Polish phone numbers
All Polish phone numbers have changed from six to seven digits. If you are trying to reach a six digit number, stay on the line and the new number should be given in English after the Polish.
If the six digit number you are trying to reach starts with a 1 or 2, add a 4 to the beginning. If it starts with a 3, 4, or 5 add a 6. If it starts with a 6, 7, 81, 82, 83, 84 or 85, add a 2. If it starts with an 86, 87, 88 or 89, add a 3.
Perseus
Benvenuto Cellini’s superb bronze statue of Perseus has always been the most important piece of sculpture to be sheltered in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza Signoria. Sadly, he has been hidden away in the depths of the Uffizi gallery undergoing extensive restoration for three and a half years. Now, the life-sized statue, a mannerist masterpiece that took Cellini ten years to complete, is back in its rightful place under the Loggia for all to see whenever they wish.
On the Black Sea Coast
I spent the waning daylight hours in the fly-filled tea salon of the Gul Palas alternating between cups of tea and bottles of Pepsi while hammering out my copy for Let’s Go about Crete, where I had been less than 48 hours before. I was sitting under a poster of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Turkish Republic. The tea salon of the Gul Palas was filled with off-duty, still-uniformed prison guards. They asked me, “You like Ataturk?”
“Yes,” I replied and showed them a picture of Ataturk I kept in my wallet for just such sticky situations. Earlier that day I had been sitting in a dolmus packed with men women, children and chickens parked on the side of a narrow sloped road in north-central Anatolia. Next to me was a pharmacist named Mustafa after his nation’s founder. He was on his way to Ankara to obtain a permit to start his own apothecary in his home village. There was a young boy sitting on my lap whose name was also Mustafa. I didn’t like seeing him stuffed under a seat to make more room for the foreigner, so I offered my lap. A full-size luxury bus, destined for Istanbul, emerged over the hill and barreled down toward us doing about 110 kmph.
“Do you fear death?” asked Mustafa the elder.
“No,” I replied.
The bus missed our vehicle by a hair less than half a foot. It was one of the less exciting near misses that afternoon along the inland route from Amasra to Sinop; after all, our vehicle wasn’t even in motion at the time.
