Spreading the Stoke in Poland!

Wow what a crazy fun first day. I went out around 9am to try to locate a local skate shop. Unfortunately I got lost and ended up just wondering around until I found a large open square outside a shopping mall. I spotted a group of high school age kids going into the mall. One of which was carrying a street deck with him. I ran over to try to talk to them and find out about the skate shop I was having trouble finding. They didn’t speak a word of English so I didn’t get far. I decided to skate around the square on my vanguard, bust some tricks, and try to impress some cute Polish girls. After a few minutes I was approached by a guy with a street deck. His name was Tompak and spoke English very well. He was incredibly curious about my longboard. I let him ride it and he instantly fell in love with longboards. We talked some more and I found out the skate shop I was looking for was right inside the mall we where outside. We went inside to check it out. The guy working at the store turned out to be the owner of the store and a online Polish longboarding company. The company is called Antidote longboards and I have been trying to get a hold of them via email to see if they wanted to skate. He was totally down to skate and he gave me his phone number so we could make plans later. Tompak invited me back to his flat for coffee. We talked skating then went back to my brothers flat for some lunch. I let him use my vanguard and I grabbed my LBL Tarpon to ride. Tompak took me to some local street spots after that. He was a damn good street skater and we even got a little group of tourist spectators watching us as we skated. We then took the bus to meet one of his other skater friends and to pick up a little bag of green stuff. His friend was completely amazed by our longboards. They quickly broke into a conversation of Polish gibberish pointing at different parts of the boards and smiling. The area of town we where in had some slight downhill runs that we hit for awhile. We then took the bus back to Tompak’s flat to get forgetful and watch skate videos. He showed me some of his Skate videos from Krakow and his home town. I forget the name of his home town though. He was thoroughly impressed with the speed of longboards and the amazing skate parks we have in Oregon. We then went out to shred some more. Tompak could not keep a smile off his face when he was riding a longboard. He would keep saying thing like “wow I don’t have to ollie anything I can just roll over it!” And “This is to much fun I must buy a longboard as soon as I can!”. I was overjoyed with his level of stoke, it was a great feeling. It was late evening by now and we parted ways so I could go have dinner with my brother Aman and his friend Jason. Unfortunately Tompak had to leave the next to move back to his home town to live with his parents for the summer. The college he has been attending got done a few weeks ago and wont be in session until the fall. We exchanged contact info and said if either of us was ever in each others country’s we would meet up. After a really good dinner with my brother and his friend we returned to the flat with some beers to hung out. I am going to be meeting up with the guy from Antidote Longboards tonight to do some cruising. He will be taking me out with his crew this weekend to hit some real downhill just outside of Krakow. I cant wait!

Chaz

Awesome dude, take some pictures if you can!!