The Half Arsed Traveller: 2015-01-26: She had an unsharpened pencil!

Traveling Advice: Train Tickets

We are going to Slovakia for more skiing fun. This means we get to take a train.
There is only one site worth looking at when trying to do multi country trips in europe: http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de (I will refrain from Trains On Time jokes here)
I tapped in our start and stop places and it found the options but then wouldn't let me buy tickets.
So we went down to the train station to buy tickets. We stood in line. We realised we better go to the info booth first. We stood in line. We got a written note of when and where. We went to buy the tickets. We stood in line.
Then we got a relic from the communist era. She looked upset that we didn't immediately thank her for being at work and potentially doing her job.
When Ewa said we wanted sleeper tickets the Lady looked like suggestions of disrobing and parading nude had been made. She promptly pointed out that Polish trains do not allow Men and Ladies to sleep in the same compartment.
Polish Men and/or Ladies must be very weak willed people that can't keep their hands off each other!
Admittedly the thought had occurred to me but I was planning to be discreet and discrete. Plus I look Angelic (and innocent).
Probably Ewa looks like some kind of perverted train orgy inciting Lady.
After the Lady Who Was Working For Our (Travel Only) Gratification (And Not Receiving Enough Recognition For This) had consulted several actual serious binders of paper and poked at her touch screen with a pencil which had never been sharpened but has an almost worn out eraser it was decided we were allowed to travel on her trains and could buy couchettes beside each other but then she screwed the dates up and then her terminal crashed and then her printer failed.
We got tickets in the end.

I blame her specifically and directly for being the reason the Nazis handed Poland over to the Russians a couple years back. No self respecting fascist could tolerate that kind of behaviour and it would weaken their morale. It obviously hurt them anyway, I think Leningrad proves my point.

Rating 10/10 (I am afraid the Train Lady will have screwed something up so I am giving her a good score for karma reasons only).

Off my chest and Hey I Feel Better Now. Excellent!

Tonight we are playing naginata versus kendo at the local club. We were at the gym this morning already (building ski muscles, they even had a printout of a routine) so we need protein and carbs and food, food, food if we are to survive. I figured google "best burger bialystok". I got two places with equal scores and reviews. We choose the closest. We will visit the other later and declare the victor to resolve google's inability to make a damn decision.

Food and Beverage Review: Miły Burgers

http://milyburger.pl/
Wesoła 16, Białystok (they have other locations too)

Upstairs location, not hard to find but not obvious. Very Americana 50's booths and décor kind of feel.

Why is Elvis labelled and not Marilyn? There can't be a single person in the world that only knows one of these people.

Seems to support some local american football team. Comfy and warm.
Who cares? bring on foods!!

The Szefa is just picky about "nice" numbers, 2 burgers from a kilo! not 2.5, that's just crazy talk!

We asked the waitress what the most popular burgers were: BBQ (me) and Kapelusznik (too hard to pronounce, gym make me dumb). Ewa decided she knew better and ordered a Mary Jane (I think this is because the Blue Cheese Burgers _I_ make are good and she assumes others will have copied my recipes).

Admittedly if I had been smoking Mary Jane perhaps this would have been better. I am not cool enough though.

Chips and Burgers are too things I think I do rather well so I judge harshly as soon as someone steps out of the "McDonalds mushy crap you'd eat because you are lazy" style.

Who doesn't toast their buns? Craziness! I am going to blame an over anxious HR department trying to stamp out innuendo in the workplace.

Chips: Home-style were best but they needed the second fry to make them crispy. Well salted though. 4/10

BBQ Burger: Could have had more sear on the patty and the bun was not toasted and a little hard. Good burger though. Pickles were a plus. 7/10

Mary Jane: Yeah so no. Nuts in a burger was interesting but without the salty bacon I always pair with blue cheese it was a bit bland and creamy. No pickles. Ditch the nuts and get some texture / sourness in there and could be good. 5/10.

Im'a go with 30% head size

Polish burgers, according to Ewa, should be the size of your head. These were certainly the size of a small childs head and for $6 you can get a 900g classic burger which is definitely the head size of the fat bastard we saw eating one. It gets two skewers to hold it together.

They also do what I can only call American size burritos, a waitress carried three at once and I was impressed.

In NZ Burger Fuel got a patent for a bit of cardboard that does the work of this open paper bag... I think the bag works better as you can dip your chips in the burger drippings.

They also server beer. Fortuna beer! I am loving this brewery!

They do open fermentation.

Fanfare and marketing is for those with a product too weak to sell itself

They are 150 odd years old but got closed by the Nazis and then Government owned by the Commies.

4 years ago they reopened, were bought out by some lovers of Polish beers and now they are making it to my list of places to go / invest in.

Pilfering of my beer! Proof! Photographic Proof!

Rating:

8/10 (as a fast food place, it was actually pretty quick)

6/10 (as a specialty burger place)

9/10 (overall because they stock fortuna beers)

Food and Beverage Review: Fortuna Czarne (Black Lager)

Clean and little mouthfeel, as a lager should be.

It's a grown up persons coke.

Sweet as a Black Lager should be (in my opinion).
Definitely one that will have you wondering "what the hell did I just drink" and not something you are likely to pound a dozen of. But interesting, and lots of fun with a burger. Has tons of coke flavour to it and, while sweet for a beer, not as sweet as coke.

Rating: 7/10 (Ewa gives it 9/10)

Activity Review: Isshu Jiai with Białstok Kendo Club

And so to the evening fun. In amongst my rambling the other night I did warn the Kendo guys that Naginata has a distinct advantage over Kendo.

I also advised that I have trained way more and way longer in Naginata than in Kendo.

Normally it is the Kendoka that get airborne but I am versatile

It is entirely possible that warning wasn't heeded as it was hidden in piles of other outlandish statements.

I need a faster focussing lens I think, I hate flash

Kendo does have certain advantages over Naginata but, crucially, Naginata people have generally played against Kendo before whereas the reverse is less common.

I run away

It was a trap

Also whilst one of the members of the Kendo club outranks me in Kendo I am much higher ranked in Naginata than I am in Kendo.

Hey Buddy

Look, Over here

Nah, Changed my mind, Other side!

Oh and of course I have a bit of a reputation as always being a touch on the chaotic side as well. However I didn't fall over which always counts as me being quite sane.

If I wasn't so generous (and graceful) a bitter person could accuse me of duplicitous behaviour in an egocentric display. Fortunately we are a lovely couple and so such accusations of from bitter husks of people.