Friday, 7 May 2010
Warsaw, Poland
0300hrs by the time I got to bed last night. General Election in the UK yesterday. Stayed up to watch the results come in. Old friend emailing until the early hours over the results. David Cameron’s Conservatives need a national swing of 7% to win. Awake to discover it’s the Conservatives with no overall majority. A hung parliament. And so the bunfight begins.
So somewhat shattered as I board the train to Warsaw. A 6hr journey. Don’t worry, dear reader, am travelling First Class. Thinking it would be the same superb standard as the German ICE train.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
It’s a six seat compartment like in the old fashioned trains. You know. The ones you see in the old films. Three of us in this compartment as we depart Berlin Hauptbahnhof. A young Polish girl student studying English language textbooks on magnetics and geophysics. A middle aged Polish bloke. He sits in the middle seat one side. Whilst we sit either end on the other side. I with the window seat. Moderately comfortable as we can each stretch our legs out to the vacant seat opposite us. It works. It won’t last though.
Travel through a lot of forest which becomes quite hypnotic seeing green trees pass by for hours. Frankfurt an der Oder is the German/Polish border town but the train only stops at Rzepin, about 15 minutes further on the Polish side for border checks and to change engines.
Border guards with guns jump on inspecting all the undesirables. We three in our compartment are bypassed and ignored. Asians in adjacent compartment given a grilling.
Arriving at Poznan it’s clear the train is going to be full judging by the volume of people waiting on the platform. Having enjoyed reasonable comfort the compartment now becomes full. And cramped. Polish businessman with laptop asks to plug his computer into the socket by the window. Now have a power cable trailing over my head rest. Mother and son enter with bags galore along with a rather rotund woman with dodgy haircut and fashion. Your stereotypical East European.
Pass the time by reading my Lonely Planet Trans-Siberian guide book. Prompts the woman to ask if that’s where I’m going. Yes and explain that I’m actually travelling by train around the world. Which starts the whole compartment asking questions for the next twenty minutes.
Disembark Warsaw Central station only 10 minutes late. Its dark underground station reminds me of the horror of Birmingham New Street so quickly find my way to daylight and the Radisson Hotel (https://www.radissonhotels.com/en-us/hotels/radisson-collection-warsaw-centrum). After a 6hr rail journey a kilometre’s walk seemed like a good idea. With a 22kg rucksack it’s not.
Despite being an experienced traveller quickly realise Poland is not in the Eurozone and so all those euros I have on me are of no use. Zloty required.
It’s been a long day, dear reader. Looking forward to a nice long sleep.
2300hrs when the racket starts. Jack hammers and heavy machinery being used to prepare the road three floors below my hotel room for tarmacking through the night.
Right.
Not having that.
Grumpy ogre presents himself at reception.
Grumpy ogre gets an upgrade to a Business Class room.
Grumpy ogre not so grumpy.
