This was a little while ago now, but a very memorable trip – and this day started off with a look around a market in the town of Ptonsk – where all sorts of things were for sale, including enormous flowers, bunches of flowers, jumpers, lots of net curtains, socks, jeans, corsets, washing powder, 20 kilogramme bags of carrots, 5 kilogramme bags of onions, Christmas trees, ginormous bags of cheese puffs (which F wanted for the plane), duvets, caps, fruit trees (including plum trees and cherry trees), floppy orange mops, rifles, torches, fishing rods (and F posed for a photo), furniture, various carved angels and Jesus’, barbecued waffles, make up, baby clothes, and huge bags of noodles.

C had a pear in her pocket and she didn’t want anyone to think she just pinched it, so she didn’t get it out; a child wandering past had a unicorn on a stick as a balloon, and T had to pay an official on the spot fine (and Mum said he looked like an army officer – and L told her not to say it too loudly because she could be arrested).

In the car, T told F that if you’re driving and you get stopped by a police officer, that all you have to do is speak a different language and they won’t fine you; we passed a sign for Kingspan bread, then huge fields of cabbages and a sign for something called Razouly (some kind of brownish coloured drink that may’ve been beer), and stopped at a petrol station (where it was 5.52 sloti per litre) and there were lots of adverts for hot dogs on the walls. C said she wouldn’t want to go to China with Mum – as they go both ways round the roundabouts there; we passed over the Wisla River at 12pm and then passed a Blyweert Aluminium warehouse – on some very very bumpy roads) and saw an advert that said it was 2.45 sloti for 1 bunch of bananas, and a sign for a ‘wologa weglowa’ while passing a huge traffic jam in the other direction at 12.15pm.

While driving towards the airport there was an advert for Felix cat food (which Mum briefly thought was for crisps), and then lots of terraced houses and huge blocks of flats (and 1 had a ginormous green dinosaur statue outside) became visible, a lot of parks, big grassy strips down the middle of the dual carriageways, and a huge Fiat and Alfa Romeo car dealership; there was a statue with a full sized plane erupting out of it just before we arrived at the airport – at 12.40pm – where we said a quick goodbye to everyone before they got dropped off (and cuddled them), and discovered the bloke driving us didn’t know where he was going now (and he started trying to call people up to see if they could tell him where to go – while still driving).

Then on our way to the old part of Warsaw for our overnight stay, I saw lots of adverts for fighting/martial arts clubs, 1 about the world of war planes, a huge skyscraper with Bridgestone (and a tyre symbol) written halfway up it – and ‘Marriot’ written at the top; then huge numbers of sandwich shops and banks in the centre of the city (including a Bank of China) and a very large casino, and a spa that said ‘manicure, pedicure, tarot’ on it; then we went down a couple of one way streets the wrong way, at some traffic lights – an ambassadors car stopped next to us, and when going down some very very bumpy cobbled roads, something called ‘Restauraicja Pod Jamaica’ was seen, and a bridge that had a lot of screaming faces painted on it. On the wall of a spa was an offer for something called ‘a tipsy’ (as well as manicures and pedicures), then an advert for Tena pads in Polish wasn’t far down the road, and the bloke had to ask two police officers whether he could keep going down this road or not, but eventually, we arrived.
In the hotel, our room had pictures of fish all over the walls, and a leaflet left there told us that this hotel had an Orient Express room, an Alice In Wonderland room and a Winne The Pooh room.

At 2.10pm, in the town, we boarded an interesting horse and cart; and while on the bumpy cobbled streets we saw someone in a police van who appeared to have been arrested; the man driving this cart started talking to his horse in Polish, and we passed a statue of a child (apparently a monument to everyone who died in the Jewish uprising), followed by Marie Curie’s house/museum, a restaurant called The Polyester, and a very fluffy ginger Poodle. Once through the castle gate and in the Old Town, some amazing paintings could be seen, some SpongeBob Squarepants helium balloons, and some very furry hats; and then we got off the cart, took some more photos, and went to a restaurant for some sandwiches (and were given marmite with them) (and ‘mleko smakowe’ was also on the menu).

Then we went to the Kings Palace (and saw a Japanese woman with a mask over her face) which had photos of absolutely everything inside (and we found a giant red pencil and a map in there).

After leaving the museum, we wandered around taking more photos of the various buildings, as well as the Wisla (the main river that flows right through Poland); and I ended up with a fox fur hat, as after I was told to try it on by the man running his little stall, and after asking how much it was, I was frogmarched to a cashpoint by this man, so we thought we should probably buy it, and did. Opposite the hat stall was the cathedral, which we had a quick look in; followed by a shop containing a lot of amber stuff; and at that point, decided we should probably stop, so went back to the hotel – and did it (bardzo szybko).