QUEERWARSAW
Galla
The other side, downstairs, embraces a bigger dance floor with a dancing pole, another bar, and a few tables. Perhaps a bit small, but during a crazy night it may even be an advantage. When you have enough of house music which rules there, you can relax in the chillout area on the right of the main stairs. Despite the reconstruction and extension, its small size is still the greatest disadvantage, which causes the music from the bigger dance floor to drown out whatever happens upstairs. Low quality amplifying system gives its toll particularly during live concerts. As for a gay&les club, Galeria ranks between Toro and Utopia clubs, with its degage and unconstrained atmosphere but also a VIP-room and posh clientele. On weekdays it turns into a cosy place with regular karaoke nights, where you can take a seat and have an undisturbed chat. It is particularly popular among young boys (it is rumoured women are not warmly welcomed), who just get started their new gay life and will soon flood other Warsaw queer clubs See also: ▶ Hłasko Marek, ▶ Rasko, ▶ Toro
Galla bathouse, 2 Ptasia Street
The sauna at 2 Ptasia Street is the second-oldest (after Fantom) continuously functioning queer place in Warsaw. Its owner described the evolution of its target group in 1999: The bathhouse was originally intended as a hangout for affluent young people. In the beginning we offered an even split of men-only and women-only days, but far fewer women than men showed any interest in the place, so we reworked the schedule to 6 days for men and 1 mixed-gender. Bathhouses harking back to the 19th century obsession with hygiene went extinct in the 1990s. In their place arose brandnew “bathhouses for men”. The idea was rather simple: sex was tolerated, but certainly not the focus of the old school men's baths experience, while the new saunas place sex in centre. The realisation of the concept tends to be the same everywhere – there is a locker room where one can undress and don a tiny towel, wet bar, dry sauna, steam room, showers, and TV dens screening movie loops about the pursuit of same-sex procreation. Behind the bar, condoms share shelf space with juice boxes and lotion. See also: ▶ Fantom, ▶ Heaven
45. Ad of Galla bathhouse
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