no passport stamp going to poland - grrr

to me, poland is a land of sadness. i have never met anyone from poland who is a genuinely happy. i imagined poland to be the sort of place where men wearing suspenders walk in the ditch next to the train tracks, people's clothes look like they're secondhand or from the 80s and cars are abandoned by the side of the road. so far, all of my preconceived notions seem to be true.

as i write this, i am on a train from berlin to warsaw for the weekend. i pulled out my laptop when everyone in my cabin was awake - it seemed more polite than typing while people were asleep. [these trains are not like the trains from Boston to NY that are set up like a plane - 2 seats, an aisle and then 2 seats. these have little cabins full of 6 seats - 3 on each side, so you're pretty much staring at everyone in your cabin. it's great when you're traveling with friends, but when you're alone, it can be awkward.] as soon as i pulled out my computer, two guys across from me got up and went to use their cells in the hallway. i hope this is not because i took out my computer and rather a mere coincidence. to me, laptop work is a natural companion to train travel. am i alone with this thought??

i think i have seen a few polish movies and the one that is most memorable to me is actually quite horrible. it's about a boy who kills. and it's not murder - it's less passionate. he starts off by finding people's cats, killing them and then hanging them in front of the owner's house. his joy escalates until he takes a cab from the city center to the middle of nowhere, all the while sitting in the back laughing to himself because he knows whats going to happen and the cabbie doesn't. when the cab driver asks for the money, he kills him (i can't remember how), takes his body, wraps it in a blanket and pushes it down a ravine. or maybe the cabbie wasn't fully dead. it was horrible and i have seen a lot of horrible movies and read about horrible people. just found it in my netflix rental activity: a short film about killing (1988). maybe i'll review it on my soon-to-be movie review blog [mental note: start movie review blog i keep talking about].

in any case, i'm looking forward to seeing what poland has to offer...