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RE: The Railway Diaries | photo series
Nice poetic flow to your recollections of train travel in Poland @postcardsfromlbn. I spent a few weeks travelling through Poland in 1994 and had some interesting adventures too :-D. Another country with a fascinating railway culture is India!
Thanks for a very enjoyable read. The quality of translation is excellent btw.
Thanks, much appreciated :) I have no doubt travelling by PKP in 1994 had been an adventure. And I was born that year, by the way.
LOL, I blogged about it if you're interested :D. Parts 1, 2, 3 and 9 are of Poland, September 1994.
Really good series, man. I'm currently reading it and probably will read whole Diary Travelogues eventually. Shame you don't have any photos, but my imagination will do :)
I have a few notes/observations. It's interesting to read how 90's Poland was difficult for foreign tourists. Scams by controllers, etc. Much have changed over the years - I have a feeling that nowadays tourists, foreign students are much, much more sheltered. It's not a bad thing, we have standards as any civilized country. But it pisses me off (mildly, but still), when foreign students, especially Saudi, pass everything while they lounge (what's the cause? - money).
About that "ticket for your luggage" thing, I've seen stickers in Lviv's trams saying that you have to buy second ticket if you have large luggage.
It was really nice to read your experiences from Poland at this time, I have only vague memories from my travels with parents in late 90's, and these were surely interesting times, times of change. Cheers!
Hey nice one and thanks for going over and reading the posts :D
As for the scams, well it's to be expected and I recognise that in my diary, although unpleasant to be at the receiving end! The time I was in Poland in 1994 was special - the first few years after opening up, when everything was in a state of upheaval.
I have great regard for Poland and Polish people - history has been tough on Poland, repeatedly attacked on all sides through the ages. No wonder there is a hard skin to the Polish character! Also the Polish language I have heard is one of the most difficult to learn - with a vocabulary 1.5 times the size of English and very few foreign import words. Says a lot!
Never made it to Lublin though (that's the 'LBN' part of your name no?).
🚣
I'm glad to hear about your opinion on Poles :) I don't know if Polish is the most difficult to learn, it's one of the most difficult languages for sure. We have quite a few words with foreign etymology - German and Russian mostly.
And yes, I'm from Lublin. The city has very interesting history. If you would be in Poland again, you should visit. If not, I'm often writing about my city ;)
Agree there are harder languages to learn than Polish :D. Guess I was thinking about the general nature of the Polish people as it would've evolved through history - given the geographic location, always in the middle of events which are not of their own making, hit from East and West, lots of adversity! Therefore a hard outer shell and a certain insularity. But with a sensitive, self-reliant, sophisticated and intelligent interior.....such anyway is my impression. This impression is more recently formed, largely as a result of an utterly amazing Polish flatmate and what I learnt from and about her 🌝 !
I would've passed within 50-100km of Lublin on the train from Warsaw to Brest in 94. I'll look out for your 'postcards' 🔆