polish motorway
this is one of my favourite photos from my trip to poland in september. slightly tinkered with to get the retro colours, but it sums up all that is great about modern life.
poland
warsaw
a fine square in warsaw
the gas museum
i went to a reception in a gas museum in poland. here are some pictures
hands on radioactivity and other exhibits
the museum in the palace of culture and science is a very strange place. totally bonkers.
it’s mostly an old school exhibits-at-arms-length in glass cages types of place, but there was one hands on area.
unfortunately it was a demonstration of radioactivity which i thought i’d like to avoid. (it’s worth noting chenobyl isn’t too far from poland)
still, they had some bonkers exhibits like this type writer which used piano keys for the letters.
and an exhibit which banned the use of thumbs
and an ancient walkman
and some old mobile phones which were surrounded by pennies, seemingly for no other reason than the glass case they were in wasn’t done up properly so there was space to drop pennies in (so people did)
and this thing is a pilot training simulator thing (with penny farthings for authenticity)
here is an early apple mac
and the fantastic trolley computer
and i thought this sign was particularly telling. it was in the space section and announced that this rocket was a genuine exhibit (unlike all the others i assume).
the music had a really weird atmosphere and was quite fantastic – you must go next time you are in warsaw (although i wouldn’t make the trip just to go).
polish guide to scotland
i spotted this book in a polish kiosk window and i thought i provided a nice link between our recent holiday in scotland and my few days in warsaw. i like links like that.
notebooki and komputery
words look so much less intimidating if you add an ‘i’ or ‘y’ at the end. and changing a ‘c’ to a ‘k’ is good fun too.
a present from stalin
this is the warsaw palace of culture and science. it was a present from stalin which was nice of him
it looks a lot like it’s from ghostbusters
multi-cultural
there were english power sockets in my polish hotel room. that saddened me as i wanted to feel proper foreign.
i say that, but during my few days in poland i managed to visit McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and the London Steak restaurant. very blending in i was.
giant heroic polish peasants
i went in search of genuine communist era Poland when i was in Warsaw. most of it is being rebuilt like it was hundreds of years ago, so finding something obviously from the last 50 years (other than the stuff which has been build in the last 10 years) is tricky.
these statues are by a square which was built to house political rallies. you can see the scale of them in the top picture (there’s a chap walking by). nowadays they are just ignored. they probably were back in the day too though !
