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[James Danson-Hatcher]

   Hello sinister.
     I am your Tourist Information Service and as such I'm going to use my 
authority upon you all: "go and visit Warsaw".
  I'm a pretty crap person to take up this role as I know very little about 
the place but I am filled to the eyeballs with enthusiasm to tell everyone 
about it so.
     30th of October
       After a stay in Hackney with the (silent on sinister:( Ali+Alex, they 
sent me on my way with packed lunch in hand and hangover in head to fight a 
path through London's well filled tube with my ENORMOUS bag of stuff and 
burst though Victoria's automatic doors to look for a bus with no name.

      The bus with no name had been a concern since I first found out about 
it a  week before when I rang up and spoke to the particularly unhelpful 
travel agent. After confirming when I wanted to go and where to, I asked her 
what time to expect said bus and what it company I had to look for.
       "I  don't know, just get there early" she said,  her staightened 
northern accent momentarily braking to reveal it's rougher edge.

        Back to the present day I had very little trouble finding the bus as 
the time had infact been printed on my ticket and the bus was clear to see 
as the one surrounded by frighteningly good looking people who stood out a 
mile against the backdrop on Londoners. My mind was sent back to the last 
time I was in this situation, in February, when lost in central Poland's 
Wroclaw bus station.
   The station had tens of coffee machines dotted about the place and I 
remembered thinking how much happier the beautiful people would be if they 
were replaced with Martini despensers.
    My Anglo-Polish was not all it could have been but enough passed between 
me and the driver. He bundled me aboard and ran in a LeMans24hour stylee to 
his seat before taking off at some pace over Vauxhall bridge towards Dover.
    It was at about this time that I got into deep prayer for the safety of 
my legs, it went like this: "Dear God, don't let the woman sitting before me 
discover the joys of the reclining bus seat" repeated every few minutes.
   I think it worked, as she was very still until we stopped in a German 
service station for a few minutes.  Everyone shot off to the shop,bought up 
a years worth of cigarettes and manged to squeeze about five smokes into the 
15 minute period before getting back in the tin-can-with-wheels.  Whereupon 
the woman sitting in front of me got into an eqivilant of seated DDR, 
giggling with amusement that her seat not only went back and forth but also 
sideways, my knees dodged the hard edge of the seat-back tray and it missed 
by a small ammount each time.

It was some hours(days?) later that the bus got to the outskirts of 
Warszawa, instantly plunging into the sort of traffic jam that preludes a 
big city. Not a bad thing, I got to play a fave game of gazing dearly at 
eastern european cars for an hour.
    Of course we would be late,
   about 6 hours as it turned out and Ola, sensably, thought better than to 
wait around getting herself bitten by the cold on the off chance that I may 
turn up at sometime.  Then my phone set it's self to sleep(for the rest of 
the week) and through no fault of their own I'd no luck with the station's 
payphones.  HMMM, in my usual state of *organisation* whilst abroad, I was 
running low on ideas. I walked to the centre, towards a tourist info place 
that one of my books had mentioned as the place to go to find help.  I don't 
know wheather it was still  open at that time but don't really car ether 
because on my way there I heard the blessed sound of Liverpudlian.  Not 
usually the source of excitment, today was different and the man was 
probably a little shaken after my burst of
"HelloyoujustspokeEnglish,haveyougotaphone?pleasecanIborrowit?I'minamessetcetc.."
      but being a total star he let me use it and soon after I was explaning 
myself to Miss Lalala, her voice coming down the phone like a big flashy 
lighthouse to me lost in a storm.

      Needless to say, after such a long trip it was brill to finally get 
there and to not be sleeping on the streets, I was made very at home.  Ola's 
flat even having a view of the massive Palace of culture from the balcony, 
which was my one big must see in Warszawa.  If I was an itinery sort of 
person then I'd have had "Go and see the Palace of Culture" written at the 
top of the page in gold leaf ink with additional flourecent highlighting 
underneath.
  Returning once again to my Tourist Information Person persona I think you 
should all know that it was well worth seeing, later on in the week we went 
upto the 30th floor of the sandstone monster, which was a very long way up 
and the lifts were so quick you felt really light when they came to a stop 
high in the sky. Really its the history behind it thats 
interesting...(forgive me the odd mistake)
    After the war when Poland came under Communist rule, Stalin and his 
party thought it'd be great if they were to build 8 of these palaces over 
their empire in a show of power to the west with their Empire State and 
Crysler Buildings and a show of control to the people of the countries 
within. The largest is this one in the centre on Warsaw and looking at it 
even today it casts a huge imposing message across the city.    Go see it!!
       Throughout the week Ola was a mega guide to have, one night we went 
to a club to try my first ever Carambola:), it's a liquor made from 
starfruits and we had it with grapefruit juice to start with. With this it's 
like a refreshing alcopop with added alco and pop that soon had us with 
designs on a whole bottle of the stuff.  Seeing that we were potential 
addicts, the barman reappeared and shuffled two more Carambola based drinks 
our way. These were cloudy pink and had the grapefruit kicked out in place 
of rum, mmmmmmm.  Lovely,more alco and less pop, we continued our Carambola 
journey with the original mixture before braving the very cold outside and 
running for/after the bus.
     It was pretty ****ing cold the next night aswell when we went to see a 
display of Yann Artuss-Bertrand's "Earth from the Air" photos that were 
stuck on the fence of this huge park. It's a really good idea to put them 
there, out of the galleries and onto the street as you hear so many people 
promising.  Brilliant pictures too, not just aerial photography, but each of 
the hundred odd pictures a proper piece of art in it's own right. We both 
agree that flying about the world taking pictures and money for them is a 
pretty good job to have. Again the warmth of public transport was fully 
appreciated on the homeward tram.

  And while I was there it was Halloween!
       A party had been organised at Ola's flat, thankfully almost everyone 
dressed up, with a Warrior Queen being a memorable sight among throngs of 
witch's and carpet-wearing-people-with-sticks.  I've never seen so many 
different Vodkas in my life, some yummy, some repulsive, all responsable for 
me staying in bed til late the next day.  Met lot's of new and old friends 
though, among the sinister flock were Kamil(forgive me the spelling) hello! 
and Maja, hello!

      And all to soon it was time to go home:(

        Not quite home though!  Seeing the Lord Major's fireworks on the 
Thames was a fitting end to my holiday. Thank you Ali+Alex for letting me 
live in Hackney and ride on 38 buses and be a Londoner for a bit.

      But now I am home, winter in wife-swapping Broughton-Astley is not 
looking much fun, but far better for the Polish trip :)      James.

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