Revolutionary Rants

Yesterday we returned bright and early from a lovely weekend in Warsaw.

On Friday, we headed off to Luton (via Paddington and St. Pancras - we nearly didn’t make it because there was delays on the Circle and Hammersmith and City lines, but with a bit of running we made it just on time!) and met Yolanta there. After a few red wines we boarded and flew out to Warsaw (with a rugby team who were dressed as ‘pimps and whores’ and were having a right old time of it!!!). Chicken’s Aunt Mariola picked us up and we stayed at her house in Western Warsaw.

The next day we were collected by Chris’ cousin Tomek and his girlfriend Nina - who can both speak really good English! - and we went for a walk in the ‘New’ Old Town (so-called because it was re-built in an older style after the Second World War), saw the sights and tried Polish ice cream (not quite as good as French) and beer (much better than French!). Then Tomek went off to do some climbing and Chicken and I walked through the city to the Lazenki park to meet Yola and Mariola. We had some soup and then walked to see the Palace and Amphitheatre.

In the evening it was the party for the 60th anniversary of the meeting of Chris’ grandparents, which was nice. There was lots of free vodka and red wine, so I was rather, well, ‘merry’ by the end!!!!!!!!!

On the Sunday we and Tomek went to see the gardens at Wilanow, and after a walk round there we visited the ‘Muzeum Plakatu’ (billboard advertising museum). Then we went for a dinner at Chris’ grandparents, which had lots of vegetarian things for me as they were all worried I would have nothing to eat.

Next day we were up at 06:30 to catch our flight. We almost didn’t make it to the airport - luckily we had set off two hours early for our flight home - as when we turned on to the main road there was a gridlock of cars. We eventually made it to the cross-road that lead to the airport, only to find the airport road was closed! Due to this, and as Mariola needed to go to work, Chicken, Yola and I got out of the car and walked up to the terminal, along with all the other people who were flying out that morning. After a few minutes walk, we were passed by a diplomat of some kind heading with a convoy of Police cars in to the EU conference in Warsaw! All that fuss for some Minister who would have no doubt been safer if they just arrived and went like the rest of the people do at an airport! Oh well, despite our plane being delayed for other passengers who were less energetic than us we made it home 25 minutes earlier than we were expecting and got home for 14:00.

A good weekend in all!