my family and me just moved to Toruń. What a fantastic place! We are likely to stay here for a couple of years and of course I am looking forward to meet the Polish Atari scene more often. I know there should be some C64 guys in town at least. However Silly Venture is likely the next big Atari event to visit and I also read about Retrokomp in Gdansk next month. Maybe I can make it there for a day or two, so hopefully see you soon!
Btw, sorry for writing in English but I will try to improve on that part in the future :)
I hope we will meet on Retrokomp/Load Error :) and of course we're looking forward for next Silly Venture! Unfortunately I know noone from scene in Toruń except Copernicus who made some interesting scripts in his time, and apparently his "copper"-nick has something common with amiga;)
I don't know any Atarians from Torun, but I'm sure you will find them. The only scene person from there that I can recall is Ziutek/ESI^Speccy.pl - noble ZX scene composer. What may be interesting for you, he's visiting RK/LE every year and this year he's going to be here too. So if you visit us, you'll have a chance to talk to him and I'm sure he'll help to get in touch with other sceners near you.
It's a huge surpise! It is a honour to have you in Poland:) I don't know anyone in Toruń, but I live 2h drive from it - I hope we can arrange some meeting. Enjoy your stay.
Thanks a lot for the replies and suggestions. Would be great if some of them work out. Btw, I am also really happy to be here. Back in the days my brother and me were always eagerly waiting to get some new stuff from Poland for our beloved Atari XE via snailmail (partly via Hungary even) and were pretty often extremly shocked by the amazing quality. The most unforgetable moment was booting up Asskicker demo the first time for sure. Absolutetly smashing. Yeah those days :)
Anyhow, great hints and even more a reason to try my best to go to Retrokomp!
PS: here is a photo from yesterday, what a town, what a sky here!
We have very good connection with Gdansk, so I hope you'll join us for some small meetings/events from time to time :D Please come to RetroKomp/LoadError in October: ->link<-
Hello 505 :) Great news - Gdańsk is really close to Toruń indeed. I'd say that we could see each other more often, but actually it's not true because of me :)
Warsaw is close to Toruń too! So is Łódź and Łomianki (where I live)!
Did your Falcon030 arrived with you?
This weekend we have pixelheaven.pl in cinema called Elektronik, where almost fourty years ago I have watched the StarWars movie (in 1979) - the pre-premiere in Poland, before it was widely shown in polish cinemas.
What a surprise! I would never guess that somebody from west could go to east?!
My advice is: get the bike, mobile version of ->link<- and go deep into polish forests (there are plenty of them around Toruń)! They are absolutely beautiful and wild, sometimes you can meet a doe or wild boar or even an elk! There are two of the most beautiful months ahead.
It's dangerous to go outside in Torun without enough amount of gingerbreads, you can buy them anywhere in this town! (Torun is a best manufacturer of gingerbreads, and probably one of first in Europe).
Anyway, I'm from Cracow and I've been in Torun only 2 times, some years ago, so I don't know anything more special, except well-known local attractions and points of interest, like Home of Mikołaj Kopernik and so on.
And beware of the dangerous ultra-narrow radio waves at 100.6 FM, they're known to be mind-changing :D
Thanks Jakub! And yes, my Ataris arrived save, however untested as still unpacked. However, we found a nice new home for them anyway and I am hoping for some cosy Atari winter evenings.
With all those cities around Torun we will have a lot to discover. I wasn't aware of starwars and pixelheaven stuff, but lots of stuff around to check it seems. We will for sure visit Lodz, Warsaw and other places in the weekends. However your bike suggestion marks the spot atm. We brought our bicycles and even a trailer for our daughter so nothing will stop us to explore those forests. We had one round in Torun forest area already last weekend and it became obvious we are in a lucky situation here. I was not aware that autumn is going to be like this here, I was expecting dark and cold all over, but well, the contrary till now:) Looking forward to the coming two months then!
About the ń, there is an accent key on the German keyboard, its used e.g. for "á la carte" and similar phrases. With the other Polish letters like in Lodz I fail badly and have to rely on copy-paste :)
Skrzyp: Heya, wow, Cracow is supposed to be stunning, too. One day I will visit it for sure, but its a little ride. For now, I will put on my gingerbread ammo-belt every time I leave the flat and maybe also equip myself with one or two grzeski-waffle grenades just to make sure.
Thanks guys, looking forward to the coming weeks really!
Kokoski. Yeah. Look for kokoski (in the food-shops). Do not forget to try: REAL polish ham (rather expensive) REAL polish sausage (they are rather expensive) REAL polish pickled cucumbers REAL polish sauerkraut. and go to milk bar (bar mleczny) Once or twice :) They are dissapearing because of strange economical regulations.
Generally it is good to buy food (vegetables and fruits, sometimes milk straight from cow, DIY white cheese... not stamped eggs, honey straight from bees) on bazaar. They are somewhere and sometimes (ex once a week).
It's more difficult to buy such food somewhere in Poland but in Warsaw and big cities, because people are rather poor and do not buy expensive things to eat (well to drink - another story :)
Thank for these hints. Polish food is awesome, I wonder how the people (both women and men) manage to stay in shape.
Never had kokoski so far, but it's an experience to discover all this food here. Found some really good cukernia shops already. I will keep an eye out on those recommendations!
Btw, I also like the bar mleczny culture a, it's practical and solid food but I also had the impression it's getting less bars. I supposed people don't fancy it anymore nowadays or the regulations, you mentioned.
Last week I discovered a local market in our area in Torun and will visit it regularly for buying vegetables etc. Tomatoes were very tasty, I suppose self-grown. Talks with the sellers are mostly funny, as I still have to explain with my lame pseudo-Polish and hands :) But it's a great occasion to learn the language after all.
We are not staying in a house but a nice flat close to the center and park, I really like it. The heating is new to me, old stoves with energy plug, we don't have this in Germany :)
as...: well, I really don't know yet. I suppose some weekend next year.
Now, I was in Bydgoszcz for getting registered at Woiwood-administration house, what an experience. This PESEL-issue seems to be rather important :) However, Bydgoszcz is an awesome town as well. I didn't expect it as my father was tramping there as a student back in the 70s and told me its an industrial town, but it looked really fresh to me.
Wooo, just saw there will also be Jeff Minter at Pixelheaven, wow. I think I cannot make it, but would love to see his talk. Anyway whoever goes, enjoy :)
AdamK: well, we didn't succeed at Sommarhack in Sweden and withdrew. DHS scared the crap out of us. Lesson learned, so we wouldn't even try* in Lamers territory/MSB realms :)
I have family in Torun (Thorn) and great-grandparents graves, and I sometimes visit that city.
Unfortunately, I do not know if anyone from atari scene currently lives there. but a few years ago, lived there: -Klocek/Syntax -Yoyo/Zokathra^Syntax and Winio/Cobra studied there, but after graduation he left Torun.
I know that today live there 2 ex-sceners: - God/Prism!^Nah-kolor (PC) musician who made musics for Cobra's demos (Generation gap & Revertant) - Oczek Whelpz (Amiga) and they both take part in Toruń JUG (Java User Group) meetings.
Greetings and I hope that we'll meet in Torun. erOS/Cobra
You probably know already, but apart from "pierniki" (can be found in any cukiernia shop) and Copernicus heritage stuff - the biggest thing in Torun city is: Speedway! :) There is a top team of speedway riders called Unibax Torun (nicknamed "Anioły"), but the oldschool name is Apator Torun. There is also a modern speedway arena - worth to check for sure. Go for at least one match, polish speedway league is probably the strongest one in the world (used to be). But to warnings - although speedway fans are mostly ok, when drunk (and beer is allowed on the arenas) they may be "a little unpleasent", and Bydgoszcz (having a good speedway team too) is the biggest opponent of Torun - in all matters :) And speedway match itself is a cool experience, specially when local team wins :)
Heya erOS, thanks for these hints and let me know when you are here and visit your family and we can try to meet.
Of course I remember the God music in Revertant, it was an impressive track and I think we tried to fix the replay with Digital Tracker together with Winio at the party. Don't remember if it worked out, though :) Anyway, I will have a deeper look at the pages of JUG Torun (however I am not Java programmer).
So Syntax is from here? I once met Yoyo in the train to Orneta 1998, what a friendly guy. Would be cool to have Syntax back into the scene.
Sachy: alright, so it's a "must see" then! In fact I came across the big stadium and heard some carts driving around. The rivalry between Bydgoszcz and Toruń is funny. Yesterday some guy at a local pub told me bad way to say "Bydgoszcz" ;) Oh and I was more or less forced to drink hazle nut wodki.
5o5: actually speedway is about special motorbikes, not carts :) These bikes have only one gear, no breaks, are very noisy and run on methanol (as least they used do :). They are pretty fast and they kinda skid on bends. 4 riders (2 of each team), doing 4 circles in 15 races during the match, collecting points. It may sound boring or even stupid, but when watching it live, it really r0x :) Definitely you should attend at least once, same as checking all flavors of polish vodka ;)
