Euro Cup comes to Poland

Poland (and Ukraine) was selected to host the Euro-Cup in 2012.  Being here while the Euro-cup was going on was unbelievable and speechless.  I loved it when the Olympics came to Salt Lake City in 2002.  Everyone comes together and cheers for their country and it provides so much unity and chances for people to reach out to others and show good sportsmanship.

Poland really took the Euro-cup seriously and decked out the city with different posters and banners to make everyone feel welcome.

Notice all the flags on the car in the parking lot of people supporting their team! 

 These two posters are massive and were found at the main train station in Warsaw.  Every country which participated in the Euro-Cup is represented with their flags painted on their faces (with the exception of Poland & Ukraine since they were the home countries).  

Up top (right to left): England, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Denmark.

Bottom picture: Greece, Czech Republic, Spain, Ireland, France (again), Croatia, Russia, & Italy.

Note: Portugal is not pictured above, but in the picture below

They also had these cool posters hanging up in a lot of stores all over Warsaw.  Most were in the stores at the central train station.  After the Euro-Cup - I went into one of these stores and totally played the foreign card.  Told them that I was from America and it was my first time to Warsaw (which technically is) and that I was here for the Euro-Cup (which was also true) and that I LOVED the Euro-Cup and going to the fan-zone and that the Poles are such wonderful and incredible people.  Then - I asked them if they knew where I could buy a poster like the one that was hanging on their window (they had two different ones), because I would love to take it home to America as a souvenir to show all my friends.  They then told me that I could have one of their posters.  I hugged and thanked them and told them that they were the best and that I absolutely loved people from Poland.   Trust me, I'm going to frame this exact poster - and hang it in my home one day.  I love this poster.  And even better, I love the story behind it (my Euro-Cup experiences), and the story about how I obtained this poster.

I really do have to say that Warsaw went to great lengths to really try to make people feel welcome. They hired lots of different language speakers and put them all over Warsaw so that tourists could go to them if they needed help.  They were easily recognizable in their bright green or yellow shirts.

They also changed all of their announcements in the train stations and metro to English.  This has been a HUGE blessing.  When a train is late, or a platform is changed, I have no idea and often run at the last minute (if Michal's not around) to catch my train - because I didn't understand the announcement.  After the Euro-Cup was here and the feedback that Warsaw received for not making the train station multi-lingual for people to get around - they took the criticism seriously and decided to make the changes.  Thank you Warsaw Train Station, it is so nice finally hearing English again!

 Everyone took advantage of the Euro-Cup being here.  REAL- is a grocery store in Poland.  What a clever way to advertise!  

Many people came from all over to get in on the action.  One day while walking around I saw campers from Spain - and the Al Jeezera news van decked out ready to report on the soccer extravaganza!

 The Palace of Culture even put up these great signs.

 I do think it's a little odd how they "incorporated" famous Polish monuments to "cheer" for the Polish team.  On the Palace of Science & Culture, you can see Chopin with soccer cleats hanging around his neck.  And the mermaid statue (in the Old Town Rynek) is sporting a vuvu-zela.

In front of the fan zone they have little "floaty" guys facing off against each other.  They have the flags of each of the countries that are playing that day.  This particular day that I took this picture it was Russia (left) vs. Poland (right).

 I went into town early to scope out the fan-zone (because I knew we'd be coming there later that night) and there were already people lining up at 9:00 am to get into the Fan-Zone, once it opened, so that they got seats instead of being forced to stand for 3 hours.

Poland really did a phenomenal job at making everyone feel welcome.  They had posters and signs everywhere, and replica copies of the mermaid all over Warsaw - one for every country participating.  I only found two of them... but I know that there were 16 of them out there!

 But Poland wasn't the only one to advertise and make people feel welcome.  A lot of businesses took advantage of the Euro-Cup and plastered advertisements and banners all over downtown Warsaw.  Here are some of my favorites:

I absolutely adored the fact that the advertisement (crappy picture sorry) was decked out cheering for Poland.  It made me want to go see this cute movie (even though all children's movies are dubbed over into Polish). I mean - with the red & white stripes - the zebra is adorable!  GO POLAND!

The Fan Zone was even more intense and insane than I can describe.  That night Michal & I (and a few friends) went to the fan zone and there were over 150,000 people who came to cheer on Poland.  There were over 8 large screen TVs for people to watch the action.  Plus a lot of cheering, cussing, dancing, and drinking.  I'm telling you, BYU football games don't even compare to how crazy fans get here!

(Pictures below courtesy of Dorotka Musial.  They wouldn't let you take cameras into the Fan-Zone, but those that had cameras on their phone made it past the security.  Therefore, we had to rely on some others for our pictures of this fun night!)

Getting there and back was absolutely crazy.  They had a metro come ever 20 seconds to try to help clear people out of there as fast as possible.  It was insane.  I think everyone needs to experience a fan-zone euro-cup soccer game at least once in their life.

That being said.... once was enough for me!  So even though Michal and I LOVE Poland (and as much as he LOVES soccer)... we opted to cheer at a friends house for the last game that Poland played in.

The Staples invited us over to watch the game at their house (on a much larger screen than at our apartment).  Michal couldn't talk the whole game - he was too focused on the game.  We were shocked that Poland didn't pull it off.  We wish they could have at least made it to the next rounds.  Regardless - it was so much fun cheering the Polish team on.  It was fun seeing Michal get so excited over goals.  And it was even more thrilling to be a part of all the excitement and madness in Warsaw.  Just because Poland was eliminated didn't mean that games stopped.  We still hosted several games (including the Semi-Final Germany vs. Italy), so we were able to see a lot of tourists and jam packed restaurants and side-walks.  I'm so grateful that we were able to get a job in Poland and have the right timing to be able to watch the Euro-Cup in the host country.