Picture Synopsis

For those of you not on Facebook, here is a link to an album with the best pictures from the trip. Enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=42419&l=8318c&id=731281502

6 Lists of Things We Never Knew About Poland

7 Things You Never Knew About Polish Bathrooms

1. Toilet paper can’t be white (but can be grey, pink, yellow, or green)
2. There are never paper towels
3. Called a “WC”
4. Buttons instead of a handle to flush
5. Stall doors are full sized (they go from the ceiling to the floor)
6. They cost money to use
7. Not as much water in the toilet bowl

 

6 Things You Never Knew About Polish Birds

1. They wake up at 4 am
2. Pigeons get fed so they are friendly
3. They scare Rosie
4. They love Corinne
5. There’s at least one obese pigeon per pigeon group
6. They don’t like the crust on bread

 

13 Things You Never Knew About Polish Food

1. Bagels are sold on every street corner
2. Lots of beets
3. Perogis are delicious (but you probably already knew that)
4. Milk Bars
5. Kebabs are actually Gyros
6. The Fanta is better
7. Red Jelly = Mystery Berry
8. No canned soup
9. Green grapes have seeds
10. Tunczyk = Tuna
11. Hard boiled eggs in everything
12. Weird milk
13. Everyone eats ice cream all the timeThings we still don’t know: when Polish people actually eat

 

7 Things You Never Knew About Polish People

1. They are super nice
2. Old people take the tram
3. Park = young people making out / young people sun bathing
4. Polish children are adorable
5. Women wear anything but tennis shoes
6. They’re clueless at platform one
7. The women are all skinny

 

6 Things You Never Knew About Transportation

1. Buy tickets before getting on and validate in machines on the bus/ metro station
2. Tickets work for trams and buses
3. The trams are really skinny and they drive in the roads with the cars
4. Punctual within the cities, not so much outside
5. Where to buy tickets
6. Cars are tiny
7. Cars park one sidewalks
8. No stop signs

 

7 Random Things You Never Knew About Poland

1. Vendors don’t harass you in open air markets
2. Light switches are big
3. There are a lot of under passes
4. Juice and water cost more than beer
5. If you don’t get the answer you want the first time, ask again
6. Really nice weather
7. Bad graffiti

Day 7 : “Happiest Day” for Last

Corinne:

Our final full day in Poland was a culmination of sorts of the World War II horrors we have been learning about while visiting the Jewish ghettos of Warsaw and Krakow. We took a train this morning to the memorial at the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. Rosie joked this morning that we had “saved the happiest day for last.” After a quiet ride, we arrived and walked the 20 minutes to the museum at Auschwitz I. Before I could steel myself, we were in a theater showing “The Hours after Liberation”, which documented the state of the camps when the Liberation Forces showed up.

We spent a mentally exhausting couple of hours in exhibit after exhibit of all of the unpleasant (to put it mildly) facets of the camp. Many of them were simply words, but what struck all of us were the contents of the warehouses that were now on display.

Behind panels of glass lay heaps of glasses, piles of suitcases, and a mountain of abandoned shoes. If you’ve seen these pictures before, they hit hard in person as well. The shoes were a dark, dusty brown, save the occasional faded red of a children’s sandal.

We ate our packed lunch in near silence. As drained as we were, we decided to take the shuttle to Auschwitz II (aka Birkenau). The size staggered all of us. Surrounded by innocent farmland lay a field of barracks with harsh train tracks cutting a swath down the middle. We overheard that it was 25 times the size of Auschwitz I, and the row upon row of now innocuous buildings (or chimneys if the structure was destroyed) was too vast to comprehend the suffering.

A quote inside one of the buildings:

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

-George Santayana

After a quick nap on the way back into town, we stopped at our second and final milk bar of Poland. To challenged us, however, the posted menu was too far from the register to point, so we were creative and wrote our order out to hand to the worker. Rosie and I ended up with buraczki, which we guessed was like apple sauce made of beets. And the obligatory pierogies.

Because our hostel provides breakfast, and we had between $7 and $15 left in zloty (15-30 zloty), we decided to “cash out” at a grocery store. Sarah had her first Kinder Egg (and is currently enjoying her second), and we all got treats for the possibly 7 hour ride to Prague tomorrow. That means an early day. Yes, before 09:00.

Day 6 : Krakow, the Florida of Poland

Rosie:

This morning started out unexpectedly early when I woke up at about 3:30 a.m. and had to go to the bathroom…really badly. After putting off actually getting out of bed for about half an hour I decided that I should probably get up before exploding. I stumbled across the room to the door, only to realize that the door would not open without a key. Naturally, I assumed that Corinne, the responsible one, had it. I felt really bad about waking her up at 4, but by this time it was urgent. After shaking her awake, she started looking through her money belt, under her pillow, and next to her bed only to turn up empty handed. Finally I decided to re-ask the question. Corinne shot me a confused look and then gasped “Oh, Sarah has it,” rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. Sarah was about as helpful. After waking her up and asking her where the key was, she rolled over and stared at me for a few seconds and then stuck out her hand. Naturally, I assumed that she was sticking out her hand to give me the key, silly me. After patting down her hand for the key, I asked “Where is it?” To which she responded, “Where is what?” “The Key!” “Oh, on the door.” At that point I was upset that I had wasted precious sleeping time and woken up both Sarah and Corinne, only to end up back at the door, but sure enough the key had been around the door knob the whole time.

At an actually decent hour, we all woke up (some more gracefully than others) and went downstairs for our free breakfast. After breakfast we all wanted to take showers, but our laundry still had not been returned to us, so we had no towels. Corinne proved to be way more resourceful at 10 than she was at 4.  She borrowed towels from the desk so that we could all shower. The one issue was that the showers are all right next to each other in the same room with semi-transparent doors. If nothing else, it was a bonding experience, and on the plus side, the setup made it really easy for me and Corinne to throw shower supplies back and forth.

Once fed, showered, and dressed, the only thing left to do was to decide on a route and actually go. The day before, we had already designated this morning to visit the Jewish corner. It seemed like the best way to get there was by tram. We had originally planned to buy tickets once there, but after boarding the tram, it proved to be more complicated than we had thought. The driver sells the tickets, but he was behind a couple panels of glass and was paying no attention to the people walking in and out of the doors. I guess it turned out in our benefit because we got a free ride, but according to the public transportation system we could have been arrested.

The crowd on the tram was for the most part elderly people, way more than we had seen in Warsaw. We all decided that Krakow must be the nice place that older people move to after retiring, like Florida in the US. The Polish people have a refreshing habit of letting older people take the seats while the younger ones stand. A moderately old person would be offered the seat of a younger person, only to give up their seat the second that an even older person stepped on the bus. We were standing right near an old lady with a walking stick and about three large bags. About half way through our ride she started talking to me in Polish. I had no idea what she was saying, but I got the idea that she wanted me to help her carry her bags off of the tram. At the next stop, I picked up the two larger bags and walked down the stairs and off the tram with her, thus fulfilling my good deed for the trip. It was probably a good thing that the driver did not go off without me because I was the only one without a map.

The square in the Jewish village is filled with a bunch of empty chairs, which are supposed to symbolize how people waited there to be taken to concentration camps. Our first stop was the Museum of the Pharmacy under the Eagle, which, believe it or not sounds even more interesting than it actually was. It consisted of two rooms, one of which contained a video. It was just like the videos about WWII that Sarah and I had seen about a hundred times. Call me apathetic, but I was less than impressed. The written things that were actually in English were interesting though. On one of the posters they had a brief history of the building. It used to be a pharmacy and the only Christian business that was allowed to remain open in the ghetto. The owner would help sick Jews and often smuggle in food from outside. He was the only non-Jewish person allowed to remain in the area.

Our next stop was Schindler’s factory, which we were only really able to stare at from outside. It was definitely a worth-while thing to see, but I think that if I had remembered the movie well enough to recognize the building, it would have been better. Either way, it was interesting just to be in an area where so much had taken place. We moved on fairly quickly because we could not actually go inside of the building. We walked over to the “new” cemetery. Basically, the most interesting part of both of the major cemeteries is that the tomb stones that were destroyed in the Second World War were all pieced together to form walls. The kind of collage walls with the trees and other tomb stones, which were strewn about in random places, made the whole scene really pretty, although that feels kind of weird to say. It was decided that we should take a group picture of us walking down a path in the cemetery. About twelve pictures later, we finally had one with all three of us in it, although it still wasn’t very good. The old cemetery was similar. Upon arriving they informed us that we were not dressed well enough to enter. I never thought that I would be turned down to enter a cemetery because of my attire. Like the dead people would care. After wrapping ourselves in various colored sheets, we looked ridiculous, but were allowed to enter. Corinne was without a doubt the most stylish.
So apparently, old Polish women find me inviting, because while we were sitting on a bench after leaving the cemetery, another old woman started speaking to me in Polish and sat down next to us. She tried so hard to convey a message to us in both Polish and German, but we had basically no idea what she was saying. We even whipped out little cheat sheets for German and Polish. Nothing. Eventually, a tour group passed by, and she stopped the tour and started speaking to the guide in rapid Polish. The guide then turned and told us that the woman wanted us to know that her granddaughter was studying in England. We had almost figured it out, I mean, we had picked up on the word daughter and English.

Next it was back to the castle and the fire breathing dragon. This time we were actually able to go inside the castle walls. For some reason Hindu says that one of the corners contains an energy that you can absorb by touching the walls and meditating. The tour guides and owners of the building frown on this now for whatever reason, but we decided to be rebellious and try it anyway. I’m sure that I wasn’t doing it right, but I can definitely say that for me it didn’t work. About an hour later all three of us passed out for 3 hours back at the hostel, but not before our last stop of the day. I don’t know if we planned this or not, but we saved the best stop for last. One of the churches in the main square has a very tall tower that tourists can climb for a small fee. 289 steps later, we were at the prettiest view that we have seen so far. Sarah almost died, but it was worth it. I guess that makes Sarah near death count 1.

Day 5 : Rosie and Sarah learn about the Christians OR Jews for Judas

Sarah:

So it’s been like 5 days, so we have some dirty clothes. Since we get free laundry, we dropped it off last night so we could pick it up before we left. The only problem is that it wasn’t ready in time and we ended up packing wet clothes up.

After we left the hostel we headed over to the train station. We got to the platform and someone may have attempted to rob Corinne. Either that or he was asking if she had any change. The train was totally awesome because we

had compartments like on the train to Hogwarts. It was so cool. A lady even came around with a cart of food and drinks. Also, Corinne is so impressive since she ordered water in Polish. (woda niegazowana) I was super impressed. We shared our compartment on the train with two guys who we didn’t say a word to. Apparently Corinne and Rosie’s European-boy repellent is working.

Then Rosie fell asleep and Corinne started to write postcards. She asked me if I wanted to write one and so I decided to write to Alex. After I finished writing Corinne was like “you filled up the whole space.” And I replied, “of course I did.”

Apparently I was supposed to leave room for Corinne and Rosie to write some stuff too… sorry Alex.
After we arrived in Krakow we stopped at this place before heading over to our hostel.
Can you guess what this is?

It’s actually an awesome McDonald’s with the most perfect hamburgers I have ever seen. They were adorable.

After we got to our hostel (which I flawlessly navigated us to) we put our stuff in the room and gave the people our wet laundry. Then we had an intense debate about the sanitary-ness of the water. According to a little paragraph in my guide book, you shouldn’t really drink the tap water. According to Corinne and Rosie, it’s OK to drink the water since they haven’t died yet. I disagree. According to my book you can get cholera, typhoid fever, and hep B, among other things, from drinking unsanitary water. You can also get Chlamydia, AIDS, and Syphilis…but not from unclean water.

Then Corinne took a nap and Rosie “closed her eyes” for ten minutes. When we got up, we went to explore Krakow. I shared the best cotton candy of my life Corinne for 1zl a piece (or about 50 cents). We also saw a bunch of other stuff like a really colorful church and the place where Pope John Paul II used to live. At this point Corinne “paraphrased” the story of Easter for Rosie and I at which point we decided that Judas was not such a bad guy. This was basically the beginning of the story of Easter that we got:

1. Jesus and friends are at the last supper.
2. Jesus says: one of you will betray me
3. Friends are like : we would never do such a thing
4. Jesus says : Judas, do what you have to do
5. Judas goes to the authorities and betrays Jesus for 10 pieces of silver, or like 20 bucks
6. Jesus and the rest of the gang go to pray.
7. Jesus says : this is an important day, do not fall asleep
8. He goes up to do stuff and they fall asleep
9. He comes down and says : wake up
10. They wake up. Jesus goes back up. They fall asleep again.
11. When Jesus comes down again the authorities are there to get him (after Judas shows then who Jesus is by kissing him)
12. Peter cuts off some guy’s ear.
13. Some more stuff happens…
14. We also learned that Jesus was like, “Peter you are going to deny knowing me.” And Peter relied something to the extent of “I would never.”

After this story Rosie and I decided that Judas was not such a bad guy. I mean, Jesus told him to “betray” him and Judas did as he was told. Also, without Judas, Jesus would have never died for the people’s sins.

Peter on the other hand totally lied and de-eared someone.

At this point we decided that Jews for Judas would be a good idea. Since then, Rosie has informed me that Frank has informed her that this story is a little off/ paraphrased with some inaccurate connotations so we’re rethinking the idea.

So back to our day….

We went to Wawel castle and had an intense discussion about what constitutes a castle since Wawel castle is actually a big church. To clear up any confusion, you can find out what a castle is here.
Another thing that happened at Wawel Castle: Corinne marched up to some tourists and basically told them that she was going to take a group photo of them.

We also saw an elevator that was clearly designed by a CS major.

Nun count : 11

Near the castle there is a metal dragon sculpture that was totally underwhelming until it breathed fire and then it was awesome.

After that we decided to buy food at a grocery store to make our own dinner for the night and lunch tomorrow. For dinner we decided that we wanted to make tuna noodle casserole, only when we got the supermarket we discovered that they didn’t have canned soup, only soup powder in packets, so we bought some of that and some other stuff. This is the recipe we used:

When we got back to the hostel we went to the kitchen to make dinner. We met a guy named Daniel who is from New Zealand and has been traveling for over a month and still has around a month to go. After dinner Corinne decided to do our dishes, and other people’s dishes, and clean the stove top, and the entire kitchen.

Then Corinne told us about the different types of Christianity.

Oh and by the way, our laundry still isn’t done.

Day 4 : Is it snow or God’s dandruff?

Corinne:

Our hostel right now has been great, really spoiling us we free internet, laundry, and breakfast. (So you might not get daily updates starting tomorrow. We know that you are all living vicariously through us. 😉 ) The breakfast that is out every morning is thin slices of bread and assorted jams. The first morning, we each had a few pieces…and were starving by 11. The next morning a couple more… when Rosie mentioned that all we were eating was carbs, I had to agreed. Five pieces of toast might be a little excessive.

However, all the energy has been put to good use. Now, today was planned as a morning getting tickets and an afternoon at the park. However, the order was inversed as the free outdoor piano concert we wanted to attend started at noon. We got to the general area of the park, then found greenery and veered toward it. I, of course, assumed it was the park we were looking for. I was only off by a highway crossing. So much for starting each day fresh.

So we made it to Lazienki Park, and to the Chopin Monument in time to get comfortable and listen to the piano concert. The music started, and the other two just drifted off at various points. Speaking of drifting, the park, and actually Warsaw in general, has been full of this cotton-y stuff that makes it look like it is snowing. Or God is scratching his head. Either way, we were all covered in the stuff.

After a comfortable nap (but not nearly long enough for them I’m sure), we meandered toward the Palace on the Water, built by some king while his citizens were starving. But it is gorgeous. Around it was some of the tamest “wildlife” we’ve seen: lusty pigeons (Sarah keeps asking why there is only one fat one in every group), strident peacocks, squirrels, ducks, and giant fish. And love must have been in the air. Either the animals were hitting on me, or Rosie was trying to set me up. The funniest looking squirrel was springing its way across a path, mugging for the camera, then decided my leg looked nice. And stuck both its paws on it before springing away, clearly making a point. And pigeons, of course, were close at all times. The real fun came when we came across our first peacock, and Rosie, wanting a show, continued to encourage me to “look pretty.” As a side note, there were as many pregnant ladies today as there were weddings yesterday. Coincidence?

By this point, we were hungry enough to leave the park in search of food. We found a little supermarket, picking up assorted items (including cucumbers to satiate Sarah and Rosie’s need for vegetables), then crossed the street to a kebab stand. In Poland, kebabs aren’t on a stick. In fact, I have no idea what the resemblance is, because they looked and tasted like gyros to me. We walked in to order, faced with a Polish menu, started speaking our English, and the behind-the-counter guy started a conversation with us. Small talk about where we were from, then asking what we had done. Then asking if he could take us to a club, since that aspect was clearly lacking. We pointedly ordered and escaped the shop. Krazy Kebab Kid.

Since we had to vacate the kebab’s sitting area, we found another patio of a different restaurant to sit in. Then might have been yelled at again in Polish.

After a stop at the train station to make reservations for tomorrow’s ride to Krakow, I suggested one final museum to round off our day. The other two agreed and we took our first tram to the Warsaw Uprising Museum. We had to use our 3-day public transportation pass, and Rosie and I were excited to get on the cross between a subway and a bus.

It was easy getting to the museum, and as we approached the ticket counter, we were met with a pleasant surprise as the museum was free on Sundays. We’ve only paid for one museum since we’ve gotten here. What luck. (And some planning…)

After an interesting hour and a half (including a really fun claustrophobic simulated sewer where Rosie may have held my hand — sorry, David and Frank), we were sitting on a bench in the museum deciding our next course of action when a security guards comes around and says something in Polish.

No, we were not getting yelled at again. The museum was just closing. And Sarah had disappeared the bathrooms.

Making it out of the dark museum, we decided on a Communist-themed restaurant for dinner. I had done my share in the directions, so we decided to follow Sarah…well, after Rosie and I forced her to hop the first tram we found to get her substantially disoriented. Four tram rides (once up and down the same block I might add; this navigation thing is no joke) and another close call with a car (Near Death Count: 3) and we had made it to the spot on the very side of the map with had the number representing the restaurant on it. And then passed that spot (the middle of a park) without seeing it. Then walked along it again. No luck. We were confused at this point, and I asked to see the map as Rosie and Sarah peered around the corners of the block looking for the street that the address was on.

Now, let me explain something. The number was on the side of the map, with a couple other symbols and things surrounding it. Including an arrow from the number to the edge of the map, saying “To #19, 500m” and pointing down one of the streets that trailed off the map. So the place we were at was exactly where the number was, but 500 meters from the actual restaurant. See Sarah, this navigation is no joke.

But dinner was very nice. It only took an hour to get the bill once we were finished. And we knew our way around enough to get straight back to the hostel.

Some sad news is that Sarah has been fighting a cold for the past couple days and it finally won today, which led to a spirited game of “Sarah says” as she decided to save what was left of her voice and leave the talking up to Rosie and I.

Day 3 : “If Our Libraries Were Like This, I Might Actually Read”

Rosie:

Part I : The Museum is Closed for two Years

This morning, Corinne pried us out of bed at the ungodly hour of 9:00 because she had the whole day planned with lots of stuff. After getting ready, eating breakfast, and moving our luggage around, we were off on our way. The first stop was supposed to be the Palace of Culture and Science, but ‘Confused Corinne’ was mistaken about which museum was free on Saturdays. Instead, we went to the Warsaw Museum and saw a lot of art. Sarah and I were possibly yelled at in Polish for trying to take a quick nap on the benches in one of the galleries. Of course, as Sarah pointed out, for all we knew the guard could have been trying to make polite conversation. The coolest part was after we exited the building. There was a series of old war vehicles lined up outside of the museum.

Our next stop was the Chopin museum. The original plan was to learn about Chopin at the museum and then visit his heart at a nearby church. Unfortunately, our plan was foiled. After walking about half a mile and up and down multiple flights of stairs to get to the museum about two blocks away, we discovered that the museum was closed. This might not seem too strange, but upon further investigation, we discovered that the museum was to be closed for the next two years. However, our trek was not a complete waste because there was a good place to eat nearby.

This will probably be a theme for the rest of the trip and not just today, but Sarah and I were somewhat less invested in what we were seeing than Corinne was. Instead of actually paying attention to the decorations of the church, we decided to count how many Jesuses we could find. In the end we discovered 48 in just the one church. I know that I am not very experienced with churches, although I did go once this year, but that seems a little excessive.

Afterwards, we decided to stray away from the original plan, add a little more walking, and visit what our hostel called “the best kept secret in Warsaw.” There was a library not too far away that was supposed to have an amazing view. Upon arrival, Sarah was the first to notice the elevators (shocker), which we took to the roof of the building. Once we were there, we were surprised to see an entire garden with bridges, arches, and even a small waterfall. It was probably the coolest roof ever. I feel like if the Warsaw University can have a library that cool, then Carnegie Mellon can too.

Part II: Deja Vu?

The rest of our day was somewhat less structured than Corinne had originally planned. The idea was to see a list of sites that Rick Steves a.k.a. European god had outlined for us. First off we passed not one or two, but eight weddings on our way to Old Town. Apparently Saturdays in May are the optimal time to get married in Poland. That probably should have been the first clue to the redundancy that was to follow. On our way to the giant Presidential Palace, Corinne found another statue to take a picture of. Little did she know, that the palace that we had been looking so hard for was right behind it. It is completely understandable though, here is the picture that she took…

Don’t worry, on our second trip to the palace, we got the idea.

After “not seeing” the palace, we continued on our journey, only noticing that we had walked past the building when we reached the second palace’s square. Although, when we first reached the square we completely forgot about the other palace because the square was full of interesting things. First, we visited the display of bears which encompassed most of the square. The display was basically a series of ceramic bears from each of 180 countries supposedly symbolizing peace. Either way, they were pretty cool, and I learned that Georgia was not only a state, but also a country (that’s why I’m an engineer). Towards the end of the bears, we noticed that a group of Polish boys were setting up an area to break dance and decided to stick around for the show. It was pretty sweet, and even though they were speaking in Polish, we figured out that they were telling us to clap, cheer, and donate money. It was pretty cool, and it was a good thing that we came when we did, because on our second trip through the square about two hours later, the dancers had packed up.

We continued our trip by walking through the rest of Old Town. After mentioning that she wanted ice cream earlier in the day, once we finally reached a street with about 12 ice cream stores, she no longer wanted it. Then she wanted it again, then nothing, then a popsicle and so her inner turmoil continued until she finally got her ice cream cone after dinner.

But before dinner, in the midst of Sarah’s inner debate, Corinne earned her nickname for the trip. I don’t know if this was previously written, but Sarah was named Sarah Pfeller after falling down some stairs and tripping a few times. Today Corinne was almost hit by her second car (Corinne’s almost-near-death count : 2), giving way to the name Car-in-to Corinne. Sarah and I both learned to keep watch whenever Corinne wants to cross a street. (David and Corinne’s family, don’t worry, we are watching out for her. Maybe we will invest in one of those kiddie leashes.)

Anyway, after seeing a few more sites for second, and maybe even third times, and eating a delicious pierogi dinner, we called it a day and went back to the hostel.

Day 2 : It’s the square

Sarah:

Today was our first full day in Poland we did a lot of walking, mostly because the crosswalks are only there when you don’t need them and because we don’t actually know where we are. In the beginning I was pretty sure our whole trip was just going to be us wandering around cities without a real plan. I was also relatively sure that one of us was going to get injured since Corinne almost got hit by a car when she decided that a yield sign was actually a stop sign and I fell down the stairs. Actually, I fell off the last stair but it was totally missing! I’m OK though. I didn’t bleed and hand-sanitizered my knee so I wouldn’t get gangrene. Also, I wasn’t really sure what gangrene really was or what causes it so I wikipedia-ed it… surprise surprise I don’t know my amputation-causing diseases because I totally could not have gotten gangrene. (Here’s what it actually is if you care: What Gangrene Is).

So as we wandered along, Corinne would shout “look something green!” and we would go over to it. Finally we came to a park and discovered the Ghetto Heroes Monument and I was really impressed that we had just wandered to the place that we wanted to go. Then Corinne told us that she was leading us there all along. I just assumed we were wandering because we kept walking in circles.

According to the map, the monument was at the front of the old Jewish Ghetto and all of the other sights were in the area behind it. We did some more walking in circles, half circles, S’s, squiggles, and any other shape you can think of, and we found some more monuments and stuff. By that time it was about 1:00pm so we started to walk in the direction of the Jewish Heritage Museum since it is only open on Fridays and stops letting people in at 3. We were also starving.

On our way to the museum we passed the Pawiak Museum for the second time that day and decided to go in. The museum is an old prison that was converted into a museum. There was this really cool bronze tree on the outside which was cast from an actual tree that used to grow there.

As we looked for food we passed a restaurant which had menu’s that we couldn’t read and a KFC. Finally we stopped at sandwich place called Fresh Choice. Rosie ordered an Italiano and Corinne, wanting a Tuscan sub, ordered a Tunczyk. We learned that tunczyk means tuna. I ordered a tuna sandwich also and it was really good. We also made fun of Corinne a little bit and Rosie fell asleep mid-conversation.

Then we went to the Jewish Heritage Museum. There was a video, which Rosie fell asleep during, and exhibit about the Warsaw ghetto.

On our way back to the hostel we ended up in Saxon Garden, only we didn’t “end up” there since Corinne was apparently leading us again. Saxon Garden is full of monuments and other stuff, in addition to being a park. For the first 5 minutes we were trying to figure out where we were on the map. Then we did/saw this stuff:

1) Sun dial

2) not an obelisk; also not a sun dial

3) oak tree

“If it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it”: Imitating statues

~~~

which doesn’t belong?

Things I learned at Saxon Garden:

• Corinne likes children too much.
• Orange bikes are cool.
• Water towers are not obelisks
• Rosie and I don’t know types of trees

———————————————————

After the park we were really hungry again. Corinne read about government subsidized restaurants that serve cheap Polish food and kept telling us to look for Bambino, which apparently existed on every street we were on on the way back to the hostel. We finally found it, and made a note to come back. When we did we found that the menus were in Polish on a big board by the cashier so we stared at it for 10 minutes even though there was no way we were going to figure out what anything meant. In the end we just randomly pointed to different words. I think we did a pretty good job, only we weren’t really paying attention so Corinne and Rosie ordered the same soup and Corinne and I both ordered some kind of coconut coleslaw thing.

I also tripped on the stairs in the hostel. I hate stairs.

Also, we never found the obelisk.

Day 0-1 : New York-London-Warsaw : “Is the Globe made of metal?”

Corinne:

Being the Computer Scientist I am, I am happy to announce to all of the others of you out there that we actually started travel on Day 0 (May 28). It was a day of packing and frantic shopping (no yellow Converse for Sarah. The entire mall was out. And New Yorkers like their shoes, so there were plenty of shops to choose from.) We got to the airport (approximately) the three hours early, had a breezy check-in and waited at the gate.

So our flight, in order to stick with the trend of “as cheap as possible”, was booked with Air India. Now I know there are those of you out there who have stereotypes of AI, ranging from just not comfortable to sleeping with goats and chickens. Happily, none of that happened. We got the cool individual tvs, chicken curry for dinner, and the most eventful thing that happened was during dinner. We got little trays of chicken curry, a little dish of cut vegetables with salad underneath, a dish of thick, liquidy yellow stuff, and a dish of thick, liquidy white stuff. Now, I ate the chicken curry, then moved on to the peppers and carrots. To my defense, the lettuce was covered, so I expected the white stuff to be Ranch dressing. So I dipped all my veggies in it, then got to the salad and dipped my fork in the dressing then forked the lettuce.

So then Sarah looks over and we have a chat about milk-based things, and in the conversation, it comes out that I just finished half my salad with plain yogurt. That’s right; there’s a reason that it wasn’t very good Ranch. It was plain yogurt.

Which tasted a lot better plain than with lettuce, by the way.

And the yellowy stuff was tapioca-ish pudding. I figured that one out by myself.

Then we slept. And actually started Day 1.

We wake up (and had breakfast if you are Sarah or Rosie), then get off the plane at Heathrow. That’s London. That’s England. That’s a new country (for me and Sarah at least)!

We get off the plane, then decide to take the Tube to the London Bridge stop, where we know we can catch a train to Luton Airport where our flight to Warsaw was taking off at 17:30.

We wander out of the airport, starving after going through customs and getting our bags, and get some sandwiches after some amount of indecision. We then skip over to the Burroughs Market, which was quaint, then to the replica of Sir Francis Drake’s “Golden Hinde”, a view of London Bridge, and start wandering down the Thames.

I know that the Globe is up the bank, so we walk along cute little cobblestone streets and through a tunnel and some alleys then look upriver and see this metal curved protrusion. Which looks like a huge globe. Someone may have guessed that the metal had something to do with the Globe theater… they may remain unnamed… Anyways, we get to the actual Globe, people-watch, see the Tate Modern (but don’t go inside), cross the Millenium Bridge, see St. Paul’s Cathedral, see the Bank of England, walk across the London Bridge, and sit at the courtyard of Southwark Cathedral people watching and playing cards until our train left.

Then it was a fairly boring train ride. (Sarah and I didn’t get the hang of Polish. We tried. A little. Rosie slept.) Then there was a very intense game of War between Sarah and Rosie. (Rosie won. Sarah has cooled off now.)

Then plane, then bus adventures (Polish people are nice), then hostel check-in, and we are still alive, so no night shanking. Welcome to Warsaw!