Warsaw Bound

A group of my friends and some people I know (joke), decided to set out for Warsaw last Wednesday (28th Dec), there were 16 of us in total. Our Central Wings flight was at 2:00am Thursday morning, so after a few beers in the Shannon Airport bar we were well insulated for the expected cold of Warsaw. The first "interesting" observation from the trip was at the bar in Shannon, where punters had arranged themselves into a neat, single-file queue at the bar. This according to the barman, was "the America's fault"!. It's interesting because I've been in America and they didn't queue in a single file fashion in any of the bars I've been to. Maybe it’s a military thing?


After an uneventful flight, the pilot made an excellent landing in Fredric Chopin International airport, and the fun really began. There is a 1 hour time difference between Ireland and Warsaw and the less well informed of our group looked pretty silly when the pilot gave us the local time. I suggest you use this knowledge wisely, I did!

After clearing customs, immigration and collecting our baggage, we made our way on the number 75 bus to Central Station. All this took less than an hour and after a short walk to the Polonia hotel, where we had an early check-in, we quickly unpacked and went in search of breakfast.

The group split up and the high maintenance crew went for the hotel breakfast buffet. Two other groups set off separately in search of grub. Interestingly, both groups arrived at the exact "Coffee Heaven" café. And we discovered that the routes taken by both groups were almost the exact same. I'd say Derren Brown would have something to say about this. But the weirdest thing of all was that we didn't end up in an Irish pub, imagine that, we were off the plane two hours and we still hadn’t found the Irish pub, unbelievable!

After a bit of a snooze we all met up again and went into the science and technology "museum". I can't remember the name of the building but the museum is housed in the big building in the middle of Warsaw, the REALLY big building. Apparently the building was a present to Poland from the Soviet Union, what's wrong with a gift voucher from BT's? The entrance fee was pretty good value at 8 slottys (or whatever you call them), although almost everywhere we went it seemed to be compulsory to hand over your coat to the cloakroom, for a minimal fee you understand. The museum itself was more of a trip down memory lane than an educational experience with Commodore 64's, Honda 50's and Airfix models a plenty! It was the first time I've been in a museum where I actually remember using many of the "artifacts", quite upsetting.

After the museum, we went to the top of the tower (we were still in the biggest building in Poland) and we got a discount because there was loads of us. It was freezing at the top of the tower, so we had a quick look over each side, which was handy for getting our bearings but about 10 or 15 minutes is all I could take with that effing wind...

It was time for the group to eat again and I began to fully understand the difficulties a pre-school teacher has on a field trip. Trying to keep all the stragglers in line and not losing any pupils is a thankless task. Needless to say, we lost track of several members of our group while crossing the road. When they say "there is always one", how come we got five?

Anyway, our depleted group went the "Sphinx" restaurant and got much better than expected grub for much less than expected slottys. This was also our first encounter with Warsaw's unique version of "service". It just didn't compute that we didn't mind being split up if they didn't have a table for all 9 of us. If you asked them to split the bill, I'd say you could hear the collective brain fart from the staff.

After food it was back to the excellent Polonia hotel for a shower, shave etc, and a rendezvous in the lobby in search of cheap brew. We walked back towards an area we had spotted earlier as being likely to have a nice variety of bars. Unfortunately it didn't, and we went into the first bar we saw. I noticed at this stage how there is significant improvement in speed of decisions by ladies when their other options include walking long distances in snow while wearing high heels. The waitress there took an age to come and take an order, and put on a "bulldog chewing a wasp" puss when we sorted out our own drinks and told her we didn't want food.

We stayed there until we were in a disco mood and sought local advice on where might be a good place to take our party. Clearly our snub to the waitress was having repercussions as we pulled up outside a disco that was decidedly closed. At this stage there was another breakdown in communications as two taxis went onto another venue while two taxies went back to the hotel. Just after we were dropped at the second venue I noticed that there were more people leaving than entering and that I recognized all the people entering! This was not good, we tried to arrange transport out of there, and bizarrely, the opportunity to fleece a few tourists didn't tempt the taxies waiting outside, who all refused to take us back to the hotel.

Just then, we noticed a large stampede of people towards a bus and not wanting to miss out, and led by Nerrad (name changed to protect the innocent), we also ran twoards the bus. Thinking that this option was going to make our situation better, (lost in the middle of nowhere in the snow Vs. on a nice warm bus), there was also the very unattractive possibility that we could end up in Krakow. Luckily, the bus dropped us off outside central station, where we had been dropped off only 20 hours earlier! From there it was a short walk and skate (after Yrrab broke into the local ice rink (names changed etc.)) back to the hotel.

In the hotel we said we'd try the local knowledge again to see if we could find some entertainment. The concierge recommended the "Lemon Bar". This is a 24 hour bar which was just up our street, and just up our street and around the corner. Unfortunately, he also provided me with a map, on which he marked the wrong location of the bar. After a bit of a hike and a lot of abuse from the rest of the group (I was getting the blame for this one), we found "The Zoo". "The Zoo" is no "Lemon Bar" but in the circumstances it would just have to do.

Everybody in "The Zoo" was completely off their faces and some of the locals seemed to have quite a caveman approach to the picking up of the ladies. Dragging somebody off by the coat might work on the local's but Irish boirds expect to be at least bought a drink first!

They served rather expensive beer for Poland, but they had lots of it, so we got stuck in. At this stage, in a blatant show of nationalism by Lede (name changed etc.) she ordered baby Guinness's all-round. I can only explain this exuberance by that fact that Lede took a bit of nap earlier while we had out been running after busses, (she has gone back to the hotel with the boring gang), but she dragged herself out of bed and re-joined the fun people when they decide to go to "Lemon Bar"/"The Zoo". Several baby Guinness's were consumed and the party was moving along nicely.

As we ordered the next round of baby G's the barman couldn't find the Kahlua. Fortunately, it was quickly located, unfortunately it was located in Arat's handbag. This did not make us popular with the barman. After he calmed down and realized we had just spent the equivalent of five years wages in the pub he allowed us to stay.

I must say in our defense, aside from us putting the barmans children and grandchildren through college, he had been taking the urine all night. We would order drinks that came to 25 slottys and hand over 30 slottys. Then he'd say "I'll owe you 5". The catch was, when you when you went up for the next round he'd say the same. This was wearing very thin by end of the night. We tried to get him back by sending Darren to try wreak his head, but that only seemed to give him mild brain damage, it must have been the language barrier that these guys always seem to get when it suites them.

At about 5am there was a further misunderstanding about money (genuine) and Vlaad (name changed etc.) the bouncer ejected Yrrab. We had had enough at this stage and Vlaad was 8'6" tall and 6'8" wide so we said we'd leave him off. Nothing else happened in the disco, nothing at all, nada, not a thing, nothing to report there………...

The fun people got up the next morning at 4pm. Hangovers, in Poland hurt pretty much the same as in Ireland except they cost less. The boring people went to the old town early. The fun people joined them later and we all had really nice Polish soup and pancakes in a little restaurant located down one of the side streets. As we finished the food separately a pair of us missed the bus the rest of the group were on, and we went back on the 175 bus on our own. As it turned out we weren't completely alone on the bus, two local bus conductors were there and we had no tickets!!!

This was a very uncomfortable situation as there were only two other people in the bus as Marek & Belka (names changed) were quite insistent that they would get their "special taxes". After they suggested we all get off the bus to discuss the problem in a particularly quite part of town, I got the impression that this was going to cost us, one way or another… Fortunately our stubbornness became our best asset as the seemingly interminable bus journey and rush hour traffic meant that we outlasted the two boyos and they eventually gave up and went off in pursuit of other more easily intimidated punters.

When we got back to the hotel is was a quick shower, shave, gawk at the porn and we all met up in the lobby to go in search of yet more food and beer. We headed back to Old Town, but got taxis this time. We ate in the first restaurant we saw and it was great to get all the gang in the same place, at the same time! The meal went off without a hitch and even the service was great. After the food we went for a quite stroll around old town.

The quite stroll didn't last too long as the potent mix of drunken Irish people and abundance of snow led to the inevitable snowball brawl…As an aside, our group of 16 was destroyed in a snowball fight by two 3'9" Mexicans. This disgraceful loss can be attributed to three things, Irish people have very bad aim, Irish people can't make snowballs that stick together and Irish people can't resist hitting their "buddys" in the back of the head, even when there is a 3'9" Mexican just 15 feet away. No wonder it took us 800 years to get the English out (any we aren't finished yet).

Another side effect of our snowball fight was that it woke up a local bartender who opened up his bar for us. As previously explained, service isn't exactly fast in Poland but this particular establishment had that great combination of both a bartender and a beer tap in super-slo-mo.

After one drink, (6 hours) we decided that the best bet for some craic would be the Irish pub which was just up the road. Despite some of the group getting lost along the way to visit a bar with no top, when we eventually arrived most of the lights were out and the door was closed in d’Oirish pub. Htalaj (name changed) managed to convince Paddy the barman to let us in as we were from Longford and other places in Ireland. Paddy, who hadn't a word of English probably hadn't ever heard of Longford, but gave in when he saw the thirsty heads on us. He also can now put his 15 children and 72 grandchildren through University. Paddy convinced us to go home after turning on the Polish version of MTV at top volume (think about all the polish Eurovision songs that didn't make it) and called us taxis to take us away.

We awoke the next morning at 3pm and went down to get breakfast. Various groups headed off in different directions, some went back down to old town, some went to the Irish bar to find out about options for new years eve, some went shopping and some went to McDonalds (this turned out to be a VERY clever move). Most re-assembled at the ice rink, to make fools of themselves in front of the locals. Once all the formalities had been completed, i.e handing over a worthless hotel key-card for security against stealing ice skates, we took to the ice. The worst by far was Darren (sorry Nerrad, name withheld etc), who did an impression of a of a premature baby giraffe learning to walk, on stilts, in a very strong wind. Needless to say it degenerated into a bit of a race, which I won.

The discussions for the evening centered around getting fed, getting lots and lots of beer and being able to get home without being financially raped by a polish cabbie. We decided to go to old town and if nothing was happening there, to head back to the Irish pub near the hotel for the New Year celebrations. Not much was open in old town so we went to the restaurant we had been to the previous night for a recommendation. They recommended a restaurant just around the corner. Strangely this restaurant had the same staff, the same kitchen and the same food (except, more expensive) as the restaurant the previous night. We went for it, as it had been good the day before.

The service started a bit iffy and got progressivly worse. It was impossible to get a drink; even though we offered to pour our own. We were there at 6:45 but it took 40 mins to order. It turned out that the chef STARTED at 8:00. Our starters arrived at 8:45. By 9:45 11 of us had a main course. A few of the lads had taken to going to the pub across the road for pints, while still ordering in the restaurant. At 10:25 it all came to a head when one of the waiters told our Naes to "F*ck you!" after a bit of a language mix up. Three of the group left immediately following the scene, quickly followed by the rest of us. Needless to say the 10% "service charge" was withheld.

We headed of to the Irish pub near the hotel after some fairly aggressive haggling with the taxi drivers who had clearly decided that ripping off Irish was now IN fashion. I really think it must be a hangover from the communist era that they haven't got the capitalism thing quite nailed. In the middle of nowhere in the snow, and with very few taxis around they refuse to take us to the hotel, and later with lots of taxis in the rank they try rip us off?

We got to the Irish pub and they wouldn't let us in because we didn't speak Polish, so we sent out a scout to find another pub. We sent Htalaj because like most of us he'd find beer in a Saudi Monastery, but we held onto his Boird so he'd have to come back and tell us where it was… he didn't disappoint. He brought us to, wait for it, an Arabian bar! It was even nearer the hotel, and we fit right in!

After paying the 50 slottly entrance fee we got into the spirit of things by working Ali G (the barman presumably in fancy dress, but I am not really sure) till his fingers bled. Interestingly, they didn't do a countdown to new years in the bar although there was a big fireworks display outside. So we had our own countdown at 5 past and again at the Irish new year (1am). The staff were friendly and played some Irish music and even cooked the hungrier members of our group a burger at 3:00am. The minature French cook did try to take payment for the food in sexual favors from Yrrab but he fought her off valiantly, which was strange. Meanwhile, a misfire in Mij's brain, led to a wrap across the jaw from her indoors. Overall it was a great night, apparently, and we all lived happily ever after……….

Jarlath snoozed it off on the couch, as usual.
Breda hit the booze
Edel hit the baby G's
Tara & Brian danced the night away.
Veron rolled back the years an boogied into the night, her new hip held up very well...
Chris was tucked up warm in bed well before midnight, on his own the poor crater...
Ian, Clodagh & Sinead had an early night!! what happend on tour stays on tour...
Sean and Martine explored the communal jacks..
Darren tried to make the DJ's head explode..
Derek & Jim had a blouse around downstairs..
Barry spent the night fighting off the minature chef..