Weekend in Warsaw

In the cab on the way to the city, I watched the night lights, billboards, shops, and concrete apartment blocks, and looked for anything that might distinguish Warsaw from Budapest, or indeed any other city in the world. And then a pagoda came into view - the Palace of Culture - apparently a landmark that Warsaw citizens reluctantly accept because it was built by the Russians. In this building: nightclubs, English language schools, an old-school cinema.


Early the next morning I wandered around the old town and new town, deserted save a handful of tourists and people walking their dogs. It was entirely rebuilt after being bombed and razed to smithereens in 1945 - something like 90% of it erased in the aftermath of the Warsaw Uprising.



I found out more about that historic event in the Warsaw Uprising museum, a dynamic and extensive repository of information about the bravery of the people who rose up and fought for their independence with remarkable success, considering the forces they were up against and with little help from the Allied powers. It was very touching and sad; Poles are deservedly very proud of that moment of revolution. They are certainly not alone in failed uprisings in this region.

My main reason for being in Warsaw was yet another wedding, this time in a church with the bride's side devoutly responding to the priest, and the groom's side fidgeting and frozen. The priest was very considerate in giving the service half in English, though some of the exhortations of the "welcome the mother of God into your marriage" variety did make me wince a bit. I was delighted to walk out of the church to see a Warsaw public bus waiting to take us to the reception.


There were lots of renditions of "sto lat, sto lat" (hundred years) for the couple, along with many a vodka bottomed-up after which the glasses were broken (intentionally and not). The deejay played music from the 90s I hadn't heard in ages, interspersed with Polish pop from the 80s. I unearthed my very rusty and minimal Polish with the bride's charming relatives.


The next day was about nursing hangovers for an extra hour thanks to daylight savings, chowing down on zurek and pierogi, and wandering around a pretty park dressed in autumn.

Surprises on the street

Earlier last week, I was at Instant, a new kert on Nagymező which is a smaller cleaned-up version of Szimpla; it was busy on a Tuesday and I dread to think how packed it must be at the weekend. While getting drinks, I bumped into two people: an ex-student who has given up teaching for strip bar managing, and the regular barman at Pótkulcs. To the latter, I said "You're the Pótkulcs guy!" to which he said "Yes, thank you!"


And then I saw him the next day on the tram too. Thereby proving my theory about seeing bar staff on the street in Budapest.

Today I had a less fun surprise on the street. Leaving Fészek, my hangover feeling worse than when I'd arrived, I was flipping through a brochure and noticed a bunch of guys walking towards me.

I ignored them until I was rudely squeezed in the breast by one of them. I whirled around, letting out a torrent of abuse while smacking them flailingly with that brochure (sadly comic now that I think about it). Meanwhile another of the guys caught up and then grabbed me in the ass. It was horrible, I was angry, and I fumed all the way home about how to wreak revenge (I ran through my list of possible mafia-type connections and came up empty, dammit).

At the end of the day, it's just body parts that have elevated status in sexual politics, and it's not worth the emotional energy (especially when you're hungover and currently running a temperature) so I'm letting it go.

But it really pisses me off that there are such pigs out there who use such tactics to gain pleasure out of other people's humiliation, totally unprovoked. A Wagnerian shriek of injustice lurks beneath my surface. Not to be too Norma Desmond about it.