Past Party-ciple

Profi-Lingua has annual end-of-the-year parties, although not actually at the end of the year, but the week before our exams start, during the time high schools and universities have their exams, and generally during the week, so despite fairly high enrollment, the parties are relatively sparsely attended. Between the two schools I teach at, in Sosnowiec and Katowice, I have somewhere around 130 students. While about 30 or 40 of those are underage teenagers, that still leaves close to 100 who could attend, and of those, I saw maybe 15 this week between the two parties. Nevertheless, they are fun, and a nice event to have. I do try to meet some of the older groups outside of class during the year, but this is a good time to do so.
The Sosnowiec party (on Monday, for crying out loud) was pleasant, actually almost intimate, given the number of people there. I got to see some of my former students from last year, though none of them, current or former, would participate in the little competitions they had (translating a word and using it in a sentence, saying something nice about Profi, etc. Not really competitions, as everyone who participated got a prize.), but I had great conversations.
But I really had a good time at the Katowice party. A beautiful, late spring evening, and although a Wednesday, Thursday was a holiday (Corpus Christi) so people were out and about, gathered at the tables on the patelnia or bunched in noisy groups along the street. Walking to the bus stop I ran into three of my students, one of whom, Pawel, tipped me off that it was better to take a tram to the club than the bus, for which I will be eternally grateful. I go to Katowice several times a week, and always take a bus, as they are faster, and in the case of the private line "D" bus, significantly cheaper, but this club, Poziom3, was in a part of Katowice I hadn't been to before and my plan was to take a bus as close as I could get and figure the rest out after. However, for those in the know, tram no. 15 went almost right to the door, and left Sosnowiec from the same place as the bus. Who knew?
And it was that tram ride that was almost the best part of the night. The bus routes run on the freeway between the two cities, past strip malls, chain stores, gas stations, McDonald's, car dealerships, etc., typical urban detritus, washed up by tides of zoning, taxes, and convenience. Not the most picturesque trip I've ever taken. But the tram route winds through leafy residential streets as it leaves Sosnowiec, and three stops from the center passes a lovely little lake, over which the sunset was throwing soft, pale reds. I didn't even know the lake was there, and it was just so beautiful and unexpected, it made the successive industrial parks we passed through much more bearable.
Of course, I didn't know where I was going, or what my destination looked like, or exactly how long it would take, so I was a little nervous. I'd counted the stops on the schedule at the stop, 14, and Pawel had told me the name of the stop, Akademia Ekonomiczna (someone Polish correct my spelling, please), but it's actually rather difficult to count that many stops. Up to three or four is ok, but then you start second-guessing yourself: did I count that last one? was that 8 or 9? did I miss one, thinking it was a stoplight instead? But it was all good as the one and only stop that had a sign was, yes, Akademia Ekonomiczna. This is a rare event in Poland.
The club itself was fairly big, several floors, booths and tables, dance floor, but the best part was the back patio, which has its own little tiki bar, with sand piled up around the edges and possibly-fake potted palms embedded in it. This is where I spent the majority of the evening, talking mostly with my fellow teachers and my own students who had turned up, but trying my Polish on some of the German students, shying away from the Spanish native speaker (I'd picked up a lot in Spain, but not enough for actual conversation), regretfully refusing to dance (I'd reaggravated my lower back problem a few days before, which no one actually believed, but oh well.). Late in the night, or early in the morning, after having some sort of religious discussion with one teacher, and having another yelling wetly in my face about some basketball achievement (LeBron James in the NBA playoffs, a performance I'd heard about, but after a few minutes I could no longer tell if he was still (literally) gushing about him or M.J.), I slipped out, very happy, instantly caught the night bus, found an open take-out hamburger place in Sosnowiec, and crashed out contentedly around 4 a.m. But it was that unexpected lake and glorious sunset that I think about now, and I plan to spend some part of my summer taking random buses and trams to see where I end up. So, thanks again, Pawel. I appreciate the tip.