Friday, December 02, 2005

The wanderer returns

So I have made it back from Poland. It was a good time away and my speech seemed to be well received. This might in part be because I was the only person who provided the translators with my speech in advance, so that they were able to prepare. Given that most of the audience was Polish, mine was probably the talk that most people could understand. So the audeince seeming to appreciate it might mean nothing more than that they couldn’t understand other people!

It was quite cold over there but bearable, and people were very hospitable. A few observations:
- An awful lot of middle aged men have moustaches.
- People wear wedding rings on the other hand than we do in the UK.
- I don’t know if it is a Polish thing specifically, but on the flight there and back to the UK, the Polish passengers had undone their seatbelts and stood up as soon as we touched down and were still taxiing to the gate. On the way home today, the stewardess had to very sharply tell someone to sit down because the plane was still moving. Maybe they are less safety conscious.

Anyway, it was a good trip. I ate some nice food, my speech went well and I even got some gifts for speaking. Now I am back in the UK and it’s probably time to start thinking about Christmas, as we have finally made it to December.

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