Makro and Motocykli

This weekend we went to the Motocykl Expo here in Warsaw (Dylan rides, I don’t…but if he gets me the helmet with the dragon on it – maybe;).

It’s interesting to see the people who come to this. Some are hardcore bikers – they look like the stereotypical bikers in the States (the one man with the long hair and lace up leather pants was SO sexy!). MOST of them are like Dylan and our friends, Paco and Ana - whom we met there - just normal people who are there to check out the bikes and the accessories that pack the hall full. And because motorcycling is quite prevalent in Europe, they’re really just the people who actually ride for transport. And then there are the ones I found so interesting. The very professional looking men (many of whom looked like my children’s doctor) who are there with their teenage sons and are out and about taking pictures of their sons with the scantily clad models – apparently this is something that Poles use to annoy their mothers as well. We happened to be next to a teenage boy who was shouting across the hall to his mother in Polish “Mom, you HAVE to look at this!” To which she looks to see he has had a photo taken of himself with the EXTREMELY scantily clad Suzuki girls, posing provocatively on the bike with him. She just sighed, like any mom would and went back to shopping for HER motorcycle jacket.

Here's a few pics. I didn't take my camera so I just got some taken with my phone camera. I left my camera charger in Houston so I'm not taking as many pics right now.

This last one is a terrible picture, but if you notice, the bike that Blaise is on has flames on it. We always take pictures of him with things that have flames, because we're just too odd. We figure that when he's a teenager he's going to demand that everyone call him "Drew" (For clarification, Andrew is his middle name).

Anyway, the professional men cracked me up. Because you would see them diligently taking photos of their sons and then later you would see them on the BIGGEST bike, the American Harley style bike (Harley didn’t have a showing there, but Suzuki and Honda both make bikes that rival Harley).

After the expo, we headed off to Makro – a Sam’s style warehouse club which we had never been to before. Makro differs from Sam’s in a few ways:

1. You actually have to be a business (Dylan’s office has cards for us to use) in order to have a membership.

2. They don’t allow children except on Sundays for “safety reasons” (we’ll come back to this one).

3. They don’t sell the large packages of the item, they just sell them in packs of 8 – 10. Like if you go to Sam’s and buy the 50 gallon drum of soy sauce, Makro has the exact same small bottles that any grocery store has you just have to buy 10 of them.

As we walked in the door, the very nice woman behind the counter told us (in Polish) that we couldn’t bring the children in. Dylan looks her dead straight in the eye and says, “Thank you. You have a nice day!” and keeps walking. She just sighed. We do that a lot.

And the safety concerns? Forklifts! Kids can't be there because they use forklifts. But Auchan and Geant do not ban children and they use forklifts and those pallet movers and the zamboni style floor cleaners that run people over ALL THE TIME. (For more on this check out this post.)

I'm still working on that driving video and I'm taking Amy's challenge to "Walk Across America" except that I'm going to walk/run (virtually) from Warsaw to Lisbon, which is 1716 miles. Today I went 4.16 so only 1711.84 to go! And, my reward at the end is an actual trip to Lisbon:).