Back in the P-O-L-S-K-A

Home, sweet home. It was good to go back to see my family despite the fact it was for a funeral.

I didn’t experience the oh-I-miss-England moment I was anticipating. It was a flying visit to Ipswich, Sussex, London then back up to Stansted to get my flight to Łódź so there wasn't the time. 

Talking of Łódź, what an unexpected gem. A fascinating city and I am glad despite the extra hours of travel I had enough time to explore at least a part of it. Great architecture, fascinating history, not as cosmopolitan as Warsaw but less tinselly-for-the-tourists than Krakow and Wrocław can sometimes be. I will blog about my visit there tomorrow.

So here are some random observations about England from my 48 hour flying visit:

Crossing Roads: having only just got used to the right-hand drive in Poland, crossing the roads in England was a nightmare. The drivers can be just as rude there but they do tend, unlike Polish drivers, to understand that a red light is not an open invitation to drive over the pedestrian crossing in order to make a right turn.

Tubes: London tube stations are dirtier, far more busy, smaller and more rushed which by its nature provokes mass antagonism. I never feel stressed in that way on the Warsaw metro. The developments around Victoria station continue apace. I had to stop myself pressing the open door button on the Northern line like a naive foreigner.  

Change: somehow, somewhere I have garnered the habit of trying to ensure the exact change. This led to a baffled boredom on the part of the checkout girl who would have been happy to give me change for my note.

Chicken: Boy do we love this white meat. It’s everywhere! Just think how many chicken options there are in our sandwiches: chicken stuffing, chicken and bacon, chicken and sweetcorn, chicken and avocado, chicken mayonnaise, club sandwiches with chicken, chicken with sundried tomatoes, chicken salad, thai chicken and then chicken and pesto.

Christmas: in Poland there is nary a Christmas advert on the screen, nor blinking light in the window, nor shop sign with fake snow on it. In England, you can’t move for Christmas related advertising. I believe from reading the Daily Mail there is now a law ensuring this process takes place earlier every year, as well as mandatory life sentences for swan-strangling Poles.

Finally, THE WEDDING. The Daily Telegraph had 14 pages of Royal wedding related articles in it on Wednesday morning. 14! 14! That means I had to turn the billowy Telegraph’s pages seven times before I got to a story on anything else. For a handy guide to the exact make up of all of these 14 pages, and all related articles up to and beyond THE WEDDING, read Iain Martin here.

This afternoon is the Warsaw blog meet at the Legends sports bar. I am going to make lunch in a bit and then pop over to have a couple of beers a bit after 2pm. A collision with a bottle of Żubróka last night has delayed the completion of my to-do list this morning and made a hearty lunch a necessity.