Home again

I am back in Brussels now - swimming against the tide as usual, since everyone else has just finally downed headsets and skipped off to warmer climes.
Ah Poland: once again the meat counter defeated me and I ended up ordering three hundred grammes of szynka wiejska when actually I wanted 3 decas. Or indeed 13. 130 grams, dammit. About half as much as I eventually got anyway.

Pino: proszę 3 deka szynki wiejskiej
Pani sprzedawczyni: Co?!
Pino: proszę 3 deka szynki
Pani: ...?
Pino: ok proszę trzysta gramów szynki...
(Pino's friend: who on earth buys 13 dekas of ham?! That's just weird)

In any case, now I'm back in Brussels. Trouble started on the Eurostar when my seat was occupied by a teenage French brat:
- but weee wanteed to seet togezzer...
I tried to calmly blag an upgrade from the train manager, but she was having none of it. I suspect that had I been a forty-something businessman in a grey suit she would have granted my request.
Every time I get the Eurostar I can feel the tension rising as I anticipate having to fight to keep the seat I've already paid to reserve. Possession is nine tenths of the law, and once someone else's bum is firmly planted on your seat, you're in a lose-lose situation: give in and you have to find yourself another space, which you then risk losing at the next French Deluge getting on at Lille. Insist on having your original seat, and you expose yourself to awkward, resentful silence from your neighbour after having ousted her indignant friend. I never have this problem on any other route so the only logical conclusion is to blame it on the French. Disclaimer: the author of this blog has nothing against francophonic persons and insists that Some of her Best Friends Are French. Honestly.
Fellow Eurostar travellers! If you really must sit together then jolly well book your tickets together and sit in the seat you've been assigned to. And that way you will help prevent frustration and high blood pressure disorders in otherwise mild-mannered conflict-averse persons like me.

Miraculously, no-one broke into the flat while I was away, the internet still works, my taxi got from Midi to My Place in a record ten euros and I found a whole can of beer in the fridge. There were a few other items in the fridge as well. One of them may have been a tomato, but resembled a very tiny, mouldy round of goat's cheese. My unwashed coffee cup in the sink sported an interesting fungal structure that steamed when I ran the tap into it.

Tomorrow will be a day for opening bills and paying bills and checking bank accounts and getting keys to new flats.

Better get a good night's sleep then.

Wszystko gra

I went to meet New Boy off the night train at Warsaw Central. We decided to spend the day in Warsaw and leave his bags at the station.
The przechowalnia was run by a rotund, middle-aged Polish man, who persisted in staring into the middle distance somewhere past my right shoulder so that I couldn't tell whether he was talking to me or to the guy behind me.

Pino: Dzień dobry proszę Pana, czy możemy zostawić bagaż tu?
Man (speaking to somewhere vaguely beyond P's shoulder): Ile sztuk?
Pino: dwa
Man (realising P is not Polish): Ah. Two!
Pino: tak, dwa.  
Man: yes! Two!
Pino: (takes out purse) Ile to będzie?
Man: No! Pay after. After!
Pino: ok, dziękuję bardzo
Man: Please! Thank you.

New Boy (casually): Wszystko gra?
Man: (with broad smile of manly recognition): Taaak, wszystko gra!

Pino: Fine. From now on you can do the talking.

You know you're in Poland when...

... guys you don't even know carry your bag up the steps at the train station. With no prompting on your part.

I could get used to this...

... and we're back.

I'm sitting at the laptop, trying to puzzle out a long letter with a lot of information on it. I see documents to procure and send and photographs to scan and passwords to confirm and online forms that have moved to another web address.
In about ten minutes I will print it out so I can see the whole thing at once, and then I will ignore all the extra words and extract the bits that constitute things I actually have to do and write them down in a nice long list like the tasks of Hercules and lastly I will put numbers on them in order of urgency from 'could be put off until tomorrow next week August' to 'oh holy crap should have done this yesterday last weekend shortly after graduation' with a special priority boarding category for 'oh help will not get paid EVER unless I do this!'.

Aren't lists great? The worst thing about lists is ignoring them until eleven o'clock in the evening when it's too late to do anything about them, and then panicking all night. The best thing about lists is that feeling of satisfaction when you can strike something off, done, finished, accomplished! The most frustratingly common thing about lists is coming to the bottom of the page, taking all the items which are still not crossed off and copying them onto the new list on the next page.

My lists usually start like this:

'To Do - Monday Tues Thurs Sat SUNDAY'


It would help if I could think a bit more clearly but unfortunately I've been sitting on public transport since six minutes past six this morning.

Shortly after I had boarded the Wizz Air Party Bus and snuggled into a warm corner of the back row, a group of young, largely fair-haired guys stumbled into the bus and squeezed into the remaining back seats. The flight after mine was to Eindhoven (which - comfortingly in the event of missed check-in - is probably not all that much further away than bloody Charleroi), so I guessed where they came from. The young blond guy next to me turned, wafting a distinctive odour of stale brewery my way.
- Sorry for the stink! he said carefully 'but I have an excuse... it's my last night in Kraków'
- Mine too. I replied. 'but I didn't drink anything*'
It was 6.20 in the morning. Witty replies were not forthcoming, certainly not on my side. He turned back and after about five minutes on the road fell asleep and spent the next hour and fifty minutes slowly slumping further into my lap.

I suspect I am thoroughly cured of Dutch guys.



* a shameful lie, I had one mug of grzaniec.

French word of the day: neige

This can be a noun, as in 'aeroport de Bruxelles fermé a cause de fortes chutes de neige'. Or the third person singular of the verb 'neiger' as in 'bordel je reste bloquée a Bruxelles et je ne sais pas rentrer chez moi pour les fetes de Noel parce que ce f***u neige ne cesse pas de tomber!' Actually I didn't use the verb there, did I? Well spotted. Ummm how about 'Il neige', tout court. There we go, nothing like stating the obvious.

Yesterday, there was Bach. There was Bach for two hours and an amazing bass soloist and gorgeous cor anglais and French horn and a sold-out Palais des Beaux Arts and it was fabulous.

My parents were supposed to come and watch and listen to said Bach, and I was to return with them to England via the Eurotunnel. Last time they came to visit I insisted that they use the ferry (because I like slot machines and Nescafé and I like my wipe-clean lounge chairs to come with a lovely sheen of chip grease. oh and those vacuum-flush loos.), so this time it was their turn to choose (my Dad gets seasick).
I'm sure you've all heard about the Eurostars that broke down in the tunnel because the sudden change of temperature between snowed-under France and the warm dark tunnel made the electronics crash or something like that. And the evacuations and the lack of water and electric light and the overflowing loos and so on.
Anyway the upshot is that my parents couldn't get on a shuttle and they had to go home, and I am now joining the mad rush to get out of Brussels before Christmas.

Ooh it isn't half dramatic. We do love a bit of drama here at Pinolona.

And this all seems somehow awfully familiar.

I'm left with a choice (here comes the interactive part!).
I could book a flight back for a couple of days time, trusting in the Belgian Météo; and hoping that Brussels international airport will reopen tomorrow and that amazing and lovely British Airways will get me home in time for Christmas Eve (I also need to book a flight back come to think of it).

I could get on a ferry somewhere as a foot passenger - this is a slightly risky strategy. It's certainly possible to get to Calais but it's a lengthy process. Trains are still running though so we could be on to a winner here. I could try and sail from Oostende, which has the advantage of being much more reachable by train (and doesn't involve going to France, for extra bonus points). However, TransEuropa Ferries calmly informed me that they don't take foot passengers, for insurance reasons. So I would have to count on being able to make friends with a British (or Polish) truck driver and hitching a lift onto the boat. A risky strategy.

I could try Eurolines, but their website doesn't specify whether they go via ferry or tunnel. Again a risky strategy.

I could hitch hike...

Or... I could stay in Brussels over Christmas, watch the Pasterka on TVP Polonia and brew up some of the barszcz recipe that The Polish Chick sent me. I have hot chocolate, I have a duvet, I have over 200 cable tv channels in at least four different languages and I have an emergency bottle of Absolut in the freezer compartment. Joyeuses Fetes indeed.

What do you reckon?

ps, here's my balcony snowman. It doesn't even compare to Laura's but I was a bit pressed for time. Will try again this afternoon. Wait. It is afternoon. Later this afternoon.

Belgian weird

I suppose it's about time for one of those '101 bizarre things about living in Belgium/Poland/a cardboard box under Pont Neuf/etc.' posts.

Here we go then.

1/ Proton: I still haven't worked out what this means. It appears to be some kind of monetary transaction management company, like Visa. Although it could just as easily be a brand of washing powder or a bodybuilding supplement. You can use it in shops which display the 'Proton' logo. I did try once: - no no - said the cashier - you haven't got any money on your Proton. You have to put money on it first. Lo and behold, next time I put my Belgian card in the cashpoint there was an option to withdraw cash to my Proton account. From there, you use the cash in your 'Proton account' to pay with your bank card. I don't understand. Why not just get the cash out straight away? Or pay directly with the bank card?
It makes no sense.
Only In Belgium.

2/ Madame Pipi: In most European countries there's a small charge to use the powder room and this may be more or less widespread in proportion to the publicness/relative cleanliness of said facility. For example, in the UK you normally only pay to pee in railway stations.
In Belgium, I discovered, there's no such thing as a free wee. In a country which produces over 8000 varieties of beer (thanks Wikipedia), this defies logic. My first encounter with Madame Pipi was in a bar near Antwerp Central Station. I tripped down the stairs to the loo, only to find a wizened little old lady sitting at a table with a tray.
- 50 cents please.
- What? oh no, you've got me wrong, I'm a customer (because normally customers can use the loo without paying, right?)
- That's not my problem. I don't work for them. Pay up. Or cross your legs: up to you.

3/ Labels: When you move to Belgium, you have to go to the commune and declare your residence. I inadvertently bypassed epic queues and frustration by ringing up and being given an appointment (albeit several weeks later, but who's counting? I'm quite happy to put off the evil hour where administrative procedure is concerned).
Once you've showed up, handed over your passport, and fielded the inevitable awkward questions about your source of income, lack of social security number and so forth, it all passes relatively quickly until they get to the

- and then the Police will come and visit you

bit.
- But I haven't done anything!
- No no, they just have to check you actually live there.
- Excuse me?!
- It's ok, you just have to make sure you have your name on the letterbox and by the doorbell, otherwise you'll never be able to register. (I have yet to work out why this would be a disadvantage)
I eventually tracked down some sticky labels in the far aisle at Carrefour, and now both my doorbell and my letterbox have crappy peeling stickers by them with my name on.
Sure enough, two days later there was a knock at the door. I opened it in my pyjamas (so what?! I'm a freelancer. 'Dressed' is a highly culturally-subjective concept), handed over my passport and resumed normal 'slumped at desk' working attitude.

4/ Bilingualism: Go to any concert or public event in Belgium and there will be two MCs. Obviously: one in French and one in Flemish. Inevitably, the French speaker will be playing the straight man while the version Flamande will have everyone in the auditorium helpless with mirth and weeping gently into their popcorn.
Everyone except you, the foreigner, because you didn't bother to learn Dutch, did you? Thought you could get away with a mere postgraduate degree in French?! Hah!
- uhhh il a dit quoi en effet?
- heheheheh mais il est dingue ce type!
- mais qu'est-ce qu'il a dit??
- mmmph *hic!* c'est trop marrant...

It's a conspiracy, I'm sure of it.

5/More labels: Belgium doesn't actually have two official languages.
It has three*.
For this reason, standard regulatory labels on food and everything really are Simply Enormous.
This must seriously cramp the style of Belgian marketing execs, who have to find room for all that text somewhere.

*****

Only five things?! Maybe Belgium isn't as weird as I thought. Must try harder...

*German! Back of the class, go on.

Amsterdam

I crossed the river (or canal? in any case, water) and followed the usual impulse to wander down a side alley.
Bad move.
Step straight out of the station away from the main streets and you find yourself slap bang (quite literally in some cases) in the famous Red Light district.
Not so much sexy or forbidden as bawdy, seedy, despair-inducing, the place was full (at two in the afternoon) of well-refreshed gentlemen with very short hair roving the narrow streets in gangs. It is likely that many of them were British. Red and green tube lights assailed the peripheral vision, brash against the soft grey of the sky, the streets, the water... familiar wafts of a pungent sweetness ebbed and flowed from open doorways. I stumbled down another alley and past a huge prostitute standing mockingly in a doorway, handfuls of flesh spilling over the top of her corset.

After about fifteen minutes of pure revulsion I came to the Dam (the main square). The greyness and overcrowding was relentless. I wanted to curl up in a corner against the grey stone and sob my heart out for this horrible, horrible city.


But I didn't. I walked down one of the main streets and bought a cup of coffee.

- Why is this city so awful?
I asked the - decent enough - guy behind the bar (I'm not known for my diplomatic skills)
- It's not that bad.
he answered. Go down that street, straight ahead, walk around the canals, where there are fewer people. Look around and see.

And that is what I did:







Oh and I bought two new kinds of tea.

(I should also mention that I stayed with some Am*dam couchsurfers and they were absolutely awesome, really good people. Liking the Netherlands more than Belgium all the time... )

Local trip

So, to jolt myself out of my Brussels rut I'm thinking of allowing myself a local trip this weekend (assuming no extra work comes up).

Because we at the Pinolona editorial office aim to please, we will make it a photo reconnaissance trip (read 'easy post'), so pick the one you would be least indifferent to seeing pictures of:

- Ghent................. 30 mins
- Bruges................about an hour
- Amsterdam.......2 hours ish (read 'I don't really know but if you forget to get off at Antwerp that's where you end up')

... or should I simply stay here and take pictures of la belle Bruxelles (is Bruxelles plural? Or even feminine? If only I cared enough to look it up) en automne?

Gosh I do love the blog. It's like the yes-no-maybe ball all over again...

101 things to do on a Sunday afternoon: #001

Chat

The scene:
Friday morning, London bus to Camden.

Characters:
Pinolona's brother (bearded, sensitive type, good bone structure, encyclopaedic knowledge of contemporary music) and Pinolona's dad (Conservative councillor, pensioner, very little hair, propensity to sing Lehar).

A pretty girl squeezes onto the bus, struggling to control an enormous circus whip.

Being well-schooled in the Art of Good Chat, Dad offers to help, strikes up a conversation and within about ten minutes has discovered that the girl is a dresser, the whip is for a photo shoot and she's trying to build up a professional portfolio to further her career.

Brother is awestruck.

Some time later, Dad and Brother step off the bus at Camden Market.

Dad: Well? Didn't you get her number? No?! Do I have to do everything for you?

Strolls away humming 'Lolo, Dodo, Jou-jou... Frou-frou, Clo-clo, Margot...'

Passport control

10.30 am, Ebbsfleet International station:

(admittedly not unattractive) French border guard:
- Mais... c'est bien vous ça??

I really have to do something about that fringe.

Sempre chiuso

I did mean to post a couple more Italy photos.
This lot starts halfway through the week in Bologna. Last time I went to visit Bologna was in between my exams when I was studying as an Erasmus student in Trento. It was afternoon, exam season in a student city, and all I remember are empty arcades, closed facades, and an all-pervading dusty orange-red haze.
I don't know anyone in Bologna, so I wrote to a very nice chap on Couchsurfing who agreed to host me, and I hoped that I would finally get to know the city a bit. I've heard good things.

I got a lovely air-conditioned intercity train from Florence at lunchtime.

On arrival in Bologna, all quiet and red. No reply from my couchsurfer, but then it was siesta hour.

I left my backpack at the station and set to wandering the streets aimlessly and waiting for gelato time. Most of the shop fronts were masked by heavy metal blinds, paper notes fluttering, bearing variations on 'Closed for the holidays'. I took some pictures of the deserted arcades and settled down with my giallo to wait for the bookstores to re-open.

No word from couchsurfer guy.

At around six, having successfully raided the bookshop and gelateria and picked up my bag from the station, and after continued silence from Couchsurfer Guy, I decided to check into the youth hostel. There is only one youth hostel in Bologna, and you have to take the 94 bus from Via Marconi.

Guess what? It turns out that the Via Marconi bus stop is podwójny. Actually there were about six different bus stops labelled Via Marconi, and only two of them were actually on the street in question.
Two bus drivers were leaning on an empty parked bus, smoking. I approached them and asked for the youth hostel.

Frowning and scratching of heads.

In August, in Italy, the buses run at one an hour. At least I think that's how it works. According to the timetable, services marked with a letter 'a' run as Saturday service, those marked with an 's' run as on Sunday, those marked with a 'z' run as if on a bank holiday and anything else apparently doesn't run at all.

- Can't I just walk there? I asked.

Snorts of laughter.

Eventually they advised me to get number 20 from the stop two streets up.
I started walking, saw the bus overtake me, and started to run, backpack, Italian August heat and all.

Ahead of me I saw my one bus an hour start to pull away from the stop.... and then halt at the traffic lights.

I gained the front doors and banged on them furiously. They opened and I leapt on, gasping like a fish out of water.

- To the youth hostel?? I spluttered.
- First say thank you.
Said the bus driver.
- What?!
- Say thank you! For stopping the bus for you!
- Oh. Sure! Thanks, grazie mille! Now about that youth hostel...

Unfortunately the youth hostel was one of those wholesome International Hostelling Association ones. You know the type: capacity for at least 700 scouts, board games in the common room, table tennis outside, complete and utter lack of alcoholic beverages.
In the middle of absolutely nowhere.
The bus stopped three stops before and I had to walk the rest of the way, along the main road, in the heat and dust, with my backpack. No-one offered me a lift.

- Is there anywhere I can get something to eat here? I asked the girl at reception.
- Well... she said ... there's a supermarket three bus stops away, but you've just missed the bus. You could walk...
Seeing my dark look she moved swiftly on.
- Unfortunately the restaurant next door is closed for the holidays. But you could always order pizza.
I took the menu.
- Do you want me to call for you from here? she asked.
- Don't worry about it.
- No, really, I want to ask them something too.
I listened to her on the telephone:
- ... and... I don't suppose there's a tobacconist near you? There is?! Oh... closed for the holidays. I see. Never mind.
Poor woman, stuck in the middle of nowhere, not even a cigarette break in sight...

At 10.30pm, Couchsurfer Guy called...

Not a soul...

Where is everybody?

Gets about a bit, this Mickiewicz chap

Wait! Is that... a pedestrian?!

No-one for lunch today

Chiuso per ferie

My first proper holiday in quite a while and I really don't know where to start.

Let's do it in two parts, shall we?

The trouble with Italy is that it's not simply one country but rather a cluster of separate little universes, each with its own distinctive character and culture.
Italians - most unhelpfully - don't even actually speak Italian. They speak Fiorentino, or Romano, or Napoletano, or Siciliano, or Nonès, or Sardo, e cosi via. Some of them even speak German, just to keep us guessing. According to Lepschy and Lepschy, the only word they can all agree on is espresso.
I tend to be easily bored, so perhaps that's why I love visiting Italy so much.

I only had a week to spare so I made a whistle-stop tour of some old haunts in the central and northern regions of the country. We'll start with the centre and then I'll post the other half domani, domani...

Pisa:

Plenty of other things to see in Pisa

Look, it's all kind of wonky

Tower? No towers here...

Florence:

Rooftop terraces

The Duomo, playing hide and seek

The Porcellino protects his merchandise

A quiet moment in a side street

Ponte Vecchio

Sunset from Piazzale Michelangelo

Florence by night

Music Room

Last week I did two things I haven't done for a little while.

No, not that. If only.

Hidden deep in the bowels of the conference centre are three music rooms. Not so far from the interpreting booths actually - the old disused ones that look out onto nowhere.
There's a lovely black Bechstein piano and a dog-eared copy of Bach's Woll-Temperierte Klavier as well as some Schubert impromptus on fragile leaves and as your fingers stumble over the keys all the chatter clears from your mind and you can really think finally.

You might think, for example, that you found and that you played from exactly the same ragged fragments of music last year and that this year it is somehow more difficult: the memory of the music moves your hands but in some way they are less agile, less accustomed to the exercise - they trip and falter under the sheer emotion of the melody and you cannot fill the notes with the expressive quality that you would like.

This week I bit the bullet and recorded myself in the booth. I won't go into details but - if I could forget just for one second that it was me speaking and pretend that it was some complete stranger - the comedy value would be immense.

As with the piano, I want to express the idea elegantly, I want it to sound smooth and pretty and legato but I am out of condition and it's more staccato, rubato and generally agitato with the odd note of vibrato where more than a hint of a doubt starts to creep in.

Why is it that choosing one way means missing out on something else?

I love living in Kraków, and I value the experiences of the past two years, but I wonder what I have missed by being here. Could I have lived for two years in Paris instead, spending Sundays at the market near Bastille or daydreaming around the Butte de Montmartre? If in two years I managed to learn enough Polish to stagger through a conversation in the back room of Kolory, imagine how much I could have improved and perfected my French instead! I could have travelled to Italy, lived in Florence, taught English and finally Learnt to Appreciate Art! Or moved into London and worked in a suit in the City.

Can't you hear the doors slamming shut all around you?

So you make choices and you travel and you run after one thing and neglect another. You forget that you are a musician, or a writer, or a lover, and you chase something else that you have never been.

Eventually you flit from place to place, trying to catch up with whatever essential intangible thing it is that you are missing. You avoid commitment to one home as you avoid attachment to one person. When you want to daydream, well, you take out old memories like photographs, blow the dust off them, and leaf through them, soothed by the fact that they are closed history and that you can just as easily slip them back into the album where they belong.

So what now?

I love it when...

... Simplus sends me text messages, whenever I'm abroad, providing me with the telephone number of the nearest Polish Embassy.

- Ambasada Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej w Genewie, słucham

- oh, hi - I was wondering... um... I don't suppose you're on the same street as the British Embassy by any chance? No? Nie? Ale dobrze rozumiem po polsku!!

... etc.

more travels

Somewhere between Basztowa Lot and Dworzec Głowny (tram stations in Kraków):

- come on, we get off here!

Pino (wracked with doubt): Are you sure you saw me turn the gas off??

- yes, let's go!

Pino (furrowing brow): cos I know the eggs cooked quicker than I expected and then I took the pan off the heat and at that point the cat knocked the beer on the bed and I don't remember turning the gas off... d'ye reckon I could get a taxi home and back?

- NO! we don't have time.

We went to Trójmiasto (or at least dwie trzecie miasta). Photos.... later.

ps, I didn't leave the gas on.

Wschód słońca - Lviv part I

Health warning: This post is not recommended for anyone answering to the description of 'Pinolona's Mum'. Any such readers are advised that... - oh look over there, the kettle's boiling!

Ukraine-Poland border, some time between 2 and 4 am:

The night bus to Lviv has been waiting at the border for approximately eleven years. Suddenly and painfully the cabin lights snap on.

Pani Ukrainian Border Guard slowly makes her way up the aisle of the bus, carrying a stack of passports in one hand, systematically staring each passenger hard in the eyes, scrutinizing the passport photo, and glaring once again at the unfortunate traveller, before finally handing back the document.

She reaches my seat, and looks at me long and hard. Then she looks at my passport again, and looks back at me for what seems like an age. Although I have nothing to declare and absolutely nothing to hide - that I can remember - I start to feel nervous.

- Okulary!

She asks me to remove my glasses, in heavily Ukrainian-influenced Polish that I find hard to understand. I never wear contact lenses when travelling and I never wear glasses when having my photo taken, so I suppose I bring these things upon myself.

Pani Ukrainian Border Guard stares at me again, and back at the photo.

- Now the fringe!

In the photo I don't have a fringe. In real life I do. I suppose that is to be expected as well. My driving licence has a fringe. Obediently I push back the offending tresses.

Pani Ukrainian Border Guard frowns, concentrating hard.

- Now smile! Like in the photo!

It's all too much. I begin to giggle.

- Date of birth!

Now I don't know if you've ever tried to quote your date of birth in Polish at four in the morning. It's not the sort of thing that just trips off the tongue.

Suddenly I realise that I am a foreign girl with a funny accent, who can't even conjugate her own birthday, travelling across the border at night in the company of two Polish men. I would be suspicious of me too! Maybe I should be! Maybe I have done something wrong after all! I let slip another nervous giggle.

- Why is your passport so old? Why did you change it in 2001?

I try to explain that I used to be on my Mum's passport, and then I had my own for five years, and then I had to get a ten-year one, but she seems unconvinced.

- Repeat your date of birth!

I make slightly less of a hash of it this time, and remember to use genitive instead of locative.

- Dowod osobisty!
- umm... prawo jazdy?

I'm hoping she'll accept my driving licence as a personal ID card.

-Nie! Nie ma Pani dowodu?

You see - I try to explain - in the UK we don't use ID cards. We just don't have them.

-But what is your ID?

Well... my passport.

- No! That's your international ID. What do you use inside the country?

- We don't have them. Nie ma dowodów! Nie potrzebujemy.

At this point the Poles begin to chuckle. How can a British girl, in this part of the world, explain that she simply doesn't need to carry a personal ID card when she pops down the road for a pint of milk? For a brief moment I feel an unfamiliar flush of national pride.
I hand over my driving licence. Pani Ukrainian Border Guard examines it, compares it to my seven-year-old passport photo and - still appearing unconvinced - finally agrees to let it drop.

As she moves on to the seat behind mine, I try not to look at the pistol tucked into the back of her belt.

*******

Ukraine-Poland border, some - considerable - time after 4 am:

The bus finally pulls out of no-man's land and -somewhat jerkily - swings back onto the road.

We push back the curtains and a wan grey light seeps into the coach.

Rolling Ukrainian pastures stretch as far as the eye can see and the rising sun blushes shyly through the dove-soft clouds.

To be continued...

The modern young woman's guide to emergencies. Part 4: bus tickets

Overheard in the changing rooms at the salsa school:

- So, you've got your ticket [to Lviv] then?
Pino: - Yep! Right here!
rummages in rucksack
- definitely, somewhere in here...
starts to remove objects from bag
- right at the bottom, here...
takes out black-bound WHSmith diary, groaning at the seams: diary exhales cloud of old ATM receipts and email addresses on fast-food napkins, but no bus ticket
- just a second, maybe it's at the back somewhere

not Pino: - You do have it, right? I mean, I gave it to you... we're all adults, so I mean I thought it would be ok.

Pino: No, absolutely, I have it Right Here...
- maybe it's in my other bag
tries hard to disguise Serious Doubts
- I'm normally very responsible, I don't normally lose things (liar)

not Pino: I thought you had a different bag with you last night?

Pino: Yes, that's right, absolutely, it must be in that one...
not convincing anyone

- ... only... I don't want to worry you but... this morning I definitely cleared out some old papers from my bag. And then... I put them in the bin (train of thoughts spirals out of control) and then... I Took The Bin Out!
- Excuse-me-I-have-to-go!

On tram:

Pino's mind: Did I take the bin out? Wasn't the communal bin outside almost empty this morning? That means they'd only just collected the rubbish! That means they won't have come for today's yet! So there's a chance I might find it! Interrupted by visions of self diving head-first into communal bin to retrieve lost ticket.

Fifteen minutes later:

Stumbles up stairs, drops keys, opens door, crashes headlong into bedroom, spots handbag under pile of back issues of Polityka...



Ticket is in bag!!


Phew...


[Oh Crap I haven't packed yet!!!!]

Fun in the snow

Sunday, Feb 01.

11.40ish: Snow begins to fall
18ish: P's mother no longer willing to drive to Gatwick Airport tomorrow morning
18.00 - 00.00ish: Panic and packing (and last-minute overlooked translation)
00.05: P sets alarm for 04.45: so early it's practically already happened

Monday, Feb 02.

04.30: P's Dad, loudly: 'What time did you set your alarm for?" P (very unhappy): 'about fifteen minutes' time'.
04.40: P gets out of bed.
05.10: P and Dad drag cases up the drive, through powdery snow, into car.
05.11: P rolls the Spaniel on its back in the snow.
05.12: Yellow snow.
05.14: P and Dad drive - very gingerly- to Sevenoaks station.

05.20: P purchases train ticket to Gatwick Airport, at extortionate peak commuter time price.
05.21: P and several haggard-looking suits (all male) are only people in station (apart from one Canadian guy with a big rucksack). Next train is due at 06.12.

05.40: Network South East operators come out and tell everyone that all trains are suspended*.
05.41: P and Canadian guy exchange looks of disbelief.
05.45: P goes to get refund on expensive peak-time train ticket. 'You'll have to go the ticket office', replies train operator. It is not yet six in the morning. Ticket office is closed. P can't answer that one.

05.50: P calls Dad.

05.52: Taxi driver pulls up at station. P accosts him in normal fashion.
05.54: M25 completely impassible. Apparently. P's Dad arrives at station.

06:00-06.20: P on phone to anyone, anyone at all alive at Gatwick Airport.
06.21: P gets through to A Real Person who is definitely alive and breathing at Gatwick Airport.
- 'Sorry, I can't help you with that: I'm the disability liaison officer'.
Britain is nothing if not politically correct.
06.25: P and Dad reckon the taxi driver was wrong and decide to give it a shot.

(Check in opens at 07.10)

06.30: small slide on snowy road.

06.40: P and Dad hit the M25 and wonder what they ever worried about. Lanes are clear, going is good. Phew.

06.55: QUEUES.

07.00: P and Dad in car

07.10: P calls airport. Automated system.
- 'There is no information for that flight. Please hold, while I put you through to a customer services advisor'. Music.
P holds.
07.20: P's phone runs out of credit.
07.25: P calls Orange and tops up phone.
07.31: 'All of our advisers are busy. Please hold.'

08.15: Junction 6**. P's Dad knows a shortcut. But it's through dangerous A-roads, which might not be cleared and gritted. Should they turn off? Should they stay on track?
08.16: Car inches past slip road.
08.18: Car inches just a little further.
08.20: P's Dad makes sharp skiddy turn back onto sliproad.
08.21: Hooting.

08.22: Classic FM plays Winter from Four Seasons, only for first time today.
08.25: A-roads are fantastic!

08.35: Drivers who are afraid of the snow and drive at 20mph in a 60-limit are not fantastic.

(Check-in closes at 08.50)

08.49: Gatwick Airport!
08.50: P hugs Dad goodbye and legs it, dragging two cases and one laptop bag into terminal building.
08.50 and a half: P jams credit card into automatic check-in machine. Yesssss!

08.55: Flight very delayed. Check-in open late anyway.

09.10 - 10.20: P becomes very well acquainted with departure lounge.

11ish (P has stopped counting):






*Due to lack of 'safety staff'. Hands up who's ever seen 'safety staff' on a PKP service?
**Sevenoaks is junction 5.

Auf Deutshe, bitte

I'm in Germany.
The past few days have been packed with linguistic confusion.
From the moment the Pani (Frau?) at the bus stop (wo ist die bushaltestelle bitte?) asked me something and I answered: 'nie wiem... uh... no... crap... ich weiss nicht', I knew it would be disastrous.

It started out well. I bought a beautiful Berlitz phrase book and CD from Borders in Stansted airport (at 6.45am there's not even too much of a queue) and hit the books straight away. With a large cup of coffee.
By the time we landed at Frankfurt-Hahn, I was at least able to ask for a ticket to Saarbruecken. Not bad for a Friday morning. The ticket guy answered by giving me directions, and that's no problem: apart from anything else, it usually consists largely of gesticulation, and how can you go wrong with that?

The bus terminal at Saarbruecken Hauptbahnhof is extremely complicated, with buses in two lanes and trams down the middle (four 'platforms' in all).

I was there for over an hour.

It wasn't even a linguistic problem: I simply couldn't spot my bus (being woken up at 4am doesn't do much for my powers of observation).

Twice I saw the vehicle in question drawing in to land over on the other side of the bus station. I picked up suitcase, computer bag, handbag, waterbottle and passport and legged it across the tram tracks, narrowly missing falling over the steps in the middle platform.

I reached the other side just as it was pulling away.

The second time I made it, presented myself - rather out of breath - at the drivers' doorway, and gasped 'Jugendherberge bitte!'
- You have to go back to the other side.
... said the bus driver, in English.

After another half hour, another six or seven buses which were manifestly not for me, and the company of several different bus stop drunks, I gave up and headed for the taxi rank.

Three days later, my German is only slightly improved: I now know the following:

Abendessen
Mittagessen
Fruhstuck
Wurst
Ein Weissbier bitte
and 'Ich mochte gern eine Flasche Wasser fur die Dolmetscherin'

The essentials, really.