Fire on the Odra

Spring time is here in Wroclaw, I think we can all concur on this. Last night there was a barbecue scheduled by the neighboring dorm called Kredka. My roommate Oktay and I went down to the river with some Kielbasa and some beer to find the barbecue. On the way down we met some other international students coming back towards Olowek who told us nothing was going on. We decided to go anyway. We took a left off the bridge. The trail took us through a bit of forest and down the river bank. After a little ways in you could see a lurid illumination in the distance of campfires, and the movement of many dark forms in the glow. The crowd turned out to be entirely Polish with nary an international anywhere. It was a bit difficult to approach, so instead we went to a small campfire on the perimeter of the area with three Polish people sitting by it. The fire was really just a board burning slowly atop a pile of ash and coals, but the board was large and the coals were hearty. The Poles could speak only a little English, but it was enough, and they were drunk enough that they werent too worried about it. After we sat for a time we learned that one of the Poles was an experienced and enthusiastic barista, very knowledgabel about all aspects of coffee. We then had a very long and in depth discussion on coffee forms and levels of caffeine in different types of coffee. For example, American coffee has the most caffeine, moka has quite a lot, and espresso the least of the major types. the conversation was interesting but very fractured. I think its nice though, attempting to talk about why different forms of coffee making are stronger than others, with a strong language barrier. Its kind of like a puzzle, how can this information be relayed when no one understands each other very well.
It was a good night, watching a board slowly burn up on the banks of the odra, drumming and guitar in the distance, and a sky full of stars.