Departure for home

 Dzień dobry. ‘Good morning’ in Polish.

We had a great night’s sleep.

The view from our hotel room of the Palace of Culture and Science, Stalin’s ‘gift’ (?!) to the city. We had received an upgrade because the hotel had stuffed up the billing the first time we stayed here back on 16 May when they charged the holding deposit to our credit card rather than simply put it on the card as a pre-authorisation.

We treat ourselves to the hotel breakfast which is very good - it includes glasses of Prosecco! (We paid 5 PLN for a glass of this when we had breakfast out at Bułkę Przez Bibułkę when we arrived here back in mid-May! That is, $A1.92!). Very classy last act. It is good we don’t have to go out and can just reeee-lax.

Not looking forward to returning to the cold weather and short days ...

Complete stuff-up getting tickets at main railway station to airport. Have to be grateful this was the only time this trip and hopefully it will not turn out to be super critical. Plane departs at 3 p.m. and we won’t get to airport until 12:30 p.m.; could not find ANYWHERE to buy the tickets. The machines did not sell them and the queues were miles long. You buy them from the kiosk (= newsagent) ... Arghh!

They also have this crazy system here in Poland where they have (e.g.) Platform 4 but then it has two Track numbers so you have to be very alert; not helped by the fact that the ‘indicator’ board on what we hope is the correct platform on which we are waiting,  shows nothing, zip, zero. This is the ‘Main’ station!!!

Watched a surprisingly good movie on the leg to Dubai: The Wife. Surprising because the way the story was going it looked like being a cliche despite the very good actors: Glenn Close, Jonathon Pryce and Christian Slater (the reason for choosing it); but it had a surprising twist and was very moving, and of course very well acted. And Sissy Spacek and Robert Redford are great in The Old Man and the Gun.

On the second leg after a couple of hours transfer in Dubai, MF alerted me to a film based on the 1998 book The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester (I can’t believe it is that long ago that I read this book!). The film is new (2019) and I didn’t know it had been made. It stars Sean Penn who I think is an excellent actor and Mel Gibson who I don’t like as a person but who I have to say is very, very good in this film, The Professor and the Madman. It is a brilliant film; can’t say I have seen such a good film in years. See it if you can.