The last ‘p’ is silent.
So… As I outlined in my previous post I planned a short trip to Warsaw, Poland, to go to a concert with a band called Intelligency.
Here is the all too long account of what went down…
WARSAW, DAY ONE (FRIDAY)
The day started much earlier than I cared for when the alarm on my phone went off at around a quarter to five in the morning, an absolutely ungodly hour of the day, but Anton the Doggo got up at the same time so he could get some early morning pets. Coffee was soon prepared, the first of many that day, but no breakfast. For some reason I can never really eat breakfast before having to travel, it’s a stress thing, I think.
Everything was and prepared the previous evening so there wasn’t really much that needed to be done so I wasn’t in any kind of hurry. Until I was, of course. Somehow that last half hour before I had to leave flew by and I suddenly had to kinda hustle in order to make it to the train station in time but everything worked out, the only hard part, really, was having to say goodbye to Anton the Doggo because he is just ever so precious!
I got to the airport without incident, security was quick and soon I was headed towards a coffee stand to get the second coffee of the day. It’s become tradition and I need the caffeine in order to feign being human. Then the wait began. I’m always in way too good time and will probably never learn.
Trouble was brewing when I got on the plane, though, as three boys around 11 or 12 years old traveling with a football club had taken up an entire row including my seat. Under normal circumstances this wouldn’t really have bothered me and I would’ve just taken another seat but where it went wrong is that their coach knew this kid was in the wrong seat and didn’t correct it. So when the adult in his life didn’t want to teach him this particular lesson another adult had to and that was me. Petty? Perhaps but it became a matter of principle.
The flight itself was without incident as most are these days and Wizz Air wasn’t too bad except that they’ve somehow managed to have less leg room than EasyJet so a word to the wise, if you’re over 175cm and have a 2+ hour flight, get a seat with extra leg room.
Anyway, with this little snot-nosed snag out of the way I settled in, kinda dozed off and before I knew it we were landing in Chopin Airport. Now, the budget airlines don’t get to use those fancy umbilical walkways we know from the movies, instead there were three buses on the tarmac ready to pick us all up and take us to the terminal. We were that far out. But I’ve never tried that, either, so it was a new experience and not really a bad one.
Since I only had a carry-on I could walk straight out of the airport and ended up right by the bus terminal and using the app Jakdojade made it super easy to find a plethora of ways to get to downtown Warsaw. I ended up with the bus option because of reasons that were unclear to me then and downright enigmatic to me now but it turned out to be a pretty good choice since it got me there. Well, almost. I overshot my target grid by just a tad but nothing critical. A 40 minute bus ride for 4.40 PLN which is just over €1. You can’t beat that price!
Well off the bus I was on a street. In a foreign city. And I was in very good time. Too good, probably, since there was more than three hours until check-in at the hotel so I had to pass the time somehow so I moved my plans around a little and went to the military surplus shop first, something I hadn’t planned on doing until after getting settled at the hotel but plans are made to be changed. I guess…
Apparently they are since I had no control over the hotel routines though I aim to change that when I become the ‘Tard-Emperor of Earth!
I acquired a new backpack, a pair of pants and a t-shirt with an over-the-top print saying “In Glock We Trust” because I don’t care that I’m getting old, I wanted it, I bought it, I rule!
Also, because of the luggage issues I anticipated, I didn’t really pack that much so I was relying on purchasing a few needed items or walk around in the nude and I wanna get a feel for the aggression level of the local population before I embark on that.
Then I went hunting for lunch…
I came across a small place called Specjały Regionalne that boasted about having, as the name implies, regional specialties. That’s when I made one of those mistakes that make locals hate tourists, I went inside before they were technically open…
I was greeted by a young lady named Julia with the most charming smile I’ve seen in a long time who informed me that they weren’t really open yet (I was fifteen minutes early) but she would ask the kitchen if they could make an exception and luckily, they could. That was a really good start to my visit there, she could’ve just as easily have told me to come back later or find somewhere else but instead I was bid welcome and seated.
I was just looking for a light lunch but missed the mark a bit when I saw the menu and ended up ordering a tomato soup as a starter and a breaded pork chop with potatoes and fried kapusta kwaszona (Polish sauerkraut). Light, sure!
The tomato soup seemed at first to be a run of the mill tomato soup but it was as if it gained greater complexity as time went on. It had a kind of pasta in it but it wasn’t Italian pasta, it was denser, more textured and chewy and went perfect with the soup. And a nice touch was the chopped parsley on top! 10/10!
Julia was a very attentive waiter so I had my pork chop in front of me not three minutes after cleaning out the soup bowl (I managed to refrain from actually licking the bowl and thus maintained the mask of a civilized being) and I was a little taken aback by the size of the chop, it was huge but I have never before been bested by breaded meat and I’d be damned if this was to be the first time so I dug in. It was moist, tender, the breading crispy and it was clearly fried in real butter and it all came together as a perfect piece of meat. The potatoes was a little more boiled than I prefer them but I do remember that being the case when we used to visit my stepdad’s family in Poland so I think that’s just how they like them. I prefer a little more bite so they were just kinda… There.
The fried sauerkraut, though, was one of those delightful surprises you sometimes chance upon! A rich, complex flavour with a touch of the acidity from the fermentation still present and it turned out to be the perfect pairing for the breaded pork chop and I had to carefully manage the application of it so it would last for the entire chop and it was a success.
The beverage was a sparkling water as I don’t drink soda with sugar nor beer or wine and it was a great choice because I really like sparking water!
After lunch I proceeded to walk some more, explore the immediate area and get a feel for the place and one thing that struck me early on was how clean it was. No trash on the street, rarely even a cigarette butt despite the numbers of smokers walking around so that was a nice surprise. There were even shop workers outside sweeping the area in front of their stores and making sure it was nice and tidy which is something I’ve never seen where I’m from.
It started to rain at one point and by two o’clock in the afternoon with still an hour to go until official check-in I decided to try my luck with the hotel, perhaps my room was ready early. The nice young lady at the front desk informed that I was actually in luck so I got my key (and actual key!) and headed towards the eighth floor by means of the magic machinery known as an “elevator” which does is aptly named as it does exactly what the name implies. It’s amazing!
For those of you who’ve read my exhaustingly long account of my trip to Berlin (link) you know that I’m not one to splurge on hotels. One reason is that I’m not a rich man and simply can’t afford but another equally important reason is that I don’t really care that much for fancy surroundings, lots of amenities and luxury since I don’t spend much time in the hotel, anyway, so as long as it’s clean and functional then I’m pretty much happy. And this room definitely lived up to those criteria. It was a lot larger than I expected, too, with a living room (including a kitchenette) and a bedroom. The carpet showed clear signs of wear and tear and was probably never a pretty carpet but who cares? You don’t go on a vacation to sit at the hotel! Well, maybe you do but I don’t and this is my travelogue so *blowing raspberries*
The best thing, though, was the aforementioned key. An actual, physical key! None of this key fob or key card crap. I’m scatterbrained, I can’t have a door that locks automatically when it closes, I need to be the one in charge of when the door locks, especially when I’m out and about in a foreign country without any adult supervision.
For some odd reason, though, the room still had a key card to put in that holder that switches on the electricity only it was tethered to the wall just inside the door. That was a little strange but who am I to question their ancient ways?
I got settled in and sat down to form a plan for the rest of the afternoon. The part about going to the army shop was already done so I decided to go and acquire the last few items on my List Of Things To Do To Avoid Premature Public Nudity and made my way to the Warsaw Metro. The station was only a few minutes’ walk away and with the Jakdojade app it was a breeze to buy a ticket and after a brief moment of confusion trying to get through the access point to the Metro I was heading underground and found the train. It was easy, the Warsaw Metro only has two lines so it’s one of the smaller ones but seems to work really well. It’s clean, it’s fast and runs often.
I went to Galeria Młociny, a large shopping mall in the north of the city and wandered around aimlessly there for a while after getting a couple of t-shirts and such. There was a stall selling all kinds of cured sausages but I had to steer clear of it, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to contain myself if I got too close to that tiny emporium of salty goodness and I’d end up with several kilos of sausage in my backpack and I’d be broke. Well, broker. And I’d be a poor man running around a strange city with too many cured meat products and I’m saving that for a future trip to Rome.
The only real culture shock of the trip came soon after when I went to forage for some supplies at that hunting ground known as Lidl. I’m used to the shopping baskets being at the entrance for convenience but I found none there so I figured I’d just pick one up at the checkout since that’s where people leave them, right? Wrong. There were none to be found. Nowhere. And yet somehow everyone else had a shopping basket. Curious. Also there didn’t seem to be a system or logic to where items were placed in the shop, it seemed more like they’d thrown everything in when the shop first opened and placed stuff on the shelves wherever they landed. I was looking for some Fanta Lemon or Coca-Cola of the Zero variety and there were soft drinks in no less than five different places scattered illogically around the store in the most soul crushing manner. It was as if the entire layout was designed with the sole purpose of destroying happiness and any residual belief in the human race one might still harbor in the darkest nook of the heart.
But I managed to acquire a small selection of foods that could, with some creativity, be crafted into something that might be considered breakfast and stave off any late night snack cravings that might occur and against all laws of nature managed to transport the loot to a checkout register. As I put my backpack down the young cashier saw the Umbrella Corporation patch I have on it and lit up in a smile, complimented me on it and asked if he could take a picture of it, a request that was granted, of course. Apparently, he was a Resident Evil fan. It was a short exchange, one of those short and seemingly insignificant incidents that doesn’t sound like much when told but still, it made me happy.
After an uneventful metro ride back to Warszawa Centralna I made it to the hotel and a few hours later went out for dinner. The successful lunch at a quiet restaurant and the stress of traveling had made me in the mood for a similar dinner experience so I hit the streets in the hopes of finding a small, cozy place where I could enjoy some local cuisine in peace.
That hope was soon shot down by the large crowds of party hungry people that inhabited the streets. Unbeknownst to me the neighbourhood in which the hotel was located turned out to be somewhat of a party district which in turn meant that every restaurant, so peaceful and cozy at lunch time, was a thriving, writing hub of people getting ready to party like it’s [insert your generation appropriate year ending in 9 here]. For all too long I wandered aimlessly, dodging this way and that to avoid groups of various sizes flowing through the arteries of the city in an organic albeit highly intoxicated manner, when finally I realized that unless I were to travel in a random direction with the aid of public transportation my hopes of finding a peaceful establishment were as destroyed as my fellow foot travelers ability to safely operate a vehicle. Random exploring didn’t appeal to me at this point since it was almost 21:00 / 9pm and I had walked over 20 km already so I needed something that close, fast and delicious. And then it appeared! A tiny shop squeezed in between…other shops! A pierogi place from the looks (and the sign) of it. I like places that doesn’t have an extensive menu, it usually means that the few things they do, they do really well, which turned out to be true. I got an order in, it was ready within a few minutes and went back to the hotel to gorge on the well prepared prey of mine.
Amazing first day in Warsaw and as I drifted off to the Dreamscape, carried on delicate sounds of drunk people in the streets below me, I was happy.
WARSAW, DAY TWO (SATURDAY)
(Will he ever learn to be brief?)
Consciousness returned early that morning and after some very mediocre coffee, courtesy of Lidl and Nescafé and some random music on the laptop it was time to get out and, if I felt inclined, about.
I had just one goal for the day itself which was to get hold of one of those kitschy souvenir patches since I’ve gotten one everywhere else I’ve been. It’s cheesy, sure, but it’s become sort of a thing. The place to get that was surely Old Town north of where I was staying.
The morning was spent roaming the streets aimlessly, though, just watching the people and the city and it is a really beautiful city and well worth the visit. Somehow I made it up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a memorial built in honor of unnamed soldiers killed in World War I and I could hear loud announcements over a P.A. system but the view was blocked by a fence so I decided to investigate. When I come to the square the first thing I saw was a military medic vehicle parked in front of a group of large tents. As I got closer I saw regiments of soldiers all standing in formation while a woman read what I recognized to be names and as she read on, sixteen soldiers at a time, in groups of four, would walk up to four small podiums with a uniformed man on each podium holding a sabre. The soldiers then knelt on the podium and one by one they received a tap on the left shoulder with the saber whereupon they would return to the back of their regimen. All this took place in Polish so other than the names I understood nothing. Two military police officers were standing a little ways away so I asked if any of them could tell me what was going on. One of them informed me that it was a ceremony for newly graduated officers in the Polish army. That was quite interesting to witness. I didn’t stay for the entire thing because there were well over a hundred still waiting so it would’ve taken up most of the morning.
I walked some more. And then a little more. That was a general theme for my time in this city. 20+ km per day. On foot. It was both heaven and hell.
Later that afternoon I made it up to Warsaw Old Town to find the patch and it proved to be closer than I expected and on my morning walk I had been within five minutes of it without realizing it but that’s what happens when you’re in a new place. You end up going places you don’t know where are… Profound, right?
Mission: Find Kitschy Patch was horribly unsuccessful since Polish people and the majority of tourists visiting seems to have a borderline unhealthy obsession with magnets for some reason so I just spent the afternoon enjoying Old Town. It’s a relatively small area with the majority of buildings originally dating back to the 17th and 18th century though some foundations are clearly older than that. Well worth the visit, it’s very cozy and I imagine that in winter time when the snow blanket the roofs it’s absolutely magical. I wasn’t lucky enough to have snow while there so I gotta go again!
Between the blessings of Lady Luck and some impressive dodging I made it through the square without being accosted by street vendors hawking all kinds of touristy crap and got back to the hotel to rest and prepare for the concert in the evening.
Rather than go on another fruitless hunt for a quiet restaurant I went straight to the pierogi place again and ate in the hotel, jumped in the shower and I was off. The concert was scheduled to start at 20:00 and the venue was just a three minute walk from the hotel so I was there in ample time and yet a line had already formed. This made me happy, though, it was nice to see so many people there all excited to watch a band that I was all excited about watching. The average age, though, was only about 30, I guess, and it was me and probably three other guys pulling it up that high. Had no clue Intelligency was this popular among the youngsters and whippersnappers in Poland. The line moved slowly due to an extremely inefficient coat check system but I finally made it inside and headed for the bar. I was gonna need a bottle of water since I don’t really drink. In the bar the next in line of inefficient systems emerged as everyone wanted cocktails and yet there was only one bartender at work. Not ideal. By the time I got to the bar I figured that if I had had to wait for cocktails so would the ones behind me but since there’s no cocktail called Petty Dane I settled for a Long Island Ice Tea. And the bottle of water. The drink was pretty delicious, I gotta give the bartender that!
When I went downstairs the show had already begun which was also sort of a culture shock since I’ve never before been at a non-classical concert that kicked off earlier than an hour after the announced time. And that’s if I’ve been lucky. In some cases it’s taken both two and three hours before show actually started so this was nice for a change.
The show itself was awesome! Small venue, a couple of hundred people there and they were all heavily into the music and everyone were having a great time. The sound and the mix at the venue were among the best I’ve ever heard, hands down! The bass was loud, booming and could be felt deep in the chest but there was no distortion from the rig, no muddling, every note stood out tightly and clearly. The mid provided a smooth center for the music and the highs were crisp and transparent and none of it drowned in the rest. Sound quality like that is, in my experience, extremely rare. Combined with the fact that Intelligency turned out to be a damn good live band the whole experience was among the best concerts I’ve ever been to which was great since between the plane ticket and hotel and whatnot, it’s one of the most expensive concerts I’ve ever been to!
When the concert ended I didn’t actually realize at first because the guys in the band only spoke Russian and I don’t so when they walked off the stage I wasn’t sure if it was just an intermission or it was over but when half the audience began a coordinated migration towards the coat check counter I put two and two together because I’m smart like that and if there’s one thing I can do well it’s interpreting human behaviour and interactions…
Anyway, moving on!
On my way back to the hotel I came across a small shop that sold Belgian style fries and I thought ”Hey… Fries!”
Got me some fries, went back to the hotel, full on deep fried root veggies and impressions and went to sleep.
WARSAW, DAY THREE (SUNDAY)
Another early start. This seems to be a theme. I mean, it’s not so strange, the mass of new impressions, the stress of everything new and just a thing like navigating around a strange place kinda takes it out of you (and me) so early to bed and early up and all that jazz!
The morning once more consisted of mediocre coffee and bread and paté which was a lot better than the coffee and me hitting the streets. There wasn’t any kind of plan but I didn’t want to just sit around at the hotel and my next Thing To Do didn’t begin until 13:00 and I was too excited for that to sit still, anyway, so off I went to roam the streets of Warsaw once more.
It hit me immediately when I exited the front door of the hotel, the Feeling of Sunday, that strange atmosphere that seems to descend over a party area at some abstract time during the night when the party ends and the reality of week there is come sets in with all the grim realities it brings with it. Everything seems a little more desolate and barren somehow, empty and devoid of life but I didn’t mind this time. The weather was grey and cold but in a cozy way but I can’t for the life of me remember what I did this morning but I suspect it involved walking. And some more walking.
Around 11 I got back to hotel to plan the next part of the day. The exciting part. The part that involved guns and many of them!
At 13:00 I was to be at a gun range!
But first I had to figure out how to get there and that looked fairly straight forward but I hadn’t accounted for the Warsaw Central station, a different, more imposing and far more confusing place than the Metro version of the same name.
Not only are there different lines from the station, there are also different operators so you gotta find the right platform with the proper operator. A thing I learned later is that they all have convenient entrances from street level scattered around the area but I went in through the main building and was lead down to a labyrinth of hallways, tunnels and shops and signs that were at times very helpful but at other times a lot less so. Because of this I missed the train I had planned to take but in a moment of brief lucidity I had actually accounted for such an occurrence so I could take a later train and still make my appointment. My appointment with GUNS! It can be tricky to navigate such systems when you don’t speak the language but somehow it all worked out, I found the right train and after checking, double, triple and quadruple checking the train stations on the app and the chart in the train I was fairly certain I was on the right track. Pun intended.
When I got off the train I crossed the tracks because that seemed to be the way people were doing it despite the conveniently placed stairs but I must admit that it cut that particular part of the journey with at least a minute so the risk was totally worth it! There weren’t any trains in sight so the risk mentioned? Very low. Nonexistent, to be fair.
The gun range called PM Shooter (link) was only a short, uninspiring walk away and soon I had arrived at the place of my dreams!
I went inside and got checked in and was soon met by a young man named Daniel who were to be my instructor on this adventure.
I got to shoot a selection of handguns and rifles including a Glock 17, a Colt 1911, an AK-47 and the icing on the shooting cake, a fucking Dragunov rifle! Sitting there with that huge gun was something I won’t forget any time soon, hopefully never!
I know now what the allure of the whole thing is and hot damn, it is alluring!
The whole thing was over much too quickly, I could’ve done that the rest of the day. The week, month, year and few (many!) more after that and I am definitely going to find other places where I can get to go shooting again in the future! You can count on it!
I returned to the station, got on the train without concern for getting off at the right station. One, because I was no longer under any time constraint and two, my destination was the terminus. Even I couldn’t mess that one up. I felt fairly confident of that.
After a quick stop at the hotel I returned to Old Town determined to complete Mission: Find Kitschy Patch and this time I allied myself with that net we call inter and found several souvenir shops I missed the previous day and after a visiting a few (with more damn magnets) and stopping to listen to a Polish blues singer (who knew Polish Blues was a thing?) I was finally successful and could return victorious. And with sore feet.
Later that evening I picked up a pizza because I was just so tired and weary that dinner just had to be fast and easy and I spent the rest of the evening watching videos and packing up my stuff as I would be leaving in the morning.
WARSAW, DAY FOUR (MONDAY)
More mediocre coffee but this morning with a little more urgency as I had to check out of the hotel before 10:00 which meant I had most of the day to spend before my flight at 18:…something in the evening.
I had packed everything up the previous night so the urgency part is kinda overstated, embellished, exaggerated, whatever, since I was up before 7:00 so I decided to just saunter around the rooms for a bit while checking if I had made sure to pack everything. But I had so that got boring fast. Kinda like this blog post!
Check out was a breeze, just had to dump the key in a box on the wall and I was out the door for the last time this trip. And then indecisiveness hit me. I had no plan. Nothing to do, no ideas for what to do and eight hours to kill. So what did I do? You guessed it: I walked. And then I walked a bit more.
After loitering in various spaces for too long I remembered hearing about the magnificent roof top gardens atop the Warsaw University library and I figured it was a good time to go see them. After some difficulty I learned which bus to take, found the stop and was on my way! It was only a 15 minute ride and it was easy to find once I got off the bus. I entered the gardens, found a path that seems to lead in the general direction where I figured the access to the roof could be found and when I got there…. The place was closed.
Well, that was a bust. I got back on a bus back to my point of origin and after more deliberation got a new bus to a place called Blue City, a huge mall. The bus ride was hell! It was packed to the brim and I was wearing a backpack and a shoulder bag so navigating tight spaces was challenging but I made it there, found a café where I could plop down in a soft seat, recharge my mind (and my phone) and after a couple of hours there I headed back to the central station to find the bus to the airport.
I arrived three hours early but planes don’t wait so that’s a better option than being late. Security was efficient but the burly build and dour expressions of the security people animated me to keep things professional and courteous. Unfortunately, they don’t yet have those luggage scanners that allow your electronics to remain in the bags so everything had to be taken out and I also had to remove my belt for some reason even though it’s a 100% nylon belt bought for the purpose of not having to remove my belt in airports but that’s apparently how they do it. Luckily, I was traveling in pants that stay up without a belt so I avoided unnecessary embarrassment. For once.
I had hours to kill in the airport and they went by slowly. Thank the gods for podcasts and music!
Finally, the time to board arrived and I walk through the gate…
Thanks for reading, the two of you who made it this far.
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