Over 9000 in the market!

Going to the market is always a funny thing to do when you're a Spaniard in Poland, or at least when you speak Spanish. The names of the products will never stop surprising me... [1], [2], [3].

For example, here we have the concetrated tomato sauce Madero... to keep the public order under control!

Saquen loh papele der coshe y la documentasiónnn

But the best, in my honest opinion, is this one. Prince of the strongest race of warriors in the whole universe.

Vegeta! What does the scouter say about his power level!?

All this stuff is giving me great ideas for a super dinner!

Always late

How is it possible? is it destiny?
Every single day I go to my lessons, I'm late. Like 10 minutes.
Science has taught me to run experiments and so did I. The first days I was late, I ran out of the house with only 30 minutes left. The metro takes 16 minutes to Centrum and the bus takes 10. Plus the 5 it takes to get to the metro from my place. That makes 31 minutes. Just 1 minute late.

So I thought: okay, let's leave the house with 45 minutes. Results?
10 minutes late. Why? because the metro isn't working or the bus won't come because of a traffic jam.

So yesterday I wanted to push it to the limit. 1 hour to make it! but what happened this time?
I spent 20 minutes stuck in the bus in Nowy Świat and Krakowskie Przedmiescie, in front of University, unable to leave because we weren't in the bus stop. THAT SUCKS! seeing my classroom from the bus, being in front of the building and being stuck there knowing for some fucking reason I'd be late ONCE AGAIN.

FUCKING WHYYYYYY!

It's destiny! IT'S MY DESTINY!

So I gave up.
I will just go to the lessons whenever I feel like it. If I'm late, then I'm late. And if I'm on time, then fuck yeah.

Optimus Prime is here!

All our worries are gone, for HE has come.
Take that, Decepticons!

Autobot in disgise.

Just kidding. It's the garbage collection service.

Erasmus Life - when your parents mail you stuff

When you're abroad for a very long time and your parents are worried, they usually send you typical products from your homeland. In my case olive oil, chorizo, cecina, cheese... all of them great food that I was missing already (and they're sooo good).

But the problem comes when they decide to send you clothes aswell. Maybe because they remember you bigger, or maybe smaller. In my case they must remember me quite bigger than how I am, as the size of all the clothes is quite too large (plus I'm loosing weight).

But that's not a problem, considering the cold temperatures. The bigger, the better, right?. And one wonders: what else can go wrong?

Assman, the hero this city deserves, because he can take it.

This can go wrong, When they decide to send you clothes and they don't look at the sooo important details.
Now I have to divide my clothes in two parts: the ones I can wear normally and those that I can only wear when I'm sure that under no circumstances I will end up in the emergency section of the hospital. Why? because I don't wanna die while everyone's laughing at my underwear.

R.I.P.

He died because the doctors couldn't save him.

They were too busy laughing.

The end is nigh!

Even though I tried to take a picture of him with my cellphone, I couldn't. He was too close and he could have seen me doing it. But if I ever have another chance, I will do it for sure.
However, it was a sign. The end is near.
How can I know it? because he was the fucking William "Bill" Overbeck from Left4Dead, which means the Zombie Apocalypse is coming...

This is how you lit a cigarrete when you're Bill the untouchable. Or was he? LOL sorry for the spoiler. Peace.

So it was nice to meet you all, fellas. I'll start thinking of possible places to hide when the time comes. Aswell as different ways to protect myself and take part in this kill-frenzy.

For all the yellow-limbed dudes yet to meet: Gouranga!

P.s.: this video is a MUST:

Street musicians in Centrum

Some of the people I see every single day, since I always go to Centrum by metro, are those street musicians asking for money (I wonder if they'll stay there when it snows).

I must say that the first day was cool. I mean, you see a guy playing music with a chair and he has some kind of rythm, so it's original and okay. But after a couple of days, and specially when you're going back home after a long day with a precious headache... then you stop seeing it as something original and you'd wish them a slow and painful death. It reminds me of this guy playing the violin every single morning in Nuevos Ministerios, in Madrid, who would NEVER play anything more than Pachelbel Canon (there's even a group on facebook so he changes the songs!). I completely understand the guy from the video...

Now you're infected by the Pachelbel Canon Syndrome too! how cool is that? :_D

At least that guy knows how to play the violin, no matter how much I hated him and hoped with all my heart that he fell downstairs and broke his fingers so my agony stops.

But these guys in Centrum are a whole completely different story.

The guy who should be here is an expert on the art of playing the Chair.

 Listening to this guy every morning is like if someone woke you up with a kick in the balls.
The only good musicians in this place are a band of old men who sell their albums and they're quite good, but sadly I always keep the earphones on to avoid the rest of the noise. Usually next to them there's an old man playing the harmonica. I like to call him Johnny Crash. ¿The bad thing about it?, he plays ALWAYS the same riff again and again, and this riff is just three notes.

The Headachal Brothers Live @ Centrum

But the special award goes to The Headachal Brothers and their greatest hit "Badum tss", which is repeated again and again until you just throw up and beg for the euthanasia.

Independence and riots

Yesterday, 11-11-11, was the big day in Poland, commemorating the Independence of Poland (Narodowe Święto Niepodległości). You could see lots of people in the streets bringing Polish flags and going to Plac Defilad, in the center of the city. And the atmosphere here was kinda positive.

For some reason that I still don't know, the riots begann.

Riot Starter - Foto by Adrian Nikolov

It's a pity when a celebration turns into a riot for no reason (or was there a reason?).

The News - Zadymy z Warszawie Święto Niepodległości - Teleexpress:

More info on:
- The Warsaw Voice.
- Independence Day Riots in Warsaw - Krakow Post.
- Warsaw counts the cost after Independence Day riots - The News.pl
- Many arrested in Warsaw clashes are foreigners - msnbc.com

Walking around Centrum

One of the things I love from Warsaw is precisely the feelings while walking around, no matter where I go. The cold weather (cold for me, as I always say) is just perfect, mixed with the clouds at night and the red bright sky everywhere. The good thing is that wherever you go, you can always find a new place with a huge painting on the wall, or end up at some corner finding a new kotwica with some explanation of what happened there during the war.

The last thing I'd have expected to see while looking for a bathroom in Stare Miasto was this:

Escalators!

And one of the places I wanted to see, because I love it, is this post-apocalyptic-like building in Świętokrzyska:

It's totally a Wastelands' building, you know.

For some reason, everytime I can go to this place it's already night, so the pictures are never that good. However, this one looks particularly cool (in my opinion, not that I'm a good photographer, cos I have no idea about it). It'd be cool to visit it from the inside, but I'm afraid I'd be expecting super mutants everywhere the whole time! and going in without The Ink Spots would be a sin.

...how could it be expected?

Remember the last post? but of course!: Nobody expects the Spanish Revolution!
I wrote about this poster I saw in the street on my way to Łazienki, and I was so happy that people could see what happened in Madrid directly from those who experienced it... so I went to see this gallery today, expecting pictures, videos, some explanation. Something...

Surprise! Gallery is just the name of the place, which was a big empty room full of chairs where the only thing to do was watching a home-made crappy video made by some gutter punks in Paris, who spent their time protesting in empty parks and eating from what they found in the garbage. Plus, the video was half in Spanish and half in French, without subtitles, for Polish people (LOL?).

So why "Spanish Revolution"? when it's a bunch of punks behaving like damn hobos in France?
Thanks, assholes, for wasting two precious hours of my life. There are thousands of more interesting things to talk about than your holidays. Things that many people would like to know, instead of how you paint your face and play the fucking flute.

P.s.: that kind of people is the one giving everyone else a bad image. Those gutter punks are precisely the ones making it look stupid and hippie. If it wasn't because of them, everything would probably be a bit different. For good.

Nobody Expects the Spanish Revolution!

The least I could feel when I saw this poster in the street was happiness. Seeing that even when the media stinks (like everywhere, because the stench is international!), people here are in touch, and that's amazing, cos it shows how people really are, how they really care. And no matter how they try to divide us through the rotten media and all that political bullshit, we are and we will always be the people.

But now they can... expect us! ;)

It's not the only poster I've seen, as there're also those, well known, yellow ones about ¡Democracia Real, Ya! (I'll take a pic if I have the chance, but I could only see them from the bus) [Pic taken]. Let's see how the thing goes, since it won't be the first time.

Real Revolution Now! at the Main Gate of University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście. October 15th 2011.

P.d.: Here the promised picture!

The menace approaches!

I just saw this advert and I'm not sure if it's the same Telecinco as we have in Spain and Italy, but if it is, then it can only mean one thing: the cancer is spreading.

Polacy! you're still on time to stop the cancer that's killing TV.

The small differences

Surprised again with Polish people, their politeness and their empathy, I feel forced to compare some situations with their Spanish version.

The other night, while coming back to Warsaw by train, I had a "small" conversation with the inspectors.

As far as I knew, I had a 50% discount in my train tickets because I have a student card, but the problem is that it's only applied until you're 26 years old and... I'm 27. So the inspectors tried to explain me the problem: instead of paying 18zl I had to pay 51zl, because not only the discount can't be applied, but I'm neither young anymore. And I didn't know it! (that the discount only applies until you're 26, of course).

So after a few minutes telling them that, yeah, I'm 27, and hearing them saying that, yeah, I was born in 1984, I tried to explain them how the discount was always applied and the other inspectors never said anything about it. I think I understood something like: "because they didn't see your age". After that they just told me to relax, since I was sweating trying to use the few words I know to communicate, and they told me everything was okay, but to remember that the discount was not valid anymore.

After they left I remembered how it would have been in Spain, according to my experiences. And I remembered the last time I saw inspectors in the Cercanías, going to Madrid.
While they were asking everyone for the tickets, they told a 15 years old girl, who was alone, that her ticket wasn't validated. Everything would be okay till this point, unless we knew that in our station there is NO validator, has never been a validator and there's no information concerning the validation of train tickets.
So the inspectors, instead of explaining her the situation, told her she had to pay a 100€ fine, and they didn't change their minds even if the girl started crying, saying she had no money, and the people around also said there isn't and has never been a validator in our station.

Small differences that show you the politeness and empathy of some people and the huge amount of prickness of some others.

P.s.: I kinda TAKE THAT BACK.