Homecoming Part 2

Now that I've had a decent night's sleep, a few more cups of tea and some scraps that I found in my top draw to smoke, I'm definitely feeling in a better state to write about the last few days.

In a last effort ditch to get my hands on as much Polish money as I could before I left, I foolishly organised a conversation on Monday morning. My last day in the country. I arose at 6.45am to head into town when I was met by the clusterfuck that is Warsaw's public transport system. The Metro wasn't running properly between two stations, one alternative to squeezing into a train was to squeeze onto a tram, the other was to wait for non-existent replacement buses. They're not too great at organisation over there. Anyhoo, it fucked up my being able to get to the lesson at all thing. That'll teach me for being a money grabbing capitalist whore.

Approximately 23¾ hours without any sleep later I took off from Warsaw. Somewhere over Europe I got my eyes shut for all of half an hour. The day continued as I landed in Luton and got a bus to London, where my eyes dipped up and down for another 30 minutes. From there, with my eyes looking similar to how they would after an evening smoking with the Wu Tang Clan, I caught the train to Newquay. During this trip I again snuck in a sneaky 30 or 40 minutes shut eye. Not proper sleep, just traveling kip, where the slightest nudge stirs the senses into bewilderment.

The change at Par allowed me to get in a cigarette, to which I received a telling off from a First Great Western employee. On the train I met a chap who was going to Newquay from Falmouth. In a rather non English way, we started up quite a conversation that included loads of things that I actually know about. Teaching English abroad, Falmouth, traveling around Australia, Newquay, blogging. It's quite handy when you have a full round of ammunition for a chat. Not just crap you know, but crap that you're really interested in. Nice one Will. His blog Alternative Current isn't bad either.

At around 5.00 we got into town. Within minutes of arriving I realised not a lot had changed. Abandoned and half completed building sites everywhere, my folks complaining about it and numerous other injustices in the world, my house that is colder in an unseasonably warm March day than my digs in Warsaw on a seasonably cold (-25°c) winter's day. Boy, it's good to be back.

As it was St Patrick's Day, I wasn't going to let 38 hours without sleep stop me from catching up with some friends and having a few pints. The few pints turned into 6 or 7 - my tiredness got in the way of drinking more, but didn't stop me from playing a few tunes at the open mic. Back five minutes and I'm pissed, playing someone else's songs in front of a pub full of people. I've got to work on these bad habits. By that I mean the someone else's songs thing.

Just after 3.00am I finally got myself horizontal and out of the 44¼ hours of consciousness that started two days earlier. For a trip that only took 11 hours of actual traveling, that was a bloody long day.