The Pope Comes to Warsaw

This week marks the first visit to Poland by Pope Benedykt XVI
since he succeeded John Paul II last year. The Pontiff arrived in
Warsaw on Thursday morning on the first leg of his four-day
trip to Poland. I've never seen so many cops in all my life. They
were stationed about 100 metres apart on most major streets.
Thursday evening I got stranded downtown because bus service
was suspended in the city centre and I had to walk several blocks
before I managed to get a taxi.

And get this: while the Pope was in Warsaw on Thursday and
Friday it was illegal for any stores, bars, restaurants, cafes or
hotels to sell any alcoholic beverages. This in a country where
alcohol is sold in stores 24/7 and is even available at many gas
stations. The lady at one of the local shops told me about this
on Wednesday, and sure enough, everyone was stocking up
for the two days of dryness. Kind of like an enforced lent.

But aside from sobriety, the key to a successful Papal visit, which
the Poles thoroughly understand, is pageantry, and that means
lots of flags, Polish and Vatican ones, not just lining the motorcade
route or adorning churches, but hung from just about every bus-
iness, government and private building in the city. In some cases,
even giant billboards had Vatican flags attached to them (see the
photo of the Peroni beer ad above).

Interestingly, the Papal motorcade entirely bypassed one of
Warsaw's major arteries, Jana Pawla II Street, renamed many years
ago in honor of the former Pontiff. This surely wasn't done out of
disrespect, but likely due to the fact that Jana Pawla II Street has a
disproportionately large number of Warsaw's sex shops which offer
videos, toys, fetish wear and other forms of erotic entertainment.
So I guess someone at the Vatican decided that a shot of the pope-
mobile passing these establishments wouldn't be a good image for
the local and international media to exploit.

Enjoy the photos.