Sunday we got up reasonably early and tidied ourselves up to go to church. We’d found the Warsaw International Church and decided to check it out. The majority of the country is Catholic so it was going to be tricky to find something vaguely familiar.

We caught the bus and got there just on the start time. That’s when it started to get difficult. There was a ramp down to the front of the building. At the top of the ramp there were two gates. The wide gate had steps and the narrow gate had the ramp. The Bible says we should enter by the narrow gate. The only problem was, the gate was locked.

Ferg went through the wide gate (you theologians can figure that out for yourselves) and discovered that:
(a) The church service was being held on the second floor
(b) There was a lift in the building
(c) The pastor didn’t have a key for the gate or the electronic pass to operate the lift.

I tried going in the back way (as usual for us in wheelchairs that’s often the only option) but although I could get to the back door there were several steps to get inside and there was no way I was going to be able to get up to the second floor. The pastor made a couple of phone calls but nobody knew where the keys were. He apologised and suggested another protestant church but we had already missed the start of that service so we headed off to attend the free Chopin concert in the park instead.

It was nice and relaxing. Somehow they cart a grand piano out and set it up beside the Chopin memorial statue in the big park where we walked with Anna. There were hundreds of people there, enjoying a really skilful pianist playing some of Chopin’s work. Later Ferg told me that he had SMSed his family to tell them what we were doing. Apparently his kids asked if he was at a rock concert! I reckon much of Chopin’s music would have been the equivalent of rock music back then. Ferg said the Scherzos are very loud.

We wandered around and grabbed some food. I needed to go to the toilet so I tried out my written Polish using Aaron (my AAC device) to ask the waitress where the toilets for wheelchairs were. She knew what I meant but there wasn’t anything available. We went to meet Margaret for a coffee and Ferg was further introduced to some of the complexities of getting in and out of a small toilet. It was a staff toilet about the size of a cupboard. After exchanging a few frustrated comments, we made it without incident.

That evening we had planned to have a quiet beer with Aussie Dom on the banks of the river after he knocked off work but he piked out because he had driven to work that day.