The Slow Progression Into The Industry.: April 2015

Another short trip, another awesome few days. I massively enjoyed Warsaw.

Thursday 16th April 2015

Our coach from Cardiff to Bristol Airport was at 6:30am, and I didn't get home from work till about 4am, so I had about an hours sleep and then me and Dhalia left. The journey to Bristol went smoothly; no beeping noises, no crashing, nothing. And I slept the whole way. We went to get breakfast. We knew a meal would be a bit expensive, but paying £10 for a small breakfast and a small cup of tea was heartbreaking, disappointing, and every other word you can use to describe a feeling of sadness.

We finally got on the plane. I had the window seat, and slept. We flew over loads of farms, then made the approach to Warsaw airport which was in the middle of nowhere.

Best landing ever too. We got in the queue for the passport check, which sketched me out as the police were in military uniforms and they all looked really stern and angry. And this crazy old woman was kicking her back along the floor across the queue rope, so her bag was further on in the queue than she was. We both had no trouble, then got on a shuttle bus to take us to Modlin railway station. It was so quiet, it was quite eerie. We had no idea what train we were getting, so we just got on one and hoped for the best. We got off in Gdansk, wondering where to go next. We asked in the ticket station and got told to get on the metro. It cost PLN 3 for a ticket each, which is about 50p. 50p! We finally made it to Warsaw Central, and found a taxi which took us to our accommodation; Bed4city. We rang the buzzer but there was no answer. We were starting to get impatient, we just wanted to have some food and get rid of our bags. Dhalia rang the reception and a woman finally came out to speak to us and took us to our room. It was a pretty small room, and we had to share a kitchen and bathroom with another room. We left in search for food.

Pretty much everyone we walked past stared at me. All the men there had really short hair, so I obviously stood out. And all the women were so beautiful. The streets were really clean too. When you walk down a street in the UK, there's always litter, because British people are too lazy and inconsiderate to wait until they find a bin. There were no obese people either. Everyone was really healthy. We were walking for what felt an age, crossing over so many times. The roads are really wide, and there always seemed to be people running everywhere. Considering it was very busy, it was quiet. People weren't talking loudly, it was a nice change. There were loads of trams too.

We saw a massive shopping centre, and after finally discovering how to get inside it, we found the food court. We sat down at a place called Moulin Rouge. There were loads of business men and women sat at the tables, and there were me and Dhalia slouching back in the seats rocking up and probably having more money than them. We ordered food and drinks, which was amazing and cheap. The service was top notch too; they poured our drinks out for us and set our cutlery up for us. I had a bottle of Zywiec, which seemed to be the favoured drink in Warsaw. When we were done, the waiter informed us about a Polish dessert so we tried it. Best decision ever.

We were full, and literally falling asleep at the table, so we headed back to our room. I fell asleep for a bit but Dhalia stayed awake. We headed out to a place Dhalia had spotted earlier; Amigos. We had some drinks and food, then headed back to the room.

Friday 17th April 2015

We both got up and showered then headed to the food court for breakfast. We went to a place called Złota Kaczka (Gold Duck) and had a mushroom soup with sausages and eggs. Fucking tastiest soup I've ever had. You know you get the cans of Heinz soup which you pay a rip off price for? They can suck it. This soup was amazing.

We then went to explore and get lost. We went to the tourist information place and looked at some maps and decided to head to an area called Old Town, which is just south of New Town. We walked through parks and past historical buildings which was pretty cool.

We made it to Old Town, which was full of restaurants and souvenir shops. We'd been walking for ages and were feeling hungry so stopped at a place to eat called Pierogarnia Polska Zachcianek. It wasn't the greatest eating experience. It took quite a while to get served, then when we did order we literally waited an hour for our food. And we were sat next to some English 'lads' who were talking about football and rugby. You just can't escape British people. The food came out, and wasn't exactly hot, to which Dhalia remarked, "Old Town sucks, no wonder they built a new one". But fuck it, if we'd have complained we'd have had to wait another hour again.

So we ate and then left, and went to a souvenir shop which had some amazing little gifts. I spent about PLN 115 which is about £20. I just kept buying stuff, why not?

We walked back towards Central and went in the Hard Rock Cafe. It was my first time in one of these, and it was awesome. And the girl greeting all the guests was just so beautiful, I had to turn my back to her. We had a couple of drinks, one of which included a Vanilla Rock Shake which was a concoction of varied alcohol. We drank some more Zywiec, which I kept pronouncing wrong, to add to Dhalia's incorrect pronunciation of 'Zloty', which he kept calling 'Sloppy'.

We left and stopped off in a little shop which sold international foods, and we both bought a Fentimans drink. The Curiosity Cola one is the best drink ever, they used to sell it in the Coop by me but they were harsh and stopped.

We went to Amigos again, and had a starter, which included whole jalapeños. Dhalia was like, "It's not even hot". So I took a bite out of one then he said, "Fuck, it's hot after a while". And he was correct. I decided not to eat any more jalapeños. We then had a main and a dessert and some drinks. I think I paid PLN 160 ish for all of it, which is less than £30. BARGAIN.

It was time to head back to our room and go to sleep, as we had to leave by 10am the next morning. We watched a bit of Django Unchained. Well, I watched it, because Dhalia's bed was around the corner from the TV so he couldn't see anything. Sleep would never come however, as the room was hotter than the sun, and we couldn't open the window as we were on a main road and the noise of the traffic was ridiculous.

Saturday 18th April 2015

We left at about 9am and went for breakfast at Moulin Rouge. We both had a Polish breakfast which was pretty damn tasty.

There were some protests going on in the town, and there were guns being fired and an air raid siren going off. We realised that we could get a coach straight to the airport, so we bought our tickets. The girl who gave us the tickets then asked if we could help her with her letter of intent for a placement at a university in Reyjavik. She had written it in English and wanted us to go through it, which we did. It felt nice to help someone. We got on the coach outside the Palace of Culture and Science, which looked like the building from Ghostbusters that Zuul takes over. We got on the coach and headed to Modlin airport, which took about 40 minutes.

Tower from Ghostbusters Palace of Culture and Science

We had a drink then went to our gate. Our plane was at 2:20. Then the plane got cancelled for an hour, and we were in a cramped hall where millions of children were running around screaming. A mother came past with her child in the pushchair, she suddenly stopped and the kid launched out of the chair and fell on the floor right in front of us, and their crisps went all over the floor. That made me smile. We finally got on the plane, and a child screamed THE WHOLE way, the music in my ears barely drowned it out. We had a good landing in Bristol for once, then made it to our coach. It was to be a long journey back home. When I went to Malta, I got on the Greyhound service, which ran from outside Bristol airport straight to Cardiff Central. However, they've stopped this service now, so we had to get a National Express coach from the airport to Bristol bus station. We had a half hour wait, and I needed to go to toilet but it cost 20p to use them. Making people pay to do a natural thing that everyone needs to do is cold as fuck. We finally got back to Cardiff and got a taxi home.

Warsaw was amazing. The people were friendly, the city was clean, and we were able to afford to eat well. My perception of Poland has massively changed now, and I'd happily go again and would highly recommend it to everyone. For £123 we had return flights and a two night stay in a small hotel. And as it's so cheap out there, you won't break the bank at all.