Down the road from my office is this charming hardware store-cum-dry cleaners. I love the retro atmosphere, the eclectic mix of goods, the old-fashioned service (dry-cleaning takes a minimum of four days but is done by hand and ironed on the premises.) I'm never pestered for change, there's an air of genuine apology if something can't be found, rather than a curt "nie ma". The elderly lady in front of me bought a small dish on which to stand her small Christ's Mass tree; it cost 80 grosze (16p).
Another nice thing about the place is that when the dry-cleaning comes back, it's marked not with a small piece of paper stapled into your clothes, but hand-written strips of cloth tied to belt-loops (left).
The whole shop, inside and outside, could be somewhere in Scandinavia or northern USA in the mid-1950s; I'm getting those past life vibes once again!"Let me have a Three Musketeers, ah... and a ball point pen there... a comb, a pint of Old Harper, couple of flashlight batteries and some of this beef jerky."
I also love that shop - it reminds me of similar ones I've seen in Spain, which I also liked, far more than the hypermodern supermarkets! It's a pity they're probably dying out as well...
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