'Wonderful-ichnie Warszawa'

palace of culture
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30.07.06

A lovely warm day awaited us in the balcony next to B's flat, and we had a delightful breakfast of breads, hams and cheeses outside...once leaving the flat, we were on a very fashionable street where all the young kids come out and we stopped for a sickenly sweet chocholate drink from which i spent the day trembling.  Somehow, Tom managed to signal our arrival to the cafe by smashing one of the glass ash trays, haha

it was cool walking the little streets and always lagging behind

remains of the wall surrounding the Jewish Ghetto
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The first stop on B's personal tour of warsaw was the palace of culture, which was certainly the central focus of the Warsaw skyline, and a visit was not complete without going up to the top for a cool 360 degree view of the whole city, pointing out the old quarter and the Jewish quarter and other quarters.  Before going up to the top, we got our money's work with an interactive science exhibition on the ground floor. apparently, this place was frequently by B's mum when she was a university student.  The streets of Warsaw had the grand eastern european charm coupled with a cool tram system providing the veins of the city.  also in place was a central tube line, which had stations progressively added to it.

feast in natolin
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With anyone staying at least half awake in History, one knows what provoked the second world war after Churchills altermatum to an invasion of Poland, and Warsaw was essentially flattened at the time. the sad Jewish history was exemplified in the treatment of Jews within the concentration camps within Poland and the ghetto that housed 1000s in a small segment of Warsaw in horrible conditions.  on the way we visit a synagogue that had survived through the times and also passed a street that was preserved as it was, with bullet holes still remaining...  Like the Berlin Mauer, a wall was erected to contain the Jews, and sections of it are still around.

chopin statue
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Tonight, we were wined and dined by a palatial buffet of delicious traditional Polish food at B's parents place.  They prepared so much and it was so generous and most importantly delicious, so much that we stuff our selves merrily and even the huge dog of the family got involved. it was quite funny as there wasnt much english spoken and only Tom had some ability to communicate in Polish, so there was a lot of nodding and confused faces followed quickly by laughter...

i left early to meet the others at the palace of culture as we were going to catch a film; Pirates of the Carribean 2. though it seemed that at the place we were, the tickets were full so we had to walk to a different one. the film was fine but didnt really have an ending, and the girls ended up declaring their love for Johnny Depp the entire way home :)  For drinks, we ended up in this mexican restaurant and had a few mojitos and margheritas etc... i couldnt believe it, but i was actually hungry, so ended up getting a delicious paella; i was also in a process of developing a tasty cough, which was both unconfortable and embarassing at best. stayed pretty late and were the last customers to be chucked on the street, departed and went to bed.

palace gardens
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31.07.06

Today was another stunningly hot day, and we went to see some of the residential palaces of Warsaw (though i forget the names) and walked through some plush parks taking in at one stage, a statue of a Warsawian composer: Chopin, under a billowing tree...Lunch was in one of these traditional milk bars, which were, and still are, really cheap places to eat and are a throw-back to the days where there wasnt the luxury foods of our time..basic hearty food indeed.  And with that lining the stomach, we turned our attention to the old town, meeting with Mauritia, but not before taking in the small campus of Warsaw university.  The newly refurbished buildings are very impressive!

entering the old town
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Why the old town is so special is because the whole town was rebuilt to its former glory after conflict reduced it to nothing but rubble.. this place is very picturesque with bricked streets and high Georgian architecture with a cute square and small aterial sidestreets connecting different parts.  The first thing one sees is this palace i which we took a wander around, and it is filled head to toe in riches, paintings and paintings..pretty cool place with a seemingly infinite amount of impressive rooms.  We then wandered further into the old town, and it was cool walking the little streets and always lagging behind; it was its own little world within Warsaw...the place was also streaming with nice little tea houses, and we stopped in one of B's favourites to witness this teddy bear massacre-excuse for decoration and some cute waitresses...

rooftop breakfast
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after we continued to wander around some steep side streets and wandered over to the university library which looked more like telly-tubby land.  It was a building immersed in some overgrown greenery and you can walk aloft of the huge building inscribed with famous literary and scientific quotations, and witness both the botanic garden and peer into the studious energy within.

I had tried to prepare myself for the spectacle that was B's grandma's dinner but it was still awesome, delicious and far too much, and really were over fed this whole trip. respect to her and their hospitality; we really didnt deserve it :) haha. yum; i miss it already.

preserved street
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in the evening, we hit the old town for the night life, and ended up getting a tram to the "dark side" of warsaw across the river and through a zoo, where there was this really cool beach bar, which essentially had an artificial beach, with volleyball nets and the like and also a bar, from which really expensive drinks were dispense. it was an experience i guess, though there was distinctly a lack of atmosphere and we promptly left and walked back across town and to this really random mega-club, which looked like a building site with huts, containing different themes of music and drinks, and we chilled here with some beers, but no one wanted to dance. so we went home :)

cool street near B's flat
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01.08.06

Up late and all and met with Asia and Mauratia for breakfast which ended up being some ridiculous chocholate desserts in this place called ...... where i bought some nice looking chocholate presents :) it was raining a bit today :(, but we managed to get to this tea shop which really served some really original teas that were so pungent and weird that we didnt really know what to do with it since they came in weird contraptions! Then for some cool insight into how people used to enjoy cinema, we went to the Fotoplastikon museum which we had tried previously, and low and behold itwas open and it was a brilliant preserved room with a central drum around which we all sat and looked through binoculars at weird 3D images that rotated around so that everyone saw each photo at least once!  It was also the commemorating day of the uprising, a proud day for the residents, and at 5pm, the air sirens rang, and the city stood still in silence, waving their flags and paying their respects. it was pretty cool to see this with the backdrop of the palace of culture...

Warsaw university
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Tonight, was to be another incredible feast cooked up by the excellent chef of B's grandma. and with my luggage taken to the house, we had a light platter, and was off to the airport for my flight home, which was from the really hectic pseudo-airport Etiuda.  The plane was late and the terminal was hot so i was glad to get on to an a/c airplane, but when i arrived in the Uk at Luton, and of course being late, there were now no coaches or trains running as i arrived around midnight (grr.), so i had to instead get my parents out to pick me up and i had to stay in northampton instead!