Polish Destination Photographer | The Game that Almost Never Was

Football, a.k.a. soccer, is pretty huge here in Europe.  Probably, and I’m pretty confident when I say this, all over the world.  My brother-in-law wanted to take me to THE game.  Well, the Euro 2012 is going to be hosted in Poznan, Poland, so there’s a whole bunch of new security features that are being tested out for the big event.  One of those features is to be registered in their database of fans.  Brawls and fights are a pretty serious thing in between fans of different teams.  If you get into a fight, you’re banned from the games for life with a 2 year prison sentence. Everything is tracked by the Fan Cards, and they’re required to buy a ticket.   Anyways, we went to get Marta and I registered in the database so we could watch the game.  Lech (Poznan’s team) was supposed to play against last year’s champions, Wisla Cracow.  We went the morning of the game to register, so there was a bit of a line.

I was definitely not excited about it at all.  As most of you may know, I don’t follow sports, so as kind as the gesture is I was pissed to be waiting 2 hours in line.  Oh well.  Once in the line, I was too stubborn to give up.

We get to the head of the line and it’s finally our turn.  In the room there’s five or six computers and a couple of card printers.  I was first out of the two of us to get registered.  I gave them my ID…my Florida ID.  I’m pretty sure they were a little surprised, though the only words I understood were, “No problem.” Once everything was said and done.  Once they were done putting in all the information in the computer, the system crashed.  I think my name, Rodolfo Diomiro Montilla, caused some sort of red flags to pop up or something.  Everything went nuts.  In the end, the guy gave me a card and let me go on my way.  Marta was done quickly, she’s still a citizen.

The hour of the game approached and my brother-in-law and a few of my in-laws neighbors took Marta and I to the stadium.  Maciej (my brother-in-law) went to the ticket stand to claim our tickets, because we weren’t able to buy them online.  He said there was some problem, so he had to go to a customer service box.  He came back with a receipt and our Fan Cards.

We head over to the gate.  Maciej goes through.  Marta goes through.  I put my card in the scanner, and nothing.  The security guard starts saying some stuff in Polish.  I was absolutely lost.  Maciej and Marta spoke up (I still have no idea what they said).  This old security guard started talking to me and led me to the Customer Service Box.  Here a woman started talking to me in Polish.  I’ll be honest, I barely know any Polish to begin with.  I can read it, but I can barely understand it.  So…I put together some of the few words to get my point across “Jestem Amerykanski.  Nie wiem Polski.”  Which means, from what I know, “I American.  I don’t know. Polish.”  The girl looked at me and started speaking broken English.  From what I understood, someone else had my card and used it to go into the game.  Someone else had a copy of my card.  She simply told the older security guard to take me to the end of the line and wait for another guy to help me out.  I did exactly that.  I waited for awhile.

I remembered that I had Marta’s Dad’s phone. She wanted me to hold onto it because her pockets were small and she didn’t have a purse.  I reach into my pocket and quickly try to unlock the screen to call Maciej, and nothing happened.  The battery died.  I was alone, in a place that I didn’t know.  And understood absolutely nothing.  I was lost in translation, for lack of a better term.  I waited….and waited…then I waited some more.  It seemed to be a good thirty minutes.  All of a sudden I see Marta and she pulls my sleeve and says, “C’mon, let’s get this fixed.”  Holy moly!  I was so happy to see her.  Once you get past the gate your tickets get voided.  I was even more surprised to see Maciej.  He’s a hardcore Lech fan.

All in all, we got all our tickets renewed and we were finally let into the game.  I definitely felt molested when I went through security, though.  They patted me down in a way that would make any Conservative Republican cringe.  At least take me out to dinner!

I had a lot of fun at the game.  The food was awesome, and the energy was incredible.  I’d do it all over again.  Even the random feeling of being lost in the Greater Poland.  I didn’t take my camera into the stadium, for the fear of it being broken in some sort of brawl.  All 19,000 people screaming and chanting together was quite amazing.  It made my hair stand on end.

-Rudy&Marta

P.S. Hope all is well State-Side.

P.P.S. Tomorrow we’ll be heading to Belgium tomorrow.  We’re going to be beer happy. At least I will. 🙂

P.P.P.S.  I made a friend on the ride to the game.  His name is Smok (Polish for dragon).