Paco´s Life: Madrid

Varsovia / Warsav

So apparently I still dont know all the low cost airlines in the world, I got this new one: www.wizz.air.com. They happen to fly from Stockholm to… Warsav Place of residence of the only alcoholic italian working for the ICEX. So what a better reason for organizing the second european meeting, the same people who met in Prague show up for this one: great aggrupation of “night punishers” and “steel partners”, willing to have a lot of fun again. I am realizing that my travel posts are becoming repetitive, I always talk about parties when the interesting thing would be to tell about the countries I visit, a sort of traveller diary to encorauge you, my dear readers, to come over to these places. But the fact is that is pretty difficult to do tourism like this, I am ashamed to say it but I hardly saw Warsav. Anyway, I wil first try to put together all the polish information and then I will include a few party pictures that I guess some people will appreciate

The first impression I got from Warsav was pretty possitive. I guess that, unconsciously, the idea many of us have about the East Europe countrie is kinda decadent. We expect to find something sad and grey when in fact there is not a big difference between them and what we have in the rest of Europe. I dont know about the rest of the country but Warsaw is a proper city, a big financial centre with plenty of open spaces and skycrappers wellcomes the traveller coming from the aiport. In the middle of all this there is an impressive building called “Culture Palace”, a present from the soviets to the city.

By the way, this place was pretty funny, there was an exposition about the media in which one could do things like introducing the TV news or become a radio professional for a second. I dont know if this was supposed to be used by the visitor but, as Spanish people that we are, we had to try it…

After leaving the financial centre, you get into the old city. Warsaw was almost destroyed in the Second World War so all the centre had to be rebuild. For doing this, they used the few still standing pieces of building as models for the new stuff as well as the paints of the city which survived the war. The result is nice, a quiet place to walk arround, with houses painted in different colours, city walls, churches… Unfortunately I do not have to many pictures of these. Here you have a couple of ones with the real “steel partners”, a monument to the polish soldiers dead during the war and one of the churches…

Eating arround was also a must do and we did it in excess, affordable prices and very nice food. They say polish waittres are the slowest in the world, I dont think it was that bad. This place is specially advisible. One of the best restaurants I ever tried, hugh dishes and delicous beer. Next to Guerri´s place, if I was him I would eat there every day.

Not much else to say about the city, more information available here, let´s move to the party issue. This was mainly done in the spagethi´s house. First day we organized a very serious drinking party, for some of us this started at 5 pm and for almost everybody it ended very very late. A great night, I had a lot of fun. Plenty of pictures here, the best ones just below..

The three magic kings together again

And the second night … same thing. This time with some polish participation, steel partners joining against the polish vodka. A new member of the Captain Flint club (Tino), lot of fun in a night I ended up in a weird bar, opened till very late and sorrounded by polish people. In the end I slept in a huge house, property of a Spanish guy I just had met, he even had a jacuzzi! Sunday we were close to go out again but, just once and maybe motivated by the chezq experience, we chosen the quiet plan. We just went to the train station to say goodbye to the “chezq” friends and then for dinner to a french restaurant. This place happened to be the opposite to the one I mentioned before. Very sophisticaded but small dishes, you ordered a big piece of meat and you got a salad. French people..

Tino becoming Flint

Icex meeting

Bye bye…

Prage

With some delay but here it comes the post concerning the first ICEX european meeting. The Warsav - Prague - Stockholm triangle, also known as the three magic kings got together for the first time in the beautiful chezq capital. With the participation of more ICEX people coming from the Warsav and Prage offices and the adding of Giorgos, the meeting was a big thing. It is a pity that this happened a few weeks ago and I dont remember it so clearly anymore, maybe also because of the theory of big Guerri - Warsav who believes that in a rainny day the only thing you can do is to stay at the bar drinking beer. So we did, it also happens that the chezq beer is excellent and very cheap, for less than a euro you get a litter. Gambrinus, Pilsner and the rest of the local brands were entusiastically drunk by the ICEX congregation which, by the way, happened to be very nice people. The ones coming from Poland had just arrived after one night travelling by train but they were still up to the challenge

The three magic kings…

ICEX Meeting

Guerrino and Roberto, two big characters

The truth is that we spent most of the weekend drinking beers and mojitos, eating the delicious chezq food..and of course doing some tourism and partying pretty hard. As I was expecting, Prage is a very nice place, the area arround the castle is beautiful so it is the King Charles bridge and the central square.

Central square

Prage´s view from the castle

However, a couple of bad things. First the excessive ammount of tourists arround, it is quite difficult to move arround in the city centre and the famouse Charles bridge is always very crowed, well, as long as you dont get there when is rainning very heavily. The second problem is probably a consequence of the first one, chezq people is in general very unfriendly. I just mean the waittres serving you at the bars, I dont know how they are in their personal life. Is not that I am specially demanding with this but some of them were really rude. Maybe there are very tired of having so much foreign people arround, otherways I dont understand that behaviour

Anyway, with rude czeqs or withouth them it was a great frist trip, it had everything, including a great mistake which cost me a fortune. I was stupid enough to get confused with my flight time and I missed it. I had to waste a lot of money in buying another ticket for going the next day. And this didnt happen because I was partying, drunk or something like that, is just that I was not able to read the proper departing time in the email. So that extra night we had to go out again Anyway, it was a real mess, I must be getting old and stupid…

All pictures here

Halloween Party

The previous night´s anger didnt have to last too long because Saturday night we had an original plan. Halloween party in the swedish way: 30 euros to get into the place + 50 euros the fancy dress. Posh party with models and cool people in general. In the end it was ok, yes there was very beuatiful women with fancy dresses but everybody was kinda quiet. Anyway, and comparing with previous experiences, I had fun. Nobody kicked me out of the place and the fancy dress thing was very funny Some pictures here…

Estocolmo empieza a tocarme los cojones / Stockholm is starting to piss me off

Definitely I am not getting well with this city. Friday night, we go out to the most popular place in Stockholm, the Blue moon bar, opening till late and supposed to have the best atomosphere. There I am in a corridor, speaking with the people who was coming with me when suddently a big bouncer approachs me. He tells me that I have to leave, that he thinks I am drunk. Those of you who know me may think that he was right, obviously I was not totally sober, we had been drinking something before but I can tell you I was not wasted, I was very quiet, speaking with another guy. I was not dancing weird and of course I was not disturbing anyone. I had recently entered the place and I hadnt had time even for ordering a beer. So I try to explain all this to my new friend using English, apparently he does not like too much when we say we are Spanish, by the way, why the fuck does he has to ask us where we come from? does it makes a difference or what? The sucker becomes agressive, is not only that he wants me to leave but also that I am pissing him off. He starts to push me downstairs and sends another bouncer to get my jacket. The feeling of frustration is total because just in a second your night is over. Is just 1am and you just spent arround 12 euros to stay just 20 minutes in that place.

And the worst is that there is no justification at all, if I was producing a mess I could manage to undersand it, but even if he thinks by looking at my face that I am wasted (that I wasnt) thats only my fucking problem, it only becomes his if I am disturbing someone. At my age nobody is gonna tell me what I can drink. The guy was obssesed about kicking me out of there, only he knows why, not even his own colleages could convince him that I was ok. Why me and not the people coming with me? Was it the long hair or what? I dont wanna jump into conclussions but I am starting to see xenofobia in these people. Because swedish get drunk like hell and nobody kicks them out. Because I have been in that place 3 times and the first time they already tried to kick me out but when the guy spoke to me he had to admit I was ok. Because every time we go there they ask us for IDs (and I dont think we look too young) and when we prove it they look pretty dissapointed. And the sad thing is that this happens very often, the previous IT intern ended up in the street a few times and some of them violently. There is a girl here whose recently ordered beer was taken by the bouncers and she was kicked out. They say in Sweden is illegal to serve alcohol to someone who is already drunk but, who is the one to decide that? Is the level of accepted alcohol different deppending on wheter you are local or not?

The thing is that you get the impression that going out here is a fucking lottery, the party might be finished at any time, deppending on the arbitrary decision of a motherfucker. And of course, the normal reaction would be to decide not to be back in that place ever, but the sadly fact is that there are not too many options to go out in this wonderfull city after 1am. So you better get home earlier or some sucker will help you to take this decision. You get very pissed and feel like sending the fucking country to the hell.
Anyway, I consider it is also important to discuss these issues here, those considering Stockholm to be a great destination better think twice about it. I have lived in quite a few places and never found this shit. I dont like the atmosphere here, appart from the bouncer problem people in general looks kind of proud and not easy to reach, showing their money arround with an arrogant face. If right now I have to fill that famous report with the good/bad things of the city I am afraid the score wont be too high. I dont know wether this a problem of the country or just concerns to the posh capital. Maybe I have been very unlucky and now I am pissed and exagerating. But I have been here more than a month and my first impression is not changing. So I will have to do something about it, for the time been I am organizing plenty of weekends plans so I dont have to spend them here. Heading back to the Erasmus world is another good option, apparently they go out on Wednesdays and on weekends they just organize parties at the uni, avoiding going to the center. I am starting to understand why…