1. It’s very cold in Poland.
2. It was snowing when I got there!
3. It’s quite normal to wear your hood up on your coat even when it’s not raining or snowing – this is good cos I always feel silly doing it in England.
4. There is some good Polish music, but the charts are a mixture of the best pop from Europe.
5. They are much less interested in American music than more Western European countries.
6. Lasgo, ATB, Lutricia McNeal and the Bomfunk MCs are still around!
7. Don’t expect to find the top 10 singles in the shops, but if you want Girl Thing or Point Break you’ll be fine.
8. The selection of restaurants and shops reflect the music, being a very multi-cultural affair.
9. However, Poland isn’t at all multi-cultural, with ethnic minorities being extremely rare.
10. One great song currently popular in Poland is the extremely catchy pop-rock song “Tired Of Being Sorry” by a Californian band I’d never heard of before, called Ringside.
11. Sadly all their other songs sound like U2.
12. The Internet is clearly still a novelty in Poland, as they have a band called Blog 27 whose album is called LOL.
13. Blog 27 have covered both Alexia’s Uh La La (in girl-rap style) and the Teddybear Sthlm single Hey Boy, with quite triumphant results.
14. Another fantastic song is Appetite by Iris, who are actually a rock band and not a female singer as their name suggests.
15. There are not a lot of music shops in Poland, and I only found one which sold only music, the other CD sellers being department stores and electrical shops.
16. Current CDs can cost anything between 25 and 70 Zlotys – £4.37 to £12.24, but in general are fairly cheap and most CDs can be found at least somewhere for about 35 Zlotys (£6.12).
17. All tastes are catered for in Poland with CD shops providing some quite obscure finds, such as both ATC albums (don’t worry, I didn’t buy them) and cassettes of Madasun and Made In London!
18. Magazines have great free gifts, such as the phone dangly thing that flashes red and green when you get a message. It’s an amazing piece of technology!
19. I didn’t see anyone who looked like the Internet’s resident Pole, Edward O.
20. They have loads of radio stations, Radio Eska and RMF Maxxx being the best ones.
Poland is great! You should all go there.