…almost definitely a Polish superstar

I don’t have any pictures to illustrate what I’m talking about in this post, so you’ll have to just trust everything I say and use your imagination to best understand what I’m trying to describe. It might not be easy.

The story begins about a minute before it ends, but I’ll take you back a few days anyway, back to my time in Gdansk.

While I was there I noticed something unusual, but not necessarily so interesting that I have to tell the whole world about, the public stairs there. Almost every set had two ramps running the entire length of them. At first I thought maybe a lot of people cycle so there’s a one up, one down system. Certainly come people used it for this. Later on I saw someone using these ramps, spaced maybe a foot apart, to take their pram up the stairs. This made a lot more sense.

Now forward to Warsaw. To get to my guesthouse I had to cross under a massive street. Because I’m such an interesting fella I noticed straight away that the stairs down only had one narrow ramp, obviously a cyclist would be okay but any mothers (or fathers) would have a hard time trying to go up or down the stairs with a pram or buggy or whatever they put small kids in in Poland.

As I made my way through the underground maze to where I presumed I was meant to be, what should I see? A lady struggling to pull her pram up the stairs. I do the noble thing and offer to lift the bottom end so she isn’t constantly bumping her little one.

At the top she thanks me and I say something suitable fitting for my heroic deed, something like ‘no worries.’  take my leave in order to find my accommodation but after just a few steps I feel someone grab at my arm. It’s that woman again. Does she want my number? Want to thank me in a more intimate setting? Probably, but instead she turns and points to a group of men at the top of the stairs. Men with fancy TV cameras.

I’m not sure what’s happening — is this some sort of weird reality skit show that I’ve completely misunderstood and probably messed up? You know what Polish humour is like.

One of the TV men comes over to me, says something in gibberish then, after my admirer says something in gibberish to him, he tries to tell me something in English, with little success. ‘Wait, wait’.

One of his friends comes over and for a good minute or so they speak in nonsense tongues in front of me, pretending they actually understand what the other is saying. Presumably this is part of the show.

I turn to the leading actress who tells me they’re shooting a commercial (this is Warsaw, what else would they be doing?) and that’s all she says. I ask if I’ve messed up their shoot or something. She says ‘no, no’ and walks off. Maybe she’s not involved either.

I wait for the two friends to finish their conversation and in the end the one who half speaks English tells me it’s okay, I can go.

I have no idea what really happened, but this is probably how their conversation went:

A: That was an amazing shoot, I can’t believe he’s such a nice guy. And isn’t he that cool guy from that Girls Aloud DVD we love? We should definitely use it in our ad.
B: But then we’d probably need to pay him and we’d have to get him to sign some crazy contract that he can’t read, we’d need to get a lawyer in and it’d just be such a hassle.
A: He’ll probably never watch Polish TV, why don’t we just use the footage anyway?
B: It’s okay, you can go.

So if anyone happens to watch Polish TV and has seen a man helping a woman carry a pram up some stairs, somewhere near the main square, let me know!

Filed under: europe, life, poland, tv star, warsaw