Poland - Day 1

Ah – long lies are good. I’d forgotten the pleasure of lying in bed and watching DVD’s. I opted for DVD’s on the laptop after giving up on CNN. The polish telly provided lght relief in that the films are dubbed, but all characters are dubbed by the same person. Just imagine the audiotrack of your favourite film constructed of someone reading all characters in a monotone voice – quite bizarre, and as someone who has only every watched foreign films using subtitles, I fail to see how you can enjoy a film like this. On this occasion it completely ruined Crocodile Dundee 3 for me!!!

Anyway – off we go for my first real day in Poland. I do the obvious things first like check if Jay Walking is illegal. It doesn’t seem to be. The address I have for the conference is “International Conference Centre – Poznan” I realise that I am walking in the direction of the centre and looking out for things which look like conference centres. While this is doing wonders for my observation of Poznan, I’m not getting any closer to the conference, so buy an A-Z and discover that I’m heading in the wrong direction. Little mistake, but getting lost does wonders for your handle on the city.

On my side of the city there is one main thoroughfare(Sw. Marcin) which leads from the conference centre(West of the city), to the centre (hubbub of the city). Simple rule is walk north-south in the city until you hit it and then you know where you are.

_/\_

After the conference, I get back to the hotel and then go a wander in order to see some of the sites I wanted to see earlier. Before I make it to the centre – I get an SMS from a colleague and it’s dinner tonight instead of sightseeing

After wandering round the streets in search of some authenticity, we realise that almost everything(including restaurants) is shut. We have to go back to the centre where the first thing we come across(we’re Hank Marvin now!!!) is a native American theme bar. Not stopping for a second to how bizarre a first polish meal this is, we take a seat. There are very soon four local beers in front of us

The local beer is called “Lech”. I find this comical at first as most men become lecherous after a few beers, but it turns out that the “ch” is as in loch not as in cheese. Lech was the grandfather of the first king of Poland or something like that. He founded the first capital



We are soon tucking into dishes with titles such as “Sitting Buffalo’s last stand against big bull on a hill” It’s pretty tasty - and I learn something about good Polish service. Apparently the y quicker they get plate off the table after you’ve put the last bite in your mouth the better. Our waiter seems to practice as a sport, when he catches my fork coming down from my mouth with the plate he’s picked up. A French conversationalist turns it into an extreme sport for the poor boy as he manages to savour each bite as he savours each bite of conversation. The waiter will probably relay the story to his grandchildren one day as one of the most exciting meals of his waitering career.

Anyway.

That’s day one over. Good fun – not convinced I know much about Poland, polish life, polish food or the polish language – maybe tomorrow.