Travels to Poland I (Part 2)

Two aspects of the coach trip I almost overlooked - the in-flight entertainment and weird customs.
Most of the time the radio was playing (mostly English) pop music with the DJs' language changing seamlessly from English to French to Belgian to Dutch to German and, finally, to Polish as the journey progressed. The volume was low and did not interfere with reading or low-level mental activity. Suddenly, however, shortly after crossing the Channel, the volume increased sharply. After a while I noticed this and, wondering what the Frogs were up to now, looked up to determine whether anyone else was as irritated as I. Thus it dawned on me the music had given way to a video show. This comprised three videos in rapid succession, on screens smaller than that on my PC. One was at the front of the bus. As I was sitting approximately two thirds of the way back it was about as useful as my trying to read a book at arms' length with no specs. The other screen was just behind me and on my right and I'd have been able to see it quite conveniently had my neck been a couple of feet longer and contained several universal joints. None of this was a problem, however, because all the videos were dubbed - you could hear the first few English words of any sentence and this was then drowned by Polish, spoken by the same male voice, irrespective of whether or not a male, female, or child was speaking, and at the same loud volume, irrespective of whether a gunfight or tender love scene was in progress. (Quite a lot of Polish TV is like this.) One of the videos was Seven Eternities of Brad Pitt. I remember no details of the others. This delight continued for approximately six hours, but I suppose I can be grateful I was spared Polish hysterics at the antics of Mr Bean.
Weird customs.
The customs at Dover and Calais showed no interest in us, neither did those at the France/Belgium, Belgium/Holland, or Holland/Germany borders - we just sailed through. EC rules, OK. An announcement on the ferry had instructed those carrying any food to dump it over board, owing to the foot and mouth disease rampant in the UK at the time. It was apparent on the continuing journey that no one took any notice of this crap. The customs on the German/Polish border was something else - perhaps they still thought there was a war on. We stopped. There was a delay. The Gestapo came on, inspected passports, and pronounced everything satisfactory. Another delay. Then the Polish lot asked for all the passports to be collected. Another delay, then these were returned apart from those of three passengers, all from the same family, with which there was a problem. This family (typical slobs like you see all over the UK - thick fat skinhead bloke in a vest, dumb blonde wife in tears, kid wot thinks it's fun to run up and down the bus banging on the bog door) was escorted to an office where I was hoping, no doubt in common with everyone else on the coach, they would be summarily executed, or at least tortured a bit. It was not to be. About an hour later they were escorted back to the coach. They didn't even look as if they had been soundly beaten. Or even slapped about a bit. Perhaps the cops could bear their company no longer.
We were then all ordered to wash our hands. This was another F&M precaution, rather than a counter to contamination by slob families or gay blokes with big arses. Can you believe it? No foot-baths or showers, no bag searches for illicit nosh, no strip searches and internal examinations - just wash our hands. We trooped from the bus, sprayed our hands with antiseptic by pressing a button on a dispenser, then rubbed our hands dry - there were no towels. Then, at last, we were off again. The total delay at the border was approximately two hours.
Twenty four hours on a coach sounds like hell, but honestly it was not that bad. The return fare was only approximately £90. If it again comes to a choice of coughing up ca £300 for an air fare or £180 for the train, I know which I'd choose. OK, so deep and satisfying sleep was difficult to come by, but a two-hour nap after the car drive from hell resulted incomplete rejuvenation.
Next day, I guess I must have been picked up from the hotel and taken to the Institute of Chemistry, probably by the driver from hell, but I can't say I remember too clearly. Perhaps something horrible happened and I blanked it out completely. Anyway a coach was laid on from the Institute to the hotel in the mountains where the symposium was being held. On arrival I dumped the rucksack, found a bar for a couple of litres, then went back to the room for the French Open on Eurosport. Later that evening was the opening banquet where, as during the rest of my trip, I was treated as guest of honour. Then it was back to the bar. I was bought as much beer and vodka as I could drink and was rarely allowed to buy a single drink, let alone a round.
The symposium proper started next day, but as most of the presentations were in Polish I gave them a miss. The first two working days were pretty similar - excellent breakfast, slob about, walk in the mountains (every sodding farm house, and there were many, had a sodding big dog that barked at me in sodding Polish), couple of beers, excellent lunch, French Open, read a bit, more beer, afternoon tea, you know the sort of thing - a right drag. And things were even better in the evenings. Tuesday evening was a barbecue with what was described as 'mountain music' as entertainment. Sounds awful, especially as I couldn't understand a word, but they were excellent musicians. One guy was wearing a small cello as one would a guitar and playing it with a bow. Ever seen anything like that? Again the food - it included barbecued whole pigs - was excellent and the beer unlimited. When it got cold we did a runner to the bar and I was treated to several approximately half-pint glasses of what I was told was a mixture of apple juice and vodka. This also was excellent. From the taste it was clearly not straight apple juice but I did assume the vodka content was minimal. I later discovered it was 1:2 vodka/apple juice. This might explain the mother of all hangovers next morning.
Wednesday evening was another banquet; this time the music was provided by a local gypsy group, who again were excellent. One of the performers, clearly no older than sixteen or seventeen, had an superb voice - world class. Doubt he'll ever be well known, though. Shame.