If you recollect the song from David Guetta and Kid Cudi – Memories it starts with: All the crazy shit I did tonight, those will be the best memories. If I change tonight for this summer, it will perfectly describe my summer.

Although the first day of autumn is officially on 22^nd September, in Poland on the 1^st September kids go back to school which means summer is already over. Somehow it’s embedded in our perception that summer lasts for two months from the end of June when kids finish school till the end of August. I usually spent summer in the city for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s relatively warm in Poland over July and August so there is no need for me to go somewhere exotic. Secondly, the whole of Poland goes somewhere for summer holidays as the kids have off from school. That means most of the trips cost more and there are many screaming children at beaches in the holiday destinations. Nope, I’m allergic to screaming children. Thirdly, there is lots to do in the city during summer. Like going to festivals or exploring local attractions. So how did my summer in the city look like? Quite interesting as I discovered new restaurants in Kraków, explored new sport activities and even found a piece of provance in Poland, plus remembered how fun it is to play videogames.

Culinary Discoveries

This summer I made the decision to discover some of Kraków’s restaurants. Not hiding it was super delicious. Apart from the places mentioned in the post Culinary map of Krakow, lately I found four super cool places with amazing food and interesting cocktails.

Molam

A restaurant with very very authentic Thai food. Even the plates look like those on street food stands in Bangkok. No idea how they do it but the dishes taste exactly the same as in Thailand. I tried nearly everything on the menu and have to say that the sweet and sour beef and the soft shell crab taste amazing! On top of the super delicious food, the interior is modern and cool, plus the service is great and the waiting time for the ordered dishes is not very long. Very much thumbs up and ขอบคุณ!

Website: http://molam.pl/en/about-us/ 
Address: Rajska Street 3/4, 31-124 Kraków

Bubble Kingdom

After coming back from Hong Kong bubble tea and dumplings were the two things I missed most when it comes to food. I found decent dumplings in Jinling Dumpling but no bubble tea… until now. By coincidence I’ve discovered Bubble Kingdom. Man, that grapefruit bubble tea tastes exactly the same as in my favourite place in Whampoa in HK. Every time I pass by Bubble Kingdom I stop by to get my favourite tea. It’s not just tea… for me it’s like drinking memories.

Siedem miliardów uśmiechów

I walked past that place hundreds of times but never thought of going in… finally I did and it was mind-blowing. Imagine they have a drink that is called CoronaAntyVirus. It’s served in a skull shaped glass, you get a corona beer sticking out of the glass plus a syringe with corona vaccination. Ammmm how odd and cool that is… very! Generally, this bar created their own original cocktails which can’t be found anywhere else.

Café Lisboa

A touch of Lisbon in the middle of Kraków where the Pastel de Nata tasted exactly the same as those I had in Lisbon. The place is not very big but it has a nice interior and a summer garden. Café Lisboa is perfect when you want to sit down, relax, enjoy a glass of wine and watch the world passing by. Charming place to spend a clam Sunday afternoon. On top of the Pastel de Nata you can buy canned sardines from Portugal 😉

Website: https://www.cafelisboa.pl 
Address: Dolnych Młynów Street 3/4, 31-124 Kraków

Various activities

Let’s think about what activities filled my summer days and weekends… Wakeboarding, pole dancing, aerial yoga, rollerblading, music and food festivals, lavender fields sightseeing, roller coasters, kayaking, balloon rides, sauna visits, beauty appointments, museum visits and ofcoz endless city walks. When I think about it, I have no idea how I fitted that all in. On top of everything I managed to write blog posts every second day, do my job and maintain an active social life… I think that had to be magic. Basically, I wanted to make the most out of this summer. It might look like I went crazy by participating in various sports and activities but to be frank I wanted to get out of the house. Before covid I spent right hours at least in the office and was glad if I had some time to spend at home reading a book for example. Now as I work from home the whole time, after eight hours I need to get out of the house to see something different than the four walls of my apartment. Besides after last year where most of the time we had lockdown I was hungry for adventure and doing stuff. At some point I felt like I was released from a leash. On the other hand, summer is the best time to do many outdoor activities. Let’s be fair, I very much enjoyed it and would repeat all those activities again. Well, some of the activities resulted in bruises or muscle soreness… After the first wakeboarding lesson I couldn’t put my arms up the day after. Hey ho it was very much worth it and I continued the lessons. Sadly, the wakeboarding season ends in September… something to wait for next year. You know what… all that made me extremely happy and that’s what is most important.

Social Life

Just aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa and more aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! My social life was literally flourishing this summer. Can’t even count the amount of drinks I had with friends or the total hours spent on conversations with them. A couple of times I came back home very late after a party and the next day suffered a massive hangover. Ohhhh wellllllll no pain no gain or work hard party harder. There are two memorable moments from the summer social life. First one are the reunions I had with friends who I didn’t see for a very long time. A Saturday with my friend Ann who I practiced Kung Fu with. Fun evenings with Gosia who I met through our mutual friend Rob. The visit of Alice and Francesco, my friends from Italy. Or the first real life meetings with my colleagues from work as till now we only saw one another on zoom. Each one of those get-togethers was a blessing and good to see the people who so far were only a picture on zoom. 

The second one was an evening spent with my friend Joann and her boyfriend playing video games. OH MY GOD! Joann had all those old school games on her fancy console I used to play when I was nine years old. It was so cool to remind myself how much I enjoyed playing Mario on my Nintendo back in the days. That’s not all. Apart from the classic Mario games Joann had much more. Mario races and a new fancy version of Mario 3. Don’t remember the exact name but it was super interactive. Now I even think of getting my own game console… yeah if I got one time would had to be seriously made out of rubber 😛 Joann if you are reading it thanks for  bringing back those cool memories 🙂

Geez what an intense summer it was. Probably did more things this summer than in the whole of last year. So the question now is, what’s next? What do you have planned for autumn? Well, September will look pretty busy. I have some stuff planned, like Krakow Business Run, kayaking with friends, wakeboard lessons till end of the month and a diving holiday in Cabo Verde. From October, hmmm not sure. Wakeboard season will be over, so will probably go more often to pole dance training. Dunno really but it definitely won’t be boring.