Poland discriminates against foreign children

Phew that's an eye-catching headline. At least that's the idea. I was thinking either that or 'Tourist kids exploited by Polish rail' or 'Full fare for foreigners!'

I was sitting on the Balice Express, waiting for the ticket inspector to come around and trying to block out the sound of two Sun-In blonde, skinny-jean-clad English teenagers singing a brassy mixture of Lily Allen and Marsz Dąbrowski.

- Two adults and two children please.
said an English voice somewhere in front of me. The ticket inspector looked a bit puzzled.
- It's the same, said a Polish man, also in English
This seemed a bit strange, particularly as she'd just sold a reduced-fare ticket to a Polish mother and child up ahead.
A Polish woman sitting across the aisle from me explained to the ticket inspector that the Englishwoman was asking for half fare for her children.
The ticket inspector shook her head, and replied, in Polish, to the Polish woman.
- No, no. It's only for our children. They have to have a school ID.
The Polish woman interpreted for the English family:
- No, there's no discount.

To my shame, I didn't interrupt and explain the actual situation.

When the ticket inspector came around I said very pointedly that in England both foreign and English children rode half-fare on trains.

- Not in our country; said the woman, curtly.

Now come on, Poland: here I am, explaining to all my friends back home how great you are, what a fantastic country this is and how nice the people are - not to mention pouring scorn on any suggestion that this might not be a normal 'civilised' (disclaimer: the author of this blog uses the lexeme 'civilised' with very particular associative connotations which she hopes make it evident that it is in fact a citation and not attributable to her own personal use of the connotation-less word in its full Empire-era ... uh ... glory) country where you can't buy Weetabix or Marmite in the corner shop - and you go and spoil it all with this child fare discrimination business! How am I supposed to fight off the Daily Mail crowd now?!

Why on earth does a child need a school ID to prove that they are child enough to pay the reduced fare? Surely the size of the child is evidence enough! In the UK, kids under 15 pay half fare and it's that simple. It doesn't matter where you come from: in fact I'm pretty certain it would be considered racial discrination to differentiate between English and foreign under 15s (n.b. a quick look at the Transport for London website indicates that 11-15 year olds do indeed need to carry an identifying photocard).

Come on, Kraków! Think of all the revenue generated by foreign tourism every year! As a gesture of goodwill, surely it makes sense to treat foreign children on an equal footing with Polish children? Now that we're a grown-up member of the EU and foreigners actually do come to visit and all...