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Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Lodz day 1………

After a long travel day (12 hours) yesterday i slept in till past 10, went downstairs for the hotel breakfast and then surfed online for half an hour. Phil and Laila arrived last night but not till late.

I got a message from Phil to say they were at the Brazilian steak house that Kevin and i  had gone to for dinner last night. Kevin was out getting breakfast in the town somewhere so i made my way down to the steakhouse to meet up with Phil. Phil's friend Ben and his wife had come out to Lodz to see the show too and i hadn't seen Ben since the Houston show in 2009,  over 10 years ago! He hadn't changed a bit, however he said i had and that i looked really well

I called Kevin and told him where we all were and he joined us 10 minutes later. Phil had been to an ice cream store earlier in the day and said they had had the most amazing desserts. As most people reading my blog can gather, I'm a sucker for desserts and have a big sweet tooth. We headed down there after Phil and co had finished eating.

I've never seen ice creams as big, they were huge. I ordered one that had a lot of fruit in it just to keep it healthy (or so i kept telling myself so)

Ben, Kevin, Bens wife, Laila, Phil      My dessert                                      Phil's dessert

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As you can see from the pictures above they were pretty big! the biggest one on the menu came in at just under 4lb in weight!!

As we walked to the ice cream store we saw there were a lot of rickshaws in the town, i guess its an easy and cheap way for people to get around as the whole town revolves around one long street that id guess must be at least a mile in length. Kevin and i decided that was the only way to travel to the venue tonight and asked one of the drivers how much it would be to the Atlas Arena. Forty zlottys was his reply, that's about 5 Euros or £4 in real money! Kevin and i headed back to our hotel as did Phil and Laila and we said we would meet up at the venue in an hour or so.

By the time we had walked back to the hotel we had some time to freshen up, check out a few things online and then head back to the main street to get the rickshaw. I suggested we asked another guy how much he would charge just in case the other guy was trying to pull a fast one and over charging us. Three guys looked at us spoke in Polish for a few minutes, again looked us up and down and said One Hundred and Twenty zlottys!  We walked back down the street till we found the first guy and jumped in his rickshaw.

Kevin in the rickshaw                                   Kevin and i arrive at the venue                       Our ride for the night

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It was certainly an experience! within half a mile i swear the guy started to slow down and was getting tired. The venue was about 2.5 miles away and whilst I'm not sure that they get requests to ride that far all the time, surely Kevin and i weren't THAT heavy that he wasn't used to cycling with two guys our size on his rickshaw!

Rickshaw ride to the venue

We soon discovered a few things about the rickshaws, Red lights mean nothing to the drivers, you get exhaust fumes from the cars in front in your face! and the cobbled streets don't make for too smooth a ride!! I'm certainly up for doing it again tonight though for sure, wonder if i can persuade Dave K to come on it with me! lol.

I think we were the only ones  to arrive by our means of transport and we certainly go some looks!  I joked with Kevin that tomorrow when i fly back home from Warsaw i should get in the rickshaw point outwards and saw “Warsaw Airport as quick as you can” and watch his face. Warsaw airport is about 90 miles away!! The real funny thing is the taxi on the way home from the show  in slow moving traffic was only 18 Zlottys! cheaper than the rickshaw

G E Smith and myself pre show                          The Venue

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Full album from Lodz day 1

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