Victor wasn’t even here?????? and took photos with Maxim Mikhaylov and Dima Volkov. They are awesome, I love them so much. They took photos with everyone, again.

To sum up, our trips get better and better, everytime I discover new facts about the players, about the teams, I can see who is really worth admiring and I love that. I love volleyball, I love to go on volleytrips and can’t wait to go to another one!

they’re not perfect because i still have to learn how to take photos using that camera but still they have something special, right? :D

+bonus

me in beautiful Warsaw

Me and my boyfriend went to Kraków on Thursday (14.07) and so was cichypit. We had tickets for the matches: USA vs Italy and Poland vs Serbia. We were very very excited because these four teams are our favourites. We met cichypit and went together to the arena. Also we wanted to take some photos before but it was difficult because of the strong wind.

Our seats were in higher sector but there were a lot of available seats close to the court so we decided to sit there. The view was perfect and we could see everything very closely, especially a place where the subs were standing. That was very interesting, sometimes more interesting than the match.

Who was the funniest? Two words. MURPHY TROY. (Yees, not me and not cichypit) He was doing crazy things all the time, running, screaming (“C'mon baby!”), doing push-ups etc. We were laughing at him during the whole match. Just look at him:

After the first match, we wanted to take pics with the players but no one came to us. BUT we saw a funny situation. There were two girls standing next to my boyfriend. They had italian flag so Rossini came up to them. They gave him a little gift for his birthday and that was really cute. They were talking and Rossini asked them: “See you tomorrow?” and the girls answered: “But you’re not playing tomorrow”. Rossini looked at my boyfriend and started laughing. Cute. After that he took just a few photos with the fans. We were sad because when we wanted to ask him for a photo he had gone away.

When Italy and USA disappeared, Serbia and Poland ran on the court. We watched their warm up and sat on "our" seats.

After these two matches we weren’t very excited about the results, Poland and the USA lost. (I mean, we were also happy for Italy and Serbia).  But there were positive sides too. After second match I managed to take a photo with World League's MVP Marko Ivović <3

During the next 2 days we were just cruising around Kraków, watching matches in pubs, drinking beer and obviously taking photos together.

On Sunday I met cichypit at 4pm and we went to the arena together. My boyfriend didn't go then so we were alone. I checked our thursday's seats in the internet and were still available. We wanted to sit there but a women from security who was standing near the door didn't allow us. We were sad and angry because we knew that nobody was going to sit there. We had to sit in our sector. Look at this crowd...

After two sets of saddness we saw that a lot of people had walked into those sectors close to the court. Cichypit said: "Come on, maybe we will manage to do that now". I wasn't very convinced of this but finally I agreed to check the situation. We left our sector, went downstairs, entered one of the lowest sector and sat on "our" seats. We were soooo happy then haha.

Unfortunately Italian NT lost their bronze match :( After few minutes we saw a lot of Italians who were leaving the court. We were even more angry when we saw Ivan and Simone (Gianelli) who stopped on the other side of the court and took some photos with fans. But then we saw Rossini who went to take pics too, so we decided to go there and take one. He was so so nice, really! He's very positive even if he lose his match. What is more, he stayed maybe for 30 minutes and took a photo with EVERYONE who asked him. I like him more now!!! (also as you can see in the background there was Kevin Le Roux too but we missed him, I don’t know why haha)

Another Italian who came to us was Simone Buti. The funniest thing was that beside taking photos he was stretching haha.

When we took a photo with him, Piano and Lanza were still on the court. Finally they came to his italian fans and also took pics. We have a photo with Lanza...

... but with Piano not. It's because he was missing us all the time, we were so angry... (maybe cichypit will tell you more about this situation XD)

After that we were waiting for the second, GOLD match of the World League. When Serbia and Brazil ran on the court we sat on our seats. Then I saw Murilo who was taking pics and I decided to go there and take one too. Unfortunately after few photos he had to go... Now I’m more sad because probably I won’t have another opportunity to meet him :(

I came back to cichypit and the gold match started. The majority of people was cheering for Brazil but we were cheering for Serbia. They played so amazing and we were so proud of them. And they won!!! Beautiful serbian children. We were so so so excited. After the match we were waiting for the award ceremony. Also I remember that cichypit said: “Oh I will check tumblr, maybe Maja wrote something”. After one minute she added: “Well, maybe she is too excited because I don’t see anything about Serbia on tumblr”.

The award ceremony was awesome, especially team France and their t-shirts, making their country’s flag. Also there was a moment which left me tears. I’m talking about Neven Majstorović wearing Atansijević’s shirt, ahh.

To sum up, we spent amaaaaazing time together, it was great to see cichypit again, love this girl <3

As you may know or not, my boyfriend won tickets for Memorial of Hubert Jerzy Wagner in volleyball contest on Facebook. I want to thank all of you who liked his photo once again! It meant a lot for us :) Here you’ve got some memories of our trip :D

DAY 1

We went to Toruń on Saturday. We were there at 4pm (We had to be there at 3pm but our train was late. Nevermind). After very exhausting travel we went to our hotel. We left there our suitcases, took a shower etc. Then we went to The Old Town to eat something because we were very hungry. We haven’t had much time so we did it very quickly. After that, we went to the hall.

When we were there, we realised that our seats are the worst of the worst… We didn’t see anything. Here you’ve got a proof.

After two sets of the IRAN - FRANCE match, we wanted to look for the other place to watch it. We went for a little walk on the hall and found a better place, behind the flags. The worst thing was that we had to stand all the time. Fortunately the view was good!

After this match we saw that french volleyball players were giving some autographs. We thought that we can’t go there if we haven’t got tickets on these sectors but then we saw a lot of people who went in that part of hall. We decided to go there later.

As I said, when POLAND won the match against JAPAN we walked down the stairs and went closer to the volleyball court. We were so dissapointed because nobody came to us.

DAY 2

We woke up early and went to The Old Town again. We took a few photos there and spent some hours enjoying the weather and the beauty of this city.

Yes, this is  Nicolaus Copernicus holding a ball.

At 4pm we went to the hall.

We knew that inside the hall there is a volley museum so we went there.

There were a lot of medals that Poland won, volleyball jerseys and a lot of interesting stuff.

Later we came to our “place behind the flags” where we were standing on the first day and watched the FRANCE-JAPAN match.

After that we decided to go to take some pics with the french players but they lost their match, so they didn’t do that. I was very sad because on saturday they stayed a long time there but ok.

We waited for Polish NT and took some photos of their warm up.

When they finished we came back on the second floor and enjoyed the match. During the 3rd set we saw that in the middle of the nearby sector there were some free seats. It came out that nobody was sitting there so we sat down. Few minutes later a girl who was sitting next to us asked us “These aren’t your seats right?” and we agreed. Then she told us that in this sector are sitting families of the players and it’s a little bit awkward and not to worry about it. We saw Drzyzga’s girlfriend and Nowakowski’s wife. They looked sooooo bored.

After this match we wanted to take some pics with polish players so we went there once again. This time we had more luck :)

The first who was giving autographs was Bartek Kurek. We have something like this haha:

Later we saw Karol Kłos. I was very curious if he remembers me after all this birthday stuff (if you don’t know what I’m talking about - x and x) but he does! When he came to us he said ‘Oh hi! Happy birthday!’. Then we took another funny selfie like in Kraków (he mentioned that)

There was Wojtek Włodarczyk too. We went for a photo and gave him camera. He took a few pics. Then I saw this:

I got scared that every photo is like this but thankfully there is normal one too:

But it’s not the end! There was Paweł Zatorski too. He was very nice like everybody there. But honestly, this is the worst photo. I mean, this is the worst of MY photos haha

In the end we took photos with other people like:

Jerzy Mielewski - sports journalist, he is so funny! When a girl was taking this pic said ‘The light isn’t good for you’ and he answered ‘Oh it’s not the light, it’s just me’ haha

Tomasz Swędrowski - main volleyball commentator in Poland (I don’t know what is going on with my face haha)

Ryszard Bosek - polish volleyball player, Olympic champion 1976. Actually when we asked him for a photo he didn’t even answer or smile, he just posed haha but nevermind.

DAY 3

This day like on the day 2 we got up early and went out. When my boyfriend was buying ice creams for us I met mememegustas! We had a little conversation and we decided to meet in front of the hall before the first match :)

After some hours my boyfriend persuaded me to go to VolleyHotel. When we got there we saw Antonin Rouzier and Jenia Grebennikov. I didn’t want to come to them at the beginning because I was very stressed! But when we did it I was very very happy!

At 6pm me, my boyfriend, Julia and her friends were in the hall, watching the IRAN-JAPAN match. Of course we had to take a photo first :D

Me and my boyfriend went with them to their sector which was very close to the court. And we stayed there till the end :D

Later there was a match between POLAND and FRANCE. I think that I don’t have to say that match was the most exhilarating of the memorial! 

Poland won not only this match but also the tournament! Later there was a closing ceremony.

To sum up, I’m very happy that I was able to take part in such amazing tournament and watch all six matches live. Thanks to that, I like #TeamFrance more now! It’s very positive team and I’m not talking only about Earvin Ngapeth’s dancing moves haha.

Julia, we didn’t talk much but it was very nice to meet you <3