I figured I'd better post some Poland pictures before I head off to Rome- you know I'll be taking a ton of pictures there!  So I headed over to Poland a few weekends ago with some teacher friends.  The town of Boleslaweic is about 4 hours away and is known for it's pottery.  They sell this pottery in stores in Germany and on post but it's much more expensive than you can get it at these pottery shops/factories.  I don't think I knew what I was getting myself into when I said I would go!

We shopped from 9 am- 5pm and hit about 25 different shops.  Now I'm not a huge shopper so it was a bit overwhelming to me especially to be shopping for just one thing all day long.  Plus there were huge groups of women on tour busses from other bases in Europe we were trying to avoid the whole day (apparently American women love this pottery and will drive 10-12 hours just to shop here).

  There were just rows and rows of pottery- teapots, casserole dishes, plates, cups- you name it, it was there.  Plus there are probably over 200 patterns as well to look through.  Some people mix and match, some just stick to one pattern.  Some people just get a few key pieces, some do all their everyday dishes in Polish pottery. I went to Poland not really being crazy about the pottery and figured I might just get a few things and some gifts.  Each store I would go in, I kept finding things I liked.  I bought some stuff at the 2nd store and said "I'm done" but we all know that wasn't true :) 

We also got to paint some pottery at one of the shops.  The pattern that I liked (above)  had black, green and red on it so I tried to match it. I didn't end up getting the whole tea set but I did get a large pot and ladle.

We stayed at the cutest Bed and Breakfast called the Blue Beetroot.  They had great food and awesome owners who made us feel at home.  It was such a relaxing weekend and I'm ready to go back (we already booked a weekend in August for the Pottery festival- we heard people dress up as pottery pieces so how can you pass that up?)