#warzsawa

Mo. Mai 22

European train travel is seductively priced, so clutching my jacket close and heat-generatingly skanking to Südkreuz Bahnhof at a chilly 6AM, I fortify myself with a Käse-und-Brot concoction and after a land-speed-record-breaking, perilously hairy flail through a wafer-thin connection at Hauptbahnhof, hunker down for my 5+ hour ride on the Berlin-Warszawa Express. 

Travel by road and rail always appeals to me, partly for fear of certain airborne tin-can doom, but also because why pass up a chance to see the sights? I’m a card-carrying member of the ‘journey’s as good as the destination’ club. The view out of Berlin offers the odd point of interest - quirky rooftop bars and the like (or perhaps merely alcoholic squats - who can tell in this new and frightening age of ‘the kids’?). However, luckily for insomnia-stricken, 3am-dish-washing me, much of this route offers little vista beyond, well, just what is that schmutz on the window? Cocoa butter? Hair gel? Sleep remains elusive. I find juvenile amusement in the naming of my snot-rag packet - passes a good two minutes at least. Stretching my legs to the back of my carriage where a startlingly fresh breeze whips and cracks, I cross-eye as our traversed track hypnotically drops away through the picture window. I have to sleep. Back in my seat, an improvised round of one-man Twister achieves improbable comfort sufficient to at long last nod off - crooked elbow as pillow, jaw agape, one bandy leg behind me and the other on the headrest of the seat in front.

I attractively schnort myself conscious a mile outside Warsaw Central. Furtively de-webbing myself, I hop down onto the platform, suddenly refreshed and eager to explore. I’ve done zero research on the city. Indeed I’ve come solely based on distance, price, and musical references. But I’m a walker, I love to walk without aim, so walk I shall. First I hit the station’s water closet but am instantly befuddled. Two fifty? What a rip! Hang about - what’s a Zloty? Doing no research has bitten me in the bum: didn’t realise Poland doesn’t use the Euro, did I? What a noob.

I exit the station to the ‘Sci-Fi Writers’ Guild Pictorial Encyclopaedia’ thumbed to the entry for ‘metropolis’. This futuristic compound turns out to be a surprisingly modern mall, mercifully yielding an ATM and free wees. I pocket 50 Zloty, empty my bladder, and after a brief window-shop I bamboozledly bumble my way out and emerge blinking into the sun with a blank canvas of a brain. I nip across the road to seek sanctuary in the park opposite, collect my thoughts to the backdrop of the babbling fountain, and totter on.