Travels to Poland I (Part 1)

Saturday 2nd June 2001, up with the lark, 09:30 coach to Victoria, wait a bit, then on to the 13:00 coach to Krakow via Katowice. Thick bus driver doesn't understand the system and tries to rip off the wrong ticket, but gives it back before we come to blows. Perhaps he was hoping I would be happy to remain in Poland for ever. Actually the man had a point. The coach was almost full of Poles - no more than half a dozen Brits. My seat was next to a young (twenties?) Pole who seemed to feel he'd paid for my seat as well as his. I refused to budge and thus for 24 hours was treated to his rubbing his thigh and arse against mine. When the time came for a kip he curled up and thrust his whole arse at me. Perhaps he was hoping to get laid - he was dressed completely in white, bleached gelled hair, perfume, trainers - know what I mean? Anyway I was not tempted. Toward the end of the journey I discovered I could pull a lever and thus slide my seat approximately six inches from his, into the aisle.
Despite the Brits on the bus, all official announcements were in Polish only, so I had no idea what was going on except on the few occasions I overheard parts of someone giving a translation to an English couple some way down the bus. Early on I tried asking my big-arsed mate if he knew what was going on, but at that stage of the journey he couldn't speak English (miffed perhaps?), although much later he started conversing in good English about my reason for travelling to Poland. Perhaps it was because I pulled my lever.
Otherwise the coach journey was not too bad - even got some kip. Didn't pass through anywhere interesting - the coach did not pick up or set down passengers between Victoria and Poland.
Arrived Katowice Sunday, 14:00 local time, expecting to be met. In response to a request from my Polish friends I had enquired, when booking, where the coach would drop me in Poland - so they could await my arrival. In the event I was dropped somewhere completely different (the place looked more like a bomb site than a coach station). I did not know this at the time so I waited, and waited, and asked the occasional lost-looking Pole if he was looking for an IWD. None was. Indeed none seemed to understand the meaning of 'IWD' (where have these people been?) or knew a word of English, which was a problem, because my knowledge of Polish was similar.
All of a sudden the coach station was deserted except for me. I had a telephone number for use in emergencies and so sought a 'phone box. I had no Polish dosh, of course, not thinking I would need any at this stage - and notes would not have helped anyway. Luckily the 'phone boxes I found took cards. But they did not take any of mine. They did, however, talk to me in Polish.
"Ah," thought I, "you desperately need cash," so I donned rucksack and headed into what I hoped was the direction of the centre of town. My first bit of luck was to encounter one of the non-IWD-seeking Poles from the bomb-site. He screamed Polish at me loudly and pointed. I followed his finger and ended up at a proper bus station. "Ah," thought I again, my Polish mates would be here. They were not. It was the station for local buses. I wondered around the city looking for a cash machine from which I could obtain a Zloty or two. All were broken or closed. Tried asking some Polish fuzz if they could speak English. They could not.
The railway station was next to the bus station and here, second stroke of luck, I found a currency exchange booth open on a Sunday. Handed over my earth money and received Polenotes and a few coins. The station was awash with telephone booths. Would they accept my coins? Would they f#cksky (even though the piccies implied my coins were the correct value). Went to a kiosk and bought a chockie bar with a hugezlotynote and got some hugezlotycoins in the change. Third stroke of luck, these were accepted by the 'phones. Made a call and very soon found my mates - they had, of course, been waiting at a third coach station (at the address given to me by the booking office).
Terrifying drive to my hotel. My driver (whom I had met on my last visit to Poland) liked cutting corners and driving on the left side of the road (i.e. the side which would have been right in the UK). He had previously done this one dark night in Poland and driven at speed under a large lorry, which had no lights on, thus killing his wife and his sister-in-law's daughter, breaking his daughter's leg in several places, and ending up in a coma himself for six weeks (ripping off his face in the process and requiring substantial plastic surgery). And, can you believe it, he still cuts corners. And with his daughter in the car. He and said (beautiful, English-speaking) daughter later took me for a pizza. Nice meal, but I was glad to get out of his car at the end of the evening. Last time he drove me all over Poland. This time I did not have that pleasure again.