Poland, in the '90s.
Summer heat makes the pavement soggy and minds foggy. Fairly clueless foreign teenagers sing in the streets for mildly interested Poles.
I sing my heart out, giggle when people give us money, long for an icecream and drown in the dark eyes of a Polish boy named Robert. New friends try to teach me the language, the icecream costs us thousands of zlotys and nights are spent sleeping on couches and floors.
We rehearse a dance routine by the tall, rundown apartment buildings where we live, while our host family's poodle begs us for snacks. Our hostess cooks us strange food in the tiny, muggy flat with the lace curtains. We take a canoe trip along silent lakes and creeks overgrown with the lushness of high summer and share baskets of cherries. We spend cooler evenings on the basketball and volleyball courts with youngsters from the neighbourhood. I have my heart broken by Robert of the dark eyes but I have friends who hug me, tease me and make me laugh with their weird plans of touring in a Fiat Polski. I realise that the strange people of Eastern Europe are fun, warm-hearted, wise and do know how to do a decent volleyball spike.
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