The Half Arsed Traveller: 2015-01-17: It was a joke dammit!

Sometimes I exaggerate things slightly to make the story better (obviously sometimes I outright lie as well, it's a continuum, occasionally I say things even I think are true). I am not really a walking economic disaster causing businesses to fail if my presence is removed.

Hey Krakow, We'll be back in 5 weeks, maybe 7, don't go changing, K?

Today we left Krakow. In the interests of science we took the Pendolino! (obligatory arm waving) but this time we took second class to see what the difference is.

Traveling Advice: First Class or Second? (Pendolino! Krakow <-> Warsaw)

As a comparison:

230zł Pendolino! First Class

175zł Pendolino! Second Class

168zł Old style trains First Class 4 person room

125zł Old style trains First Class

80zł Old style trains Second Class

Second Class Citizen

Pendolino! takes about 2.5 hours and old style takes 3 to 3.5 if you choose the right train but can take 5 if you get the wrong one. If you want the 4 person room _and_ a 3 hr trip then you are looking at around midnight start times, but it would be worth it, they are great.
However we are comparing Pendolino! first and second class. You pay a third more (say $20).

Oh except Second Class has a numbering system designed to annoy me

The only difference I could notice was a 3 wide seating arrangement rather than 4 seat. The seats didn't actually seem narrower though. For $20 I guess it is worth the gamble as first class tends to have less people and so be quieter and have more room for your bags and so on.

Rating: 4/10 (for such a short trip a 30% premium doesn't seem worth it)

And now I am going to contradict myself completely. Second class was way better. It had the little teles and they were showing mostly static slides. I did not mention this in the review because they might have been in first class and I didn't notice them. I watched them for most of the trip because they had "learn another language slides" and I knew it would eventually cycle.
My "learn Polish" app on my phone has a tendency to show Poles natural biases: "You smoke and drink too much", "No one likes the American accent" and "I have applied for an American visa". Not to mention the preoccupation with going to the Doctor and what injuries / illnesses people have. These were the same.

Some were pretty standard:

Eat & Enjoy!

Some don't translate easily to English:

"'Buy a cat in a sack', the same as in English" "ahhhh nope we don't have that one"

But the English ones:

That's a bit personal isn't it George

Screw you George, you're a dick!

We arrived in Warsaw with two plans. Buy some Horse Riding equipment we need (achieved) and visit Przekąski Zakąski, the simple bar we spent the night in last time. Google maps lied to us.

Safest place to be when lost, technically it is outside so you can smoke.

So we retired to a different bar and hunted through old photos and travelogue entries and figured out where it must be. Halfway down Nowy Świat, one of the main streets in Warsaw.

With 6 hours to kill we wandered the street.

I can make a guess (*cough*logo*cough*McWhat?) why this place is now available for lease. Nothing to do with me.

Don't believe you

Warsaw has changed I think. The sushi places outnumber the Polish places at 5:1 and Italian is 2:1 (although the Italian places all advertised grzaniec). I am told Warsaw is to Krakow as Sydney is to Melbourne and Rio to Sąo Paolo.

Oh cool, that place was okay, good to see it spreading

We found Przekąski Zakąski with 5 hours to spare.

I should have told them I would be back in 2 years and they just had to hang on til then. Feeling a little guilty we skulked back to the Pijalnia place that was the same as the one in Krakow.