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Munich Storms
Munich AirportAlright ALRIGHT ALREADY! I know I’m bloody late. But while the rest of you have a normal life, I’m in bloody POLAND (Yes, Poland!) and running around like a chook with its head cut off. Not only that, the internet here has been quite slow for the past week as it’s the end of the month with the downloads. I’m talking like 2 minutes for a page to load slow. I’m sure you all understand. Concordantly, now that you’ve all been complaining so much about my lateness, I’m going to write an epic account of our travels that would make Sir Thomas Malory cringe.
EDIT - I kid you not, six thousand words. Run while you can.
We last left you on our second last day in Thailand, sweating merrily as usual and generally organizing ourselves for the first leg of the European tour. After catching a scooter ride home from my Gas Blending course in the afternoon with a lovely chap called Mr. Sayan, I was given a card and told that I could get a nice taxi to the Airport the next morning for 400B. Bonus. That night we wandered down to a local eating-hole we found
where the food rivaled prices in the dodgiest Karon Beach streetside hovel, 40B for a veritable feast of rice, soupy-type stuff, something resembling chicken and other bowel-cleansing delights.
The next day we were up bright and early to a lovely monsoonal rain and efficient Mr. Sayan turning up about 25 minutes early and watching us as we ate breakfast. Affable chap, always keen for an extensive yarn, barely speaks a word of English. After we wolfed down our breakfast, we got into his fully tricked out Corolla complete with swinging stuff on the rear view mirror and a pumping sound system. Mr. Sayan decided it was time for Thai language lessons and gave us a thoroughly good account of how to say banana, and rubber tree, and that an elephant should be called CHAANGG!! with no less gusto. He also proclaimed how cool Australians were, and told us fifteen times that he had been working in Phuket Town for 2 years. When we tried to reply to anything, he just laughed a lot and said “Ooookaaay”. What a champ.
We arrived safely at the airport, past sleeping security and customs, and went for a wander around Phuket International
Departures terminal, looking at all the lovely booze and silly touristy stuff. If I thought I had paid too much for anything in Thailand, I was refreshingly reminded that it could have never been as bad as the Airport, where a scabby little Thailand patch to put on my backpack would have set me back a paltry 140B. The same would have cost 10B in a street-side stall, so no patch for Nemo. We found ourselves a little peckish and forked out 150B each for a sandwich that was cheekily only half filled for display purposes. Piffle.
And then… WE WERE ON A PLANE TO EUROPE. Can you believe it?! A bloody plane to Europe! I never thought I would see the day. I was half tempted to walk up to the cockpit and demand of the (excitingly non-Asian and very attractive) German air hostesses to see the pilot to make sure he wasn’t actually a loaf of bread, and that I wasn’t dreaming. But I settled instead into reading the in flight documentation (in German) and listened to some information over the loudspeaker (in German) and was rather excited. Aleks was almost on the point of doing an
excited-puppy wee, however was slightly flustered that once again, her window seat was over the wing. I gently explained to her that we were on an Airbus A330-300, which means that the wings are awfully big (30-something metre span), and that she could instead plug into the sound line with her headphones to watch the excellent in-flight viewing - “Australia”, and “Taxi,” after takeoff. I, however, would rather staple my eyelids to a badger’s ass than watch Nicole Kidman look mortally offended for three hours, so I quickly fetched the fourth novel in the Wheel Of Time series.
For me the flight went remarkably quickly - I read, slept for about an hour, got very excited when the food carts were coming along, and tried to count the number of times that Queen Latifah said “DAMN!” in Taxi. Aleks spent much time watching movies, grumbling and tossing and turning unable to sleep, and pointing at the changing landscapes out the window. We flew over The Bay of Biscal, gave a wide berth to Baghdad, oohed at mountain ranges capped in snow and ahhed at a big desert, and finally landed in wonderful Munich. I pinched myself again, and we
wandered off the plane into Munich Airport, which looks startlingly like it’s been made out of silver toothpicks and gladwrap. We had three hours wait there, so we changed some money, paid €2.70 for a bottle of water, and sat down to wait for our flight, remarking at the most amazing storm front coming from the South. We called Aleks’ friend Alexander who most graciously let us crash at his pad at the last minute, as SOMEONE was busy tuning women rather than helping mates in his home country, not mentioning any names. Benjamin Wiedner!
After sitting through the sequel to Hurricane Katrina that delayed our flights by two hours, in which Aleks slept a bit and I read more, our flight was announced and we made our way down to the plane, looking decidedly more disheveled than we had at 7am that morning.. or yesterday morning.. or whenever it was.
We finally arrived in Berlin Tegel Airport at midnight in pouring rain, and began the task of finding out a) where the hell we were and, b) where the hell Alexander’s place was. The TXL bus from Berlin Tegel took us to Buesselstraβe Station, where we bumbled
Crazy Dogs
Vodka, raspberry and tobasco - our welcoming drinks! our way through buying a train ticket with the help of a lovely chap, and finally got on the S-Bahn to Frankfurter Allee where, to my dismay, not a sausage was to be seen.
And it was still raining, cold and hard. After doing a little bit of jumping around excitedly that we were finally close to our destination, we decided that we had been through enough in the preceding 20-something hours to warrant shouting ourselves a very short taxi ride around the corner to Alexander’s place, where we were warmly greeted and sat talking about life in general over a lovely beer and a wine. Real booze again! Hurrah! We called it a night at 2am Berlin-time and agreed to make a quick departure the next morning and not stay the offered second night, as Alexander’s girlfriend Josette was turning up and we didn’t want to be those guests that are on the couch watching TV when you get home. We all know what that is like, eh?
‘Twas a totally crap night’s sleep due to a combination of changed time zones, my usual wriggling on a squeaky bed and Europe’s inability to let go of precious
Before Crazy Dogs
Ula, Adam, Nemo, Piotrek, Aleks, Jacek daylight for more than a few hours. We dragged our sorry butts out off the floor, ate some good-as-sex Euro-breakfast and I, like the good Fish I am, dutifully cleaned the kitchen up a little bit so that Alexander had a few more brownie points when the lovely lady arrived. We hauled ourselves out the front door again into the brisk German morning in smashing time (9:30am)… the air was clean and crisp and the smell of open sewers and garbage was nowhere to be found. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful.
This was, however, the start of a day of wandering around fully decked out in stupid heavy traveller garb, trying to work out how in the name of Chuck Norris we were going to get across the border to sunny Polska. It didn’t take us very long however. Mr. Alexander had advised us the night prior that there were several options; bussing it would cost around €38 a piece, whilst overnight train was a bit cheaper, but he was unsure of itinerary for this. We found the local train stop again and made our way to Lichtenberg Station (which I called Lichtenstein) and investigated the overnight train gig, which I
After crazy dogs
At Jacek's apartment found rather enticing to say the least. €58 for both of us, leaving 9:40 in the evening, arriving 8:30am the next morning. No sunlight was to be wasted, so we booked on, and set about wandering around the train terminals of Berlin for the day.
But, avid readers, we didn’t make it far before my tum began to rumble. Here was Europe! Land of a thousand types of sausage and busty serving wenches! I was going nowhere - NOT until I had devoured an tasty feed of Bratwurst and Currywurst! We discovered that there was a little sector of markets behind Ostbanhoff station, and this was rather exciting, as it housed caravanny-Gunnedah-Show-type food stalls that served, gasp, BEEER! And sausages! I nearly had an accident when I saw what the locals were eating. Giant tasty fat sausages and beers that don’t come any smaller than half a litre. Oh the humanity! For the paltry price of €6, (€0.80 for 500mL beers!) we had two beers and three sausages, all tasting marvelous, under a beautiful blue sky with a gentle breeze blowing! Um num num! Fat and contented, we decided now that we were feeling precious and wanted to put
our backpacks away in a locker somewhere, so off we went again to investigate. We went to see a man at the Train company place who told us the only station was Hauptbanhoff five stops away.
Being the industrious travelling Alpha-tourists we fancied ourselves to be, we worked out that once you bought your train ticket, you could bounce around the S-Bahn and U-Bahn terminals for hours on the one ticket! As there are no ticket gates, Berlin Trains (or whatever they’re called) seem to place a lot of trust on the traveller, expecting them to a buy a €2.10 ticket for each trip. Either that or we HAD a day-ticket and were too stupid to realize. It was all in bloody German anyway, and I wasn’t ready to learn the language too much yet as I was only there for one day this time. Besides, if pleading stupidity didn’t work, Aleks had the cleavage and I had the illegal ninja moves from the Government to get us out of any sticky situations we might find ourselves in. Germans aren’t that tough.
So we ended up at Hauptbanhoff Station looking for a locker. The whole wall of lockers
that we were directed to were all full, and €6.20 for a few hours seemed a little steep anyway, so we convinced ourselves that a simple readjustment of the most excellent harness systems on our backpacks would suffice. I was quite grumpy after realizing shortly afterwards that I would have to pay 80 cents to do a poo in the station’s “WC Centre”. I politely asked the gate-man in my best English if it cost 20 cents for a fart, but he just looked at me like I had peed on his shoe. But nature had to be sated, and off I went into the bowels of the busiest toilet block I have ever seen in my life. I was frightened for my life, but I indicated left and parked in a cubicle that smelled like the last guy, speed-pooed and looked around for the Thai bum-shower thing, forgetting that I was now on a different continent with excellent sanitation plumbing. The toilet paper was most excellent I’ll have you know.
We decided to go and try to contact Wujek Jacek (Uncle Jack for you bogans) about arriving in Poland. Aleks found a payphone and sorted it out. When
she finally returned, we found a little side area to put on our PacSafes for baggage security. Word in the ghetto was that there was some bad-ass whitey thieves gassin’ Homies on the train and makin’ off wit they luggage, which I wasn’t going to have a bar of. The mesh wrapping and instruction-reading took a little while, but we worked it out eventually. Content we were locked, Pacsafed and Fort Knoxed accordingly, we wandered off and found a nice spot to sit next to a bridge for the next few hours, drinking beers, eating kielbasa (sausages, bogans) and talking shite.
Got on the train finally at half nine, locked up our stuff to the baggage rails, and sat down in a cabin with a lovely girl called Agata; a Polish Uni student who was studying Turkology (!?) and was keen for a chat, her English was beautiful and she was very worldly. Agata moved to another carriage later on - she was heading to Krakow and we were onto Warszawa. After that, we bunkered down for a sleep in what would be a very fleeting trip, with more very uncomfortable sleep.
The next morning (28th May) we
arrived right on time at Warszawa Centralny Station, greeted by Jacek and Piotrek (Peter, Aleks’ cousin), who immediately whisked us off for a quick drive over to a large open square area in the City which was formerly a huge Castle before the war. As anyone who knows a bit about history will tell you, Warsaw was pretty much leveled at the end of World War II by ze Germans, and the castle was no exception. The size of the square is boggling and it was my first real experience of what was/is to be many of Warsaw’s sad past. At the edge of the square is the Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier as we have in Sydney, with two guardsmen standing dead still who change every two hours. I’d never make it in that job, I’d have to pee.
Home we went, and were put into one of Jacek’s rooms, which worked out well as the boys (Adam and Piotrek) were pretty much working/schooling on opposite shifts, so one less room in the house isn’t so bad. We sat around for the majority of the afternoon talking and drinking Zubr Piwo. This later escalated into drinking red wine,
and that later escalated into Vodka shots to my health, our health, the cat’s health, the Pope’s health, and the death of my liver. I had been told many times by Mama and Papa Wetzlich that NOTHING in Poland is to be refused, for it would be a mortal sin, and so Nemo, who never does shots as an absolute rule, was doing shots.
It all went horribly wrong about the time Jacek knocked a beer over on the rug we were lying on, and him and I both jumped up immediately to suck the spilt life blood out of said rug. Oh dear. After downing a bottle of Vodka between us mixed with Tabasco, raspberry juice, grapefruit juice and God knows what else, I came to the sudden and stark realisation that I was horribly drunk, and that Jacek looked worse. We decided that it was best if all of us went for a nice long walk out in the cold fog and drizzle to sober up. Jacek make it to the street, and promptly turned around for fear that he might actually endanger himself and all of Poland if he went out in the street in his
current state. Urszula (Jacek’s other half) had to escort him back. Apparently we saw a hedgehog in the walk that night, but I don’t remember anything past the first beer, so I can’t really say much in support of that statement. I finally got home, showered, threw myself into bed, and went into a coma.
The next day (the 29th of May), began as expected, slowly. I woke up, felt sick, quashed the feeling, swore never to drink vodka again, showered, felt sick, swore at Poland and it’s stupid non-refusal rules, laid on the bed, groaned, and finally got up and force-fed myself breakfast. Jacek was feeling a little under the weather as well, but everyone else felt fine which made me feel much better. I couldn’t believe I had let myself get that drunk on my first night as a guest in a Polish household. Fortunately Jacek is as much of a character as Wujek Andrzej when it comes to this sort of thing, so my begging for forgiveness was laughed at and more Vodka was offered.
That afternoon we were lucky enough to get out of the house and go to visit Wilanow Palace, a beautiful
Castle just out of Warsaw that is described as “The Polish Versailles”, and with good reason. The Palace itself is of the Baroque style of building, completed in 1696 for King Jan Sobieski III, and survived Polish partitioning and two World Wars. The grounds are absolutely amazing as you can probably see from the photos, with the Wisła River along one side and beautiful gardens manicured to within an inch of their life. All of the greenery and plant life is totally different here, and everything that I had expected it to be. Not only were the gardens spectacular, there was a beautiful church there along with various other smaller buildings that, for a boy from the bush, completed a package that was truly mindblowing. To get into Wilanow is free on Sundays, so we decided against paying the cash to go in there and then. After that we decided that it was enough for one day and retreated back to the house, but not for beer.
The third day in Poland (30th May) started with a bit more gusto, waking up and having a top-notch Polish breakfast (can you see a recurring theme?) and deciding what we should
do. The general consensus was that it was a great opportunity to go into Old Town and have a look around. Jacek, Ula and Piotrek were our tour guides for the day, and it was here that I was introduced to Uncle’s rally driving aspirations. The man goes through traffic like a dog after a rabbit, albeit very calmly and applying brakes with great fervor. The little Ford Focus goes like a champ, and I had a wowser of a time; Aleks however looked a little ashen faced after the swerving adventure. She just needs to harden up a bit.
After seeing a Firefighters parade, where Aleks drooled all over the ground and we had our photos taken on a big red Fiya Twuck, we moved on into Old Town for a wander. And boy oh boy. Old town is just STUNNING. Everything that I had heard about Warsaw being a grey, cold Capital with a chip on its shoulder went out the window. Sure the sky was grey, the wind was cold and the people looked like they had a chip on their shoulders, but the buildings! The architecture! The Polish Women! WOW. We first got out and
wandered around to the Main Square where I was just floored. You can’t describe the feeling when you see a place that looks three or four hundred years old, and you know for a fact that 65 years prior it was nothing but a smoking pile of rubble on the ground. The buildings have all been rebuilt to original specifications in an attempt to retain some of the original splendour that graced the streets of Warsaw before the Germans decided to mash it all to pieces after the Warsaw Uprising. And by God did they do a good job. Everything is built with pride and is a true testament to the unquashable endurance of the Polish Spirit.
We went up to the top of a viewing tower that gave us a bird’s eye view of the square and the surrounds, the Wisla, across the other side of the city, slowly meandering down Nowy Swiat and beyond. Just beautiful! We took lots of photos and got absolutely stuffed going up and down the giant spiral staircase, but we were absolutely blown away by the scope of it all. We walked into the courtyard of Warsaw castle, a giant red brick
structure that was rebuilt after being razed during the war. Several massive churches that are so beautiful inside you don’t want to raise the camera viewfinder to your eye in case you miss something, the pipe organs taking up the whole back wall in gold and silver, with sculptures of cherubim and ivy vines shined to a gleam that even in low light made my jaw drop to the ground. And CATACOMBS under the churches! Bugger me if that wasn’t the most amazing thing to hear.
Unfortunately we were an hour early and forgot to go back, so that is still on my to do list.
I also managed to grab a bite to eat - Smalec (drippings, meat and seasoning paste) and Ogorkie (pickled cucumbers) on tough polish bread, mouthwateringly tasty and definitely worth fending Aleks away to snarf it all myself. We walked for what seemed like miles but it was only one street (New World) and investigated all the old buildings and marveled at the architecture - me going into every church that I could find and making sure the sounds on my camera were turned right down and the flash was off, as there were
many pious types in there praying for rain, and I didn’t want to disturb them. We saw the narrowest house in Poland, which even Miranda Kerr couldn’t fit into, and tripped over lots of cobblestones. We managed to see so much - The Great Theatre, Warsaw University (Yay Mama Lips!), Churches (Holy Cross - where Chopin’s heart is kept!!, Trinity Church, St. John’s Cathedral, Visitationist Church, St. Anne’s Church), The Presidential Palace… The list goes on and on.
As is usually the case here it seems, we were caught in what was the first of many torrential downpours, so we went scuttling into a little pierogi (Polish Dumplings - unmatchable in Aussie culture) restaurant, and once again the family insisted on feeding me stupid on a mixture of meat, cheese, mushroom and cabbage pierogi, washed down with half a gallon of Barszcz Czerwony (Red Beetroot Soup). The place was packed tighter than a convict ship and everyone around us was annihilating pierogi with gusto. Magic - the place was absolutely beautiful, just like it was 200 years ago, and nearly as beautiful as the serving lasses. The last thing that we managed to see for the day was the
Palace of Culture and Sciences, formerly the “Stalin” Palace; all traces of the mongrel’s name have since been removed. It is an oafish towering structure (237m - the eighth tallest in EU) left behind as a “gift” from the Russians during communist-era Poland. CHRIST it’s an ugly building. It totally dominates the landscape and looks like something from Gotham City, and the inside looks like something out of a soviet-era James Bond film. To make it worse there was a Thailand exhibition going on inside that was about as Thai as Batman. I wasn’t impressed at all, and we left quickly.
Over the course of the next few days we did a little bit more relaxing but still managed to get out and about and see a few things, but overall it was pretty chilled out. We aimed to go out on the fourth day (31st May) to see a street parade/exhibition of 18th Century type things, but unfortunately after spending half an hour under a tent drinking coffee waiting for the torrential rain to stop, we decided to leg it, getting absolutely drowned in the process. It was also the day we were going to to back to
Wilanow, but it was not to be. It was a real doozie of a sight - Aleks, Adam, Ula and I standing under a tree, in a river of water, under two umbrellas, trying to minimize soakage. When we finally made it to the car across the other side of the park, we got in the car and had a “Let’s go home” tantrum. We did eventually dry out, like that guy’s socks from New Orleans in Family Guy, but not after a great deal of laughing and making a mess of Jacek’s nice floor. We ended up drinking beer and talking shite - which seems, like Australia, to be a national pastime here.
The day after (1st June - Happy Birthday Mum!) was Official Business Day - time for Aleks to get around to sorting out the first steps of getting her Polish Passport and ID Card sorted. I took the opportunity to catch up on organizing photos and was going to finish the blog, but yon computer did not want a bar of it, so I relinquished myself to the couch with a cup of coffee and continued working on the rebirth of my novel that has
been in a stalemate for so long. Which, I might add, after so much inspiration at the hands of all the amazing things that I have been seeing around Warsaw, is 20 pages of notes and ideas and going strong. Anyway, I digress.
I did that for the morning as I figured there would be a lot of Polish speaking on Aleks’ side of events, which rendered me instantly useless, and it was likely that Aleks (who is prone to high levels of stress in situations like this) would kill me before an hour had passed. So those two buzzed around to various places including the local council here in Anin, then to Zoliborz, City Central and generally got sent from place to place before finding somewhere that looked like they actually had a clue. Unfortunately for our intrepid red-tape-cutters, the local government side of things here in Warsaw consists mainly of a bunch of grumpy people who look very official and do lots of paperwork, but generally have no idea what’s going on most of the time. They finally succeeded in getting a case worker who actually cared, and it’s looking good so far. Will give more of
Careful, pie eating dog?
Kajki Street, where we live an update in the next blog as to whether the application is getting dusty on some beaurocrat’s desk. I took a ride in with Adam from home, who was going to work, and met up with Jacek and Aleks and Piotrek, and from there we ducked home again (?) grabbing some Asian dinner on the way, which was quite acceptable!
The next day (2nd June)was a lazy one, we went for a wander in the forest near the house in the afternoon for a couple of hours, dodging shoe-eating puddles and going for pees amongst the trees, and we were quite flabbergasted that such dense forestation could be found in a relatively built up suburban area. Apart from the quiet hum of cars only a hundred metres away, the density of the forest seemed to eat up all sound apart from the birds and the bees. It was just wonderful, and a great opportunity for Aleks and I to get a bit of time alone to ourselves. Apparently Moose could be found in there and were getting hit by cars on the Highway. Poor bloody cars! On average, an adult moose stands 1.8-2.1 m high AT THE SHOULDER, with
antlers reaching a span of 1.6m!! Males weigh 380-720kg and females weigh 270-360kg. Ha. Ha ha. That makes a roo look like a field mouse.
The 3rd of June (Happy Birthday Papa Lips!) was our day to go over to Ursus suburb to visit Asia & Marek (Aleks’ Aunt and Uncle), Dziadek (Grandpa) and Ania and Pawel (Cousins). It was an hour trip over with Jacek, and we drove around the area where the lads went to school and where Jacek used to live, it’s basically the family suburb and a lot of fam and friends live there, so it was great to see that. We also went to a factory outlet store close by, and got a pair of excellent leather ballerina slippers for Aleks from an Italian shoe store for 60 zloty ($24!) as she didn’t have any. I was amazed at the amount of American brands there - Mustang Shoes, Ecco, CAT, Levi’s, Outer Circle, Element… The scythe of commercialism swings far and wide as ever! After that we were dropped off at Asia’s, and I sat there for about 6 hours in a formal dinner setting whilst minimal English was spoken, much to my chagrin.
I did a lot of nodding and smiling and wanting to run to the bathroom, but it was super cool to meet the family and I once again ate so much food I nearly died, topped off with Ice Cream and Curvoisier which went down a little rough after my vodka effort a few days prior. Overall I had fun, and we will definitely go back over there for a pub visit with the cousins.
Thursday (4th June) was an amazing day, and probably my favourite so far. With Captain Jacek deciding that an epic afternoon would be the only thing to keep us interested, the three of us ventured out into the cold afternoon (8 degrees) and investigated the greenery wonderland that is Lazienki, aka The Royal Baths Park. It is the largest Park in Warsaw at a not-to-be-sneezed at 76 hectares, and contains buildings originally erected in 17th and 18th century that were (of bloody course) mostly razed after the Warsaw Uprising by the stupid Germans, but rebuilt completely in the years after the war to original spec. The grounds are breathtaking, I’ve never seen so many shades of green in all my life. The animals, including
ear-shattering peacocks, mad squirrels, ducks, swans, and the occasional wily polish park geezer, are just beautiful. And I kid you not, I’ve never seen huge peacocks sit in a bloody tree till I came here. They are EVERYWHERE.
Some of the highlights of the park include: The Palace on The Water, a beautiful baroque style palace built on an island in the centre of Lazienki Lake in late 1600’s, which housed Kings and Queens for many years. There is a Roman Amphitheatre that is just what you would imagine it to be, with semi crumbling columns and statues of poets of the antiquities, and vines growing all over it. And bloody peacocks crapping everywhere. There are Orangeries (look it up), Bath houses, Belveder Castle and in amongst all that forests and forests and forests. Oh and I nearly forgot, the 2nd biggest statue commemoration of Fredyryk Szopen (Chopin) in a huge rose garden. Just amazing.
We went into town after that to meet up with Adam, and we made our way over to the Warsaw Uprising Museum - a national momument to the staunch endurance of the Polish Home Armies towards the end of the Second World War.
Polish resisted against German forces for 63 days until the Polish surrendered on 2 October, as part of a rebellion to liberate Warsaw from the Nazis. It is estimated that about 16,000 Polish insurgents were killed and about 6,000 badly wounded. In addition, between 150,000 and 200,000 civilians died, mostly from mass murders conducted by troops fighting on the German side. German casualties totaled over 16,000 soldiers killed and 9,000 wounded. During the combat approximately 25% of Warsaw's buildings were destroyed. Following the surrender of Polish forces, German troops systematically leveled 35% of the city block by block. The Museum itself is astounding, on very large grounds, and is very modern and informative, with everything in both English and Polish. There is some pretty savage stuff in there, and it blows me away to think that this was only a small part of the carnage endured by the Poles at the hands of the Germans while the stupid Ruskis stood by and did nothing. It was very humbling for me, and I think I am finally starting to understand what it means to be Polish, but I will go more into that when I feel I have a better grip
Squirrel!
Lazienki, Warsaw on it all. All I will say for now is Papa Wetzlich - now I know what you are talking about.
When we were done at the museum and got back to town, Poland was going absolutely mad. And with good reason. The fourth of June 2009 marked the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of Communism, and there was a street party going off right next to the Great Theatre. A massive stage had been set up and a free concert was playing with all the bands that were popular in Poland back in 1989; bands of international acclaim such as Pawel somebody and the Boobies (Piersi), Voo Voo, and Lady Pank. It was one of a bunch of concerts going on all over Poland, and it was a great spectacle to be seen. I rocked out, even though I had no idea what they were talking about, and learned my new favourite word - SOLIDARNOSC, which means Solidarity in Polish, and was the keyword for the attitudes of the Polish community in contrast to the horrible oppression they suffered under the Ruski Communist Government and that pig, Stalin. So I now wander around using it as often as
possible, and have thus made many new friends as a result. But anyway, the concert rocked out till 10pm when we shouldered our way out of the crowds and made our way out, at which stage we divided and conquered - Aleks and I walked down Nowy Swiat by night, which for a lad like me is the closest thing to the Kingdom of Heaven he could ever expect to see - just stunning. And then we went home.
Yesterday I wrote the bulk of this blog, and used the computer for like a million years, getting absolutely nothing else done, other than playing Ula’s daughter’s guitar that I have been so graciously lent. We still haven’t published the blog at time of writing due to the fact that we can’t find an internet café to upload the photos - I probably already said that.
But just to update you - today (Sat, 6th June) we went out to an Air Show with Piotrek and Adam. The bus ride out was incredibly painful, as the traffic was thick and the bus was full, but an hour later we were in business. The place was packed with people of
all shapes and sizes - puffed up strutting security guards in full camo gear, hillbillies who think they’re in the army just because they’re wearing camo gear, drunken high schoolers and the filthy rich in the VIP section. Every giant camera in existence descended on the event, and Sony even had a stand for their α-camera range. Let’s just say that there was a lot of lens envy around, there’s obviously SOME money out in the wild east of Poland.
In amongst dodging radio controlled planes, munching a GIANT kielbasa and drinking Warka beer, we also managed to see some excellent plane flying. I don’t have any idea what the types of planes were, and most of the announcements were (surprise surprise) in Polish, but Papa Wetzlich will be able to fill me in on which ones they were I’m sure. There were helichopters, acrobatics planes - that managed not to crash this year, spitfires (I think) and plenty of excellent photo opportunities. As is usually the case at the moment, it decided to rain near the end, but it was only spit and wind and was easily avoided under the cover of the Ice Cream stand’s umbrella. I
am currently still burping kielbasa three hours later, and I must tell you, it is just lovely :D
And that, my friends, brings you up to speed! I swear if I ever leave a blog this long again I will fry my eyeballs for dinner. If you made it this far, I salute you, but seriously - go get a life. Until next time avid readers, stay safe, stay regular, and keep smiling!!
THE END
(love Captain Nemo, whose fingers are going straight in a bowl of ice)
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A.T.
non-member comment
WOW
So pleased that you are having a wonderful time, am loving the photos and the epic blogs. Love you bopth heaps, A.T and Cookabum!