Coach Trip

Look behind me triumphantly at Tom. My ticket says number 24 on it and the hot Japanese girl he had been talking about is sitting by the window in seat number 23. After finding out that she is in-fact Chinese, and a dissident of the Communist party with a thirty-six year old boyfriend studying a PhD in Manchester I still don’t know her name, and it is too late to ask. Coach Trip Tip: Whenever you meet somebody ask for his or her name, as to avoid awkwardness later on in your friendship. She feeds me chocolate cookies and at every five-minute stop Tom feeds me a ‘Glamour’ wafer-thin cigarette. Dan is taking pictures of Lithuanian graffiti.

Crossing the border, two armed-guards carry out a passport check. They examine the Latvians’, glance at the front cover of the English and Germans’ and steal the Chinese girl’s passport. Coach Trip Tip: Be White-British or expect the worst. Villinuis looks like a mixture of mainland Greece and Grand Theft Auto Vice City - the latter mostly because of the brilliant blue sky and wide roads. Eastern Poland gives the impression of post-apocalyptic ruralism, with sparse washed-out farmyard scenes and a distinct lack of lusciousness in the landscape. Warsaw is a city. It has McDonalds and infrastructure.

The Polish girl in the service station speaks no English. I have no Polish Zloty. She doesn’t accept Card. She will also not accept; English Pounds; European Euros; Latvian Lats; Casino chips; or my library card. I eat the last of my sausage, crisp and bread, dry-mouth inducing sandwiches and sit uncomfortably feeling sorry for myself for about five hours, falling in-and-out-of sleep every time the bus driver attempts a five lorry overtake, approaching the brow of a hill, in which case he is forced through instinct to break heavily in order avoid the imminent death of all on board and a hefty insurance bill to be footed by the coach company. Coach Trip Tip: Do not get caught in the repercussions of an Icelandic volcano’s ash-cloud, it could cost you a twenty-hour coach trip and possibly your life.

Western Poland looks like a forest of trees with intervals of Motels, surprisingly offering prices in Euros. By the time we get to Germany, approaching Berlin, everybody is stressed to the extent that middle-aged women are sweating in the vein of masturbating adolescent boys, but with the pungent scent of a midsummer’s daytrip on the London Underground. The air on the bus is stale and the mood is of outrage as a women attempts to collect money for the complimentary teas and coffees that she had tricked us into drinking. On a small television screen with tinny speakers, Indiana Jones with Latvian dubbing has finished playing. Getting off the bus feels like you’re graduating from school, receiving your bag mimics the receiving of certificates and saying farewell to the passengers reminds of the people in your form group that you just never want to see again. Coach Trip Tip: Proximity to fat German slobs, who steal your sausages while you’re asleep and tell you to turn your music down even when it is Belle and Sebastian and it is soothing, do not do the country justice.