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.

Music, underground, continued.

I've just realised I entirely missed the point of my last post.

What I meant to write was a systematic analysis of the economic interest behind accordion-playing on the metro, given that the accordion player in question is generally greeted only by dismayed faces and desperate, vain door-banging on the part of anguished commuters trying to escape the cacophony.

Surely the persistence of accordionists on the underground rails of Brussels points to an underlying demand for accordion music? If so, who are these lovers of squeezy, wheezy folk music? Just who is paying the piper? I have never in my whole entire six months (ahem, I mean two-and-a-half weeks Mr Belgian VAT Man) in Brussels seen anyone give them money. Not even to stop. Perhaps there is some fabulously wealthy Euro-millionaire who regularly buys peace and quiet on the way home with a fat euro-cheque, but I very much doubt it (surely these people would have drivers?).

And if nobody is paying them, then why continue? Is it a highly-sophisticated distraction technique, intended to leave the poor commuter hunched in pain while the accordionist's child accomplice pinches their wallet? Or is there some other profit of which I am unaware?

I would be very interested to know who or what creates a demand for such a product in such a location.

Is it you?

Music, underground.

I found Brussels metro surprisingly tranquil for the first few months after my arrival. However, it seems that the little accordion guys have found a way to sneak the bastards on board: you can tell an accordionist by the suspicious bundle, carried at chest height and sheathed in black plastic bags or a large black cloth. No sooner have the doors swooshed shut then, with a triumphant grin, they whip off the cover and start to force a wheezy caterwaul out of the poor battered instrument.

As soon as you see the smile spread across his little face, your heart sinks and you try to get as far away from the awful noise as possible. It is bad enough that your ears are already assaulted by canned music at each metro stop without also having to sacrifice the relative peace of the train carriage.

Now, I am not against accordion music per se: I rather admire the Ukrainian accordionists who play on the Kraków Rynek (although they have a repertoire of three - Mozart's Turkish Rondo, Bach's Toccata in Hammer Horror minor and I forget the other one. Maybe there isn't a third one). But what I appreciate most is the choice: stop and listen, or walk on by. I do not like being stuck in a tin box hurtling down a tunnel, crammed into a corner with a bloody accordionist for heavens' sake, and no 'mute' button.

The selection of platform muzak at Brussels' metro stations is eclectic to say the least. I have heard - regularly, uncensored, at Arts-Loi - a sweet little ditty from Lily Allen's latest album, entitled 'Bless you'. Well, something like that anyway. Put it this way, BBC Radio 1 can't play it: there would be no lyrics left in.

Are you kidding, Brussels? Does nobody at STIB/MIVB actually speak English?! And even if they don't, surely the One English Word that everybody knows (apart from 'ok' and 'coca cola') is precisely that one?!

In any case, at around six in the evening (at least at the weekend), the piped pop is replaced by soothing classical music: presumably to ward off the Belgian equivalent of hoodies. The classical selection is actually not too bad. Sometimes it's better than Klara Continuo (maybe it is Klara Continuo).

One of the best things about living in a pedantic country like Belgium is the sense of triumph you get when you finally find a way of undermining the system. Stand up for your rights! Refuse to submit to metro muzak! Fight fire with fire...

 ... by singing along. We wouldn't judge you.


(altogether now...

Va pensieeeero! sull'ali dora-a-a-te!

... 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.

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...'

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

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...

How to get lost in Katowice

- Yes, hello?
Said the girl at the hotel reception desk.
- I'm getting the train back to Kraków, how do I get to the station?
I asked, in what I hoped was reasonably comprehensible Polish.

The girl's face changed and she switched into Polish. I was so pleased with myself and relieved that I forgot to listen properly to her reply.

I said goodbye to my colleague and left the building.

Across the car park... sure. Down the road... now which way was that? Left to the main road or right down that half-constructed track? I opted for the main road: left or right? A guy passed me, walking two of those German husky-type dogs of which apparently everyone in Silesia owns a small family. He turned left. I followed him, because people walking dogs in the middle of nowhere are normally on their way home to civilisation, right?

I followed him a little further. 'There's a tram stop after about three minutes'. Three minutes, or three kilometres? Or 300 metres? Or was it 'three tram stops to the centre'? I started to notice houses by the side of the road. The pavement was getting broader and the road itself narrower. I continued down the hill. There was a church on the other side of the road. A road led off the the left, with smokey-grey blocks of flats on either side. I had heard of Katowice's phantom town centre. Was this it, or was I heading straight into suburbia?

Finally! The road I was following reached a sort of square with a rather mangy park in the middle. And around it: tram tracks!

Turning onto the next street, I noticed a single red tram carriage parked on the corner. The driver was standing on the verge, smoking a cigarette.

- Excuse me, where's the station?
- The station? Over there, look, there.
He pointed vaguely in the direction of some red and white stripey tents on the other side of the square. Right... I must have looked doubtful.
- You mean the bus station, right? No? Ah, no, the train station is over there.
He pointed further in the same vague direction.

I thanked him and made my way across the square.

The red tents were not a bus station, but a covered market.

I looked back at the stationary tram and its driver and wondered where exactly the tram stop was. Tracks led further down the hill on the other side of the square. I followed them.

Finally! ul. Dworcowa! And a bridge! And electrical cables! And actual real moving traffic and people!

I almost ran in the direction of the station... and found only kiosks and a shell of a building. A sign directed me down a dark, slippery set of stairs leading deep into the bowels of the Silesian soil.
Exactly three strip lights were illuminated on the left hand side of the tunnel. The rest was in darkness. I occasionally have dreams where I'm walking down a dark path or into a dark tunnel, knowing that somewhere in the pitch black lurks a malignant masculine force ready to drag me down into the nothingness... The underpass in Katowice station promptly recalled those nightmares.

- Proszę jeden do Krakowa.
- Osobowy?
- uhhh...
- Kiedy Pani chce jechać?
- uh.... teraz?
- Trzynaście złotych

In this part of Poland - and I love PKP, don't get me wrong - you can travel on the slow regional train, the very slow regional train, or the Superfast Shiny EuroCity train, which looks just like the slow regional trains but you have to book a seat in advance. I assume that the lady sold me a ticket for the very, very slow train, because once I was all settled on the next train back to Kraków, with Relaxing Classics playing on my rather poor excuse for an mp3 player and Dom Dzienny, Dom Nocny at least open on the seat beside me (don't get excited, I started reading it in October), along came the ticket inspector.

The two schoolteachers and the young man also occupying the carriage held out their tickets. I was relieved to see that they looked similar to mine.

Dziękuję... said the ticket inspector... dzięnkuję Pani bardzo... dziękuję, ah!
He took another look at my ticket.
- Nie do końca Pani dziękuję...

It would seem that I am not able to tell the difference between the slow regional train and the very slow regional train.

Fortunately the rest of the journey passed uneventfully and I was relieved to get back to the flat finally for some relaxing proofreading.

Can anybody tell me why it is that Polish people on trains, after sharing a compartment for almost two hours without even making eye contact with their fellow travellers, still consider it impolite to leave the train at the end of the journey without saying 'Do widzenia'? As if in acknowledgement of some kind of shared experience...