Leaving Warsaw
Well things can move on apace and a week is a long time when travelling. I am now in Riga, Latvia, but I can’t move on with out a few reflections on Warsaw.
On mobile phones
It seems like just yesterday that mobiles came into our lives. It seems like yesterday that a phone would ring on a bus or train and everyone would look around, ‘oh look it’s a mobile phone’. Now it seems you are a luddite if you haven’t got one. Granddad and grandma have one, just about everyone over about five has one it seems, and, well, Eastern Europe is no exception to this phenomena. Isn’t it curious living in a global production economy of cars, computers and mobile phones. If you are pedantic and look further down the list I think you will find food and housing, but that is so gay, no.
Anyway this preamble is not to engage in another boring leftist argument about global priorities. Hell, not in Eastern Europe where everything new is new again. Who wants to know about the price of sausages, I’d rather talk about my mobile phone plan. I just find humour in the culture of the mobile phone. It has no physical or cultural boundaries. The same kinds of people stand at the corner and marvel at their new piece of technology, the same nerd sits at the bus stop and plays games on their phone to avoid looking at anyone, the same people walk around with their phone held purposefully to their ear ready to ‘clinch the deal’. I know, I know I have a mobile phone and yes I do find them convenient. It is just the whole hype that goes with it that makes me laugh. I mean, it might not have a copper wire connected to it but other than that it is still just a phone, hello. Now with this revolution in telecommunications we must also have a revolution in the way we communicate between each other, right?
Did I say earlier in this blog that I like the way everything beeps and buzzes these days? I suppose a beep beep beep when you incorrectly set the program on the washing machine is better than a machine that says, ‘ you dickhead, you should know not to put it on two by now, it is four dumb ass!’ Anyway heading off from Calais to Germany on the bus at night it was a case of the competing mobile phones as the bus moved in and out of radio range and the phones beeped and buzzed to let you know they had received messages and so on. It seemed one would go off then the whole bus would start beeping, buzzing, tweeting and general cacophony of attention getting. Gezz, after 26 hours on a bus with 50 odd people you got to know most of them all from their phone noise. Beep ba beep ba beep, oh, that is the fat guys phone four sets up.
Mobile phone etiquette? Is there such a thing? Now what is the etiquette on ring tones? Their was this guy only two seats away who had the exact incoming message alert as I did and I was checking my phone every half an hour or so every time (he) got a message! Then there was another two occasions in Warsaw where some guy in a bed in the dorm I was in was going tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap on his keypad in the middle of the night. At first I thought they must be sending a quick text and being in a dormitory and all you can’t be too pedantic about your personal space but after about half an hour I looked over the edge of my bed and saw someone playing games on their phone. Arrrrrrh. Not once but on two occasions I found myself mustering the lest emotional tone I could and saying, ‘you know that noise is a little annoying when you are trying to sleep’. They probably thought, ‘grumpy old barstard doesn’t he know different laws apply to mobiles!’ as they turned the phone off so.
Did I say I almost made it to France? I got within two metres of it! Well that sounds good anyway. When I was in London out having a few drinks with Sandra a friend of hers asked had I been to London before. I replied, ‘well not really’. She looked a bit puzzled as she considered what I said and replied, ‘I thought that would be a yes or no answer’. I explained to her my 12 hour stop over in London and that I had done a quick trip into the city centre on the tube, had a quick look around and left. She thought about this and said that ‘not really’ was a reasonable description. Now I can say I got within two metres of France, and Lithuania for that matter. You see I passed though these countries in a bus and never actually put foot on land so I suppose technically I never actually went there, but I almost got there!
I liked Warsaw and not just for the clean streets but the fact that there is a lovely custom not unlike an Australian one of wearing socks and thongs that a few of the more fashionable engage in. OK, not thongs but sandals but the sentiment is much the same. Another observation is that the Polish also like bread and they have a million things they do with bread and bread rolls. Even McDonalds have a special burger of a flipped over pita type bread as a concession to the Polish cuisine. Anyway I suppose when you grow so much wheat you have to find ways to eat it. I spent a far bit of time looking around Warsaw on the all day public transport ticket. It is kinda fun just jumping on the bus or tram and just heading off in any direction and checking out what the city looks like out in the shadows of the city away from the newly polished and commercialised city centre. Warsaw itself is not a large city with a population of just 1.7 million in a nation of 39 million. I can’t say that I knew/know too much about Poland other than it being part of the soviet union since the second world war, millions of Jews were exterminated here in the second world war, home of Lech Walesa and the Solidarity trade union, and that Australia’s highest mountain, Mt Kosciusko is named after a Pol. Mount Kosciuszko, located in the Snowy Mountains, in Kosciuszko National Park, is the highest mountain in mainland Australia. It was named by the Polish explorer Count Paul Strzelecki in 1840 in honour of the Polish national hero General Tadeusz Kościuszko. More info
I have since learned that the composer Chopin came from Poland and Marie and Pierre Sklodowska-Curie discovered radium and polonium and laid the foundations of radiography and nuclear physics which is not an insignificant event. Apparently six million Poles died during WW2 with three million Jews annihilated in death camps. The nazis used Poland as a headquaters and staging ground for the nazi offensive against the Soviet Union. As I mentioned in my previous post the Poles seem to have removed whatever evidence of the Russian occupation they can. However there is one tangible link to the Russian occupation not as easily erased, the Palace of Culture and Science. This building dominates the skyline at 234 metres . Most Poles say you get the best view of Warsaw from this building because this is the only time it doesn’t include the palace itself. I actually don’t mind the building so much but then I haven’t had to look at it for the last 50 odd years and resent its symbolism.
Finally, like many Eastern European cities Warsaw has an area of the city called the old town with some truly elegant old buildings and enough history to keep a faculty of historian busy for years. I’ll say only that this is a remarkable place for the buildings and architecture alone but even more remarkable in that these 17th and 18th century buildings have been rebuilt from their foundations after being reduced to rubble in WW2 and remaining as rubble for over forty years. In a way that symbolises from my brief experience the Polish spirit of being able to endure, reclaim and rebuild.
On mobile phones
It seems like just yesterday that mobiles came into our lives. It seems like yesterday that a phone would ring on a bus or train and everyone would look around, ‘oh look it’s a mobile phone’. Now it seems you are a luddite if you haven’t got one. Granddad and grandma have one, just about everyone over about five has one it seems, and, well, Eastern Europe is no exception to this phenomena. Isn’t it curious living in a global production economy of cars, computers and mobile phones. If you are pedantic and look further down the list I think you will find food and housing, but that is so gay, no.
Anyway this preamble is not to engage in another boring leftist argument about global priorities. Hell, not in Eastern Europe where everything new is new again. Who wants to know about the price of sausages, I’d rather talk about my mobile phone plan. I just find humour in the culture of the mobile phone. It has no physical or cultural boundaries. The same kinds of people stand at the corner and marvel at their new piece of technology, the same nerd sits at the bus stop and plays games on their phone to avoid looking at anyone, the same people walk around with their phone held purposefully to their ear ready to ‘clinch the deal’. I know, I know I have a mobile phone and yes I do find them convenient. It is just the whole hype that goes with it that makes me laugh. I mean, it might not have a copper wire connected to it but other than that it is still just a phone, hello. Now with this revolution in telecommunications we must also have a revolution in the way we communicate between each other, right?
Did I say earlier in this blog that I like the way everything beeps and buzzes these days? I suppose a beep beep beep when you incorrectly set the program on the washing machine is better than a machine that says, ‘ you dickhead, you should know not to put it on two by now, it is four dumb ass!’ Anyway heading off from Calais to Germany on the bus at night it was a case of the competing mobile phones as the bus moved in and out of radio range and the phones beeped and buzzed to let you know they had received messages and so on. It seemed one would go off then the whole bus would start beeping, buzzing, tweeting and general cacophony of attention getting. Gezz, after 26 hours on a bus with 50 odd people you got to know most of them all from their phone noise. Beep ba beep ba beep, oh, that is the fat guys phone four sets up.
Mobile phone etiquette? Is there such a thing? Now what is the etiquette on ring tones? Their was this guy only two seats away who had the exact incoming message alert as I did and I was checking my phone every half an hour or so every time (he) got a message! Then there was another two occasions in Warsaw where some guy in a bed in the dorm I was in was going tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap on his keypad in the middle of the night. At first I thought they must be sending a quick text and being in a dormitory and all you can’t be too pedantic about your personal space but after about half an hour I looked over the edge of my bed and saw someone playing games on their phone. Arrrrrrh. Not once but on two occasions I found myself mustering the lest emotional tone I could and saying, ‘you know that noise is a little annoying when you are trying to sleep’. They probably thought, ‘grumpy old barstard doesn’t he know different laws apply to mobiles!’ as they turned the phone off so.
Did I say I almost made it to France? I got within two metres of it! Well that sounds good anyway. When I was in London out having a few drinks with Sandra a friend of hers asked had I been to London before. I replied, ‘well not really’. She looked a bit puzzled as she considered what I said and replied, ‘I thought that would be a yes or no answer’. I explained to her my 12 hour stop over in London and that I had done a quick trip into the city centre on the tube, had a quick look around and left. She thought about this and said that ‘not really’ was a reasonable description. Now I can say I got within two metres of France, and Lithuania for that matter. You see I passed though these countries in a bus and never actually put foot on land so I suppose technically I never actually went there, but I almost got there!
I liked Warsaw and not just for the clean streets but the fact that there is a lovely custom not unlike an Australian one of wearing socks and thongs that a few of the more fashionable engage in. OK, not thongs but sandals but the sentiment is much the same. Another observation is that the Polish also like bread and they have a million things they do with bread and bread rolls. Even McDonalds have a special burger of a flipped over pita type bread as a concession to the Polish cuisine. Anyway I suppose when you grow so much wheat you have to find ways to eat it. I spent a far bit of time looking around Warsaw on the all day public transport ticket. It is kinda fun just jumping on the bus or tram and just heading off in any direction and checking out what the city looks like out in the shadows of the city away from the newly polished and commercialised city centre. Warsaw itself is not a large city with a population of just 1.7 million in a nation of 39 million. I can’t say that I knew/know too much about Poland other than it being part of the soviet union since the second world war, millions of Jews were exterminated here in the second world war, home of Lech Walesa and the Solidarity trade union, and that Australia’s highest mountain, Mt Kosciusko is named after a Pol. Mount Kosciuszko, located in the Snowy Mountains, in Kosciuszko National Park, is the highest mountain in mainland Australia. It was named by the Polish explorer Count Paul Strzelecki in 1840 in honour of the Polish national hero General Tadeusz Kościuszko. More info
I have since learned that the composer Chopin came from Poland and Marie and Pierre Sklodowska-Curie discovered radium and polonium and laid the foundations of radiography and nuclear physics which is not an insignificant event. Apparently six million Poles died during WW2 with three million Jews annihilated in death camps. The nazis used Poland as a headquaters and staging ground for the nazi offensive against the Soviet Union. As I mentioned in my previous post the Poles seem to have removed whatever evidence of the Russian occupation they can. However there is one tangible link to the Russian occupation not as easily erased, the Palace of Culture and Science. This building dominates the skyline at 234 metres . Most Poles say you get the best view of Warsaw from this building because this is the only time it doesn’t include the palace itself. I actually don’t mind the building so much but then I haven’t had to look at it for the last 50 odd years and resent its symbolism.
Finally, like many Eastern European cities Warsaw has an area of the city called the old town with some truly elegant old buildings and enough history to keep a faculty of historian busy for years. I’ll say only that this is a remarkable place for the buildings and architecture alone but even more remarkable in that these 17th and 18th century buildings have been rebuilt from their foundations after being reduced to rubble in WW2 and remaining as rubble for over forty years. In a way that symbolises from my brief experience the Polish spirit of being able to endure, reclaim and rebuild.
posted by transavante | 12:25 a.m.
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