PKIN

Suddenly the weather is mean and cold and I’ve remembered why I couldn’t wait to get out of Europe when I lived here years ago. The temperature hasn’t risen above 12’, it rains non-stop and… it could be Adelaide! (sorry darl). One of my neighbours is clearly suffering from cabin fever. She flings her door ajar and comes onto our shared landing every time I step outside, her hair standing aloft like Don King ‘s on a good hair day.

Yesterday I went to the Centrum Informacji Turystycznej (Tourist Information Centre – see how easy it is when you know what it means?), located in the gigantic Palace of Culture and Science (Palac Kultury I Nauk). I spotted this gift of Soviet friendship from my kitchen window when I arrived and without knowing its provenance, saw that it was a relative of Stalin’s ‘Palaces’ in Moscow. It has the same crenellated battlements and balconies, and the same over-reaching spire. In Moscow Stalin planted ‘Seven Sisters’; Warsaw has just the one. From memory the Empire State Building in NY was the model, but ‘his’ buildings had to be better, and by better, Stalin meant higher (higher, higher, harder, harder). It does make one wonder just how tiny do you have to be to join the exclusive club of genocidal tyrants. This may seem strange but apparently the Polish people don’t really care for the PKIN. They joke that it’s the best vantage point for photographing Warsaw, because when you’re in it you’re not getting another unwanted picture of it.

Anyway there was a point to my visit to the PKIN, and it wasn’t just to crack an ill-received joke about mazurkas being on high rotation in Warsaw. My visit was to buy a three day travel and museum pass. It’s cheap at 65 zlotys (about A$23.00) and removes the misery of trying to buy the right kind of ticket from a bilety. It also enables one to get lost on a truly grand scale, something I’m quite good at, and began doing straight away. At one point yesterday afternoon I fell into despair thinking I would have to surrender and get a cab back to Hoza, to my apartment.

But eventually I found my way to Warsaw Central, and plunged into its fusty depths to dry out only to get lost in the labyrinthine tunnels there. How many times do you have to pass a plastic apron with inflatable breasts to realise it isn’t déjà vu, you’ve actually been in this tunnel three times before? It was at that point I came to understand the beauty of the paid WC (2 zlotys a visit). They’re kept clean. Usually there’s a comfy old babushka type who runs the franchise and does a bit of a cursory scrub down. She entertains friends, eats pastries with her coffee and generally runs the WC in good order. In fact I can see it would be possible to live quite well down the tunnels. The coffee shops are excellent, the fruit and vegetables fresh, and there’s the eternal passing parade to ruminate upon. I don’t think I’d even get bored.

Only one day to go, so this is probably my last post from .pl. Today I’ve been museuming, sloshing around the Old Town with maps wrapped in plastic, and shoes full of water. Ugh. The trams are so fogged up that even tootling around in those isn’t much fun. What I REALLY want to do is curl up indoors with a good book and sit the awful weather out. But no such luck. I think Amsterdam is cloudy and about 18’. When I was there a week ago it was the same. Again I sloshed around, sight-seeing the canals in pouring rain. Think I’m ready for summer in Ipswich.