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Everything was so well planned for today, my bike trip to Warsaw would take about 5 hours, so I decided to leave for about 10 am and Amanda's train was at mid-day, and take 3 hours. We would/should arrive in Warsaw for about 3pm.
I retrieved my bike from the underground car park of the hotel, but as I tried to start it to move away from the lift entrance the bike would not start. I assumed, as it had run in the underground car park, that I had flooded the bike. Fixing all the luggage to the bike, I attempted a start once more. Nothing, the bike would turn but not fire. I checked almost everything, fuel, air lock in the tank, etc, but nothing seemed to help. I decided to call BMW assist for a breakdown call out.
I made the call to BMW at around 8:30 am local time, and had a reasonable conversation with the people based in the UK. Following a follow up phone call from a representative from the international department, I sat back reassured that the matter would be resolved in an hour or so. At 10am I called again, and was told I had cancelled the recovery of the bike, obviously I had not, and insisted a truck was dispatched quickly.
The recovery driver arrived, speaking only Polish a member of the excellent staff from the hotel translated for me. The garage was over 100 km south of Krakow and I would not be able to accompany the bike, leaving me stranded. Numerous phone conversations took place resulting in the recovery driver leaving without my bike.
Amanda had left for the train station in the middle of this performance. I had unloaded the bike of it's luggage, and checked back into the hotel as I could see this was not going to be resolved quickly. Once again the hotel staff were excellent, and very helpful.
I was on the phone constantly to the recovery service asking what was happening/happened. Finally a very helpful man came onto the phone, where I explained the situation clearly, and presented him with the options as far as I saw them and the logistics of myself, Amanda and my motorbike. He then arranged for the bike to be collected and delivered to the Warsaw BMW dealer, who would look at the bike 1st thing in the morning, I would have my hotel bill paid for and sent a hire car to drive to Warsaw to meet Amanda.
True to his word, all this happened, but it took even more time, by 5pm I was finally on my way to Warsaw, in peak rush hour, with Amanda checked into the hotel in Warsaw already. The traffic was awful, nose to tail in the rain. Some fool thought it was a good idea to drive on the right so all the controls were on the wrong side of the car.
To cut a long story short, I arrived in Warsaw in the dark at about 10pm, where I sank a few beers and a nice veal meal.
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