Cycling

It's still a cold February, but I swear that a few days ago I could smell Spring in the air - so I cleaned the dust off my bicycle, and promised myself to ride it to work every day from now on.

So I thought I might post something about biking in Lodz. Saying that Lodz is a bicycle-friendly city would be a serious overstatement - especially in the dense city center - however things are beginning to change. Not only there are lots of people using this two-wheeled, muscle-propelled vehicle, (riding their bikes with style, depicted on Lodz Cycle Chic photoblog) , but there are also a few NGOs fighting their way through the hard heads of City Office clerks to improve the quality and quantity of bike lanes in the city.
And let us not forget about the popular transport on the main Piotrkowska street - the rickshaws! Fearless rickshawmen ride up and down the street even in the worst weather conditions. There's even a nice catchy song about them - "Lodzer Rickshaw Man" by Ziemowit Kosmowski sung in English.


Finally, the city is planning to introduce city bikes that you can rent in numerous stations located all over the city - a great idea for tourists who like to do some sightseeing on two wheels.

Oh, I forgot - I had to break my own promise, winter struck back, and I'm not such a cycling fanatic to ride a bike in a blizzard.

Geography

As today I'm on my way to the capital city of Warsaw, I thought it might be good to kill one and a half hour of train ride by composing a new post on my shiny new blog. For all those who thought Poland is all about polar bears, wooden huts, dense forests and vodka here's the news for you - as any other Central-European country we have trains, laptops and mobile Internet, so we can spam the InterSpace almost anytime and anywhere we want.

As you might probably have guessed, I expect the readers of this blog to be foreign (non-Polish) and planning to visit Poland, hence the basic important information stuff.

Did I write the word: "Warsaw"? Well, this blog is about Łódź, so I will not say anything more about that other city, other than that Łódź is located some 130km south-west of the capital, which means that on maps issued outside of Australia Łódź can be found to the lower left of Warsaw (If you haven't bothered to take a look at a map yet then here's a shortcut.). It takes about 1,5h to get here by train and about 2h or more if you use a car and don't get confused by the ridiculous road network that joins the two cities.

If you get here by train, you'll most probably end up here:

Take a good look at this old station building, because it might be the last time you'll be seeing it! The area around the station is destined to be the New City Centre and is soon supposed to turn into a big hole in the ground. What will happen to the old station? It will be either turned into rubble and replaced with something new and shiny or, if the Forces of Good prevail, saved and restored.

Don't forget that Łódź has its own international airport, so if you're lucky to find yourself in one of the destinations Łódź has a direct regular connection with, getting here will be easy.

First post thingy

Okay, so I made a few clicks and whoo - a new blog pops out in the infinite abyss of the InterWeb.
I wonder if the people who made the Net so accessible and easy to use ever feel the weight of what they've done. Everybody is equal! The ultimate democracy! My word can be as important and easy to find as the word of a real journalist or a 12-year old fan of ninja turtles. What? There are no adolescent ninja turtles fans nowadays? Anyway, it took me about ten minutes to write these few sentences which just have wasted a few seconds of your life. I'm not good at writing. nevertheless I've decided to waste a few bytes of the InterThing with this blog, which, to avoid humiliating myself too much, will hopefully consist mostly of photos. Photos of the city I live in, the city of Łódź.

Yay, I finally got to the point. This blog is dedicated to anybody who knows nothing, or very little about Łódź or wants to forget what he/she's been told about it. There might be some practical info here, but more often there won't. Mostly I plan just to ramble about things that get into my attention during my every day life here. Things concerning this city of course. The city of Łódź. The city of Łódź. Yes, I'll say it again, folks - the city of Łódź.

And, hopefuly, this is not the last post of this blog.