There's a trend emerging here, I think. I DO actually like it here, cabbage juice and soviet architecture notwithstanding. My brothers coming soon, from France, and we'll sample some chocolate beer on the main square and eat zurek and pigdeons and do the whole polish thing. And I'll write about it, and it'll be ecstatically, orgasmically happy and endearing towards Poland. Something positive and cheerful coming soon!

soviet beauty

Could these be the ugliest apartment blocks in Poland? They're located in south Wroclaw, and obviously date to the soviet era. You have to wonder whether the designers were driven by strictly utilitarian principles to erect such monuments to ugliness, or whether soviet architecture was deliberately styled to invoke despair. There are several more of these buildings nearby, an unholy family of them. We went up in one when we were looking for a place. The lift had a cardboard door, and made a strange keening sound as it lurched disconsolately between floors, as if a cat was slowly being electrocuted to death on the roof. The room was spartan and souless; a young muscly guy with a gym bag was vacating it. It wasn't cheap either. It had one big thing in its favour, though, a great pizza place somewhere in those shops at the bottom.