I've been coaching two Scrum teams in Warsaw, Poland for the past couple of weeks. The weather has been, well, cold and wet for most of my stay but the people have been warm enough to more than balance out the equation.

I often find myself in interesting situations and strange little encounters as I travel abroad and Warsaw hasn't been an exception. For some reason, quite possibly a sense of chronic traveller's loneliness despite of my friendly hosts, I wanted to share some of those encounters.

Let's start with the German salesman.

If you've travelled in business you probably know how lonely travellers (also known as strangers) often strike up a conversation with another lonely traveller in the airport coffee shop, the hotel restaurant, and so forth. Well, I had just finished an excellent meal in a restaurant near the hotel and was starting to enjoy my non-Polish beer (they didn't have Polish beer--which was kind of strange) as a German gentleman sat down in the adjacent booth. As soon as he had ordered something, he asked me where I was from.

Apparently I didn't look local. Well, perhaps a better clue was that people rarely eat in such restaurants alone unless they're in town for business. Anyway.

It turns out that the German fellow was a salesman for a company that developed software for teachers and trainers. Their software (which was used "everywhere" according to the salesman...) was basically targeted at computer labs or remote, webcast type of training. It was basically a "Remote Desktop" style solution where the trainer could push his screen to the lab computers, observe from his screen what a specific lab team is doing on their computer, and temporarily give the floor to one of the lab computers for demonstrating their solution to a problem, for example. In short, it sounded like a pretty cool software that was absolutely useless for me.

What struck me as rather appalling was how he referred to the students in his descriptions of how their software is being used. For example, they're selling it to the universities where professors have to deal with "these 20 lousy guys" or the military academy teachers having to deal with "a bunch of lousy guys". It could've been just a language barrier but I couldn't help but think that he didn't hold much respect to students in general. I certainly hope that he didn't have educational background.

Ok, enough about the salesman and his software. The next encounter was a more entertaining one and took place because I forgot to pack something.

For certain personal reasons I packed for the Warsaw trip in a rather just-in-time manner, literally running around my apartment with pieces of clothing. It wasn't that far away from my usual routine, though, as I keep my carry-on sort of half-packed at all times with cosmetics, power adapters, etc. This time, however, I forgot to put the camera battery recharger back into the carry-on after use with the outcome of me flying to Warsaw with a camera having zero battery life.

The camera battery relates to this encounter through Artur, who kindly offered to drive me to a nearby shopping mall on his way home after work. Excited to get a chance at finding a battery recharger or a new battery for my camera, I gladly accepted the ride.

I had two goals for the trip to Arkadia, the shopping mall. First, solve my battery problem. Second, find me new pants. That second goal probably needs an explanation...

I have a favorite pair of jeans that are my "travel pants". They're loose enough to be comfortable, stylish enough to go for a casual work outfit, and--most importantly--they have big pockets. I like to carry stuff in my pockets. Lots of stuff. The only problem is that the travel pants are starting to show signs of wear.

Anyway. Back to the primary goal--the battery. After Artur dropped me off in the shopping center, I walked straight into Saturn, a huge super market for all things electricity. Showing great decisiveness, I headed to the digital camera section. Luckily, the Polish sign above the corridor included the word "foto" so I actually didn't have to look for it for too long. After scanning the walls for a while without success, I asked the staff whether they'd happen to have rechargers for my battery or whether they could sell me a new battery. Much to my delight, they did have a clone battery that fit my old Canon Ixus 55. Primary goal achieved!

By then, I had developed an additional goal--hunting for food--and it was quickly becoming the new primary goal. All the restaurants were, however, in the other end of the corridor with a bunch of promising clothing stores so I decided to suspend my hunger for a while and first look for a new pair of travel pants. Three shops later I was holding on to a pair, walking towards the cashier.

As I got closer to the cashier and made eye contact, she started talking jibberish to me (although I suspect it may have been Polish) so I resorted to the universal tourist response, "I'm sorry but I don't speak <language>". The girl behind the counter started talking to her colleague before I had finished the sentence, apparently trying to get someone else to service "the englishman". Her colleague seemed to reply something along the lines of, "C'mon, you can do it."

Without a single word and no eye contact, the cashier started scanning the bar code, clearly in distress. The poor girl's disaster continued growing as she tried to turn the computer screen towards me--so that I could see the same price that was printed on the price tag. Realizing that the screen couldn't be turned enough, she gave a sad puppy look to her colleague who caved in a came to rescue. While the original cashier was stuffing the pants into a plastic bag, her colleague was staring at the screen. Either she was trying to locate the price on the screen (unlikely) or she was trying to remember what she should say.

Finally, she managed to spell out the price for me and a total disaster had been prevented! Except that she was telling me the price of the trousers was roughly 10 times higher than what it said on the price tag. She was cute alright but certainly didn't major in the English language. Hundred. Thousand. Potato. Tomato. I couldn't help but smile as I handed over the credit card :)

On Friday, we went for a beer with one of the team members and a bunch of his friends. I was prepared for plenty of live translation taking place but it turned out that we managed quite well, only translating the occasional difficult word. Again, nice and friendly people and good fun, although I was a bit tired--until the brutal coldness of the weather woke me up on the way back to the hotel...

I had decided to take some time off from working on the manuscript over the weekend and actually step outside of the hotel for more than the mandatory nutrition. And so I did. I walked quite a while, effectively touring around the whole old city and getting a taste of the residential areas west from the old city and Uniwersytet Warszawski. Back at the hotel, I estimated from Google Maps that I had walked a round 12 kilometers in a bit over 2 hours. I walk fast. Even on snow...

Sunday passed by quite fast, working full steam on the manuscript. When the sound of my stomach got loud enough to distract me from work, I decided to head out for some chow. I ended up in a nice restaurant in the "new city" area and was pleasantly surprised by the waiter's excellent spoken English. I ordered a soup named Zurek and Stroganoff Kapitanski (or something like that). Both dishes were quite good but the absolute highlight was that the soup was served inside a whole bread. (Sorry. No photo of the soup, I'm afraid.)

As Monday morning arrived and I once again walked the same route to the client's office, I realized that my nose was running and I wasn't feeling as good as before. By Tuesday morning, I had developed temperature so I decided to stay in bed with my precious. Over time, I managed to regain my health and got back to work, pairing on a variety of tasks and running the occasional exercise. Later in the week, I also got to taste a bit of traditional Polish cuisine beyond what the downtown restaurants were billing as traditional. Thanks to Matteusz for taking me over to that folk-something place on Thursday :)

Even though I spent a lot of time typing away in my hotel room or blowing my nose, I had plenty of good times during those two weeks. I'm looking forward to going back to Warsaw. Perhaps when it's again warm and sunny ;)