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Published: September 17th 2009
Warsaw, Poland
Spent the day in the park... finally something I understand, trees.Driving through Germany was an adventure; though we just drove on the same road clear across to Poland as fast as we could as we were running late due to our morning misadventure. As residents of countries where the national speed limits rarely exceed 70 miles per hour, Della and I could not resist experiencing the thrill of no limits for ourselves. Now, mind you, we were driving a vehicle that is at least 12 years old, which cost no more that 350 pounds, so the speed was less the thrill than simply seeing how fast her old car could go. We found out that her car tops out at about 110 miles per hour, and the sad part is, every car around us was going by at least 30 MPH faster than we were going. It was still exciting to see the needle on the speedometer climb to a speed that would have gotten us arrested in either of our home countries.
When we pulled into our first German town, we started laughing at the fact that we stood out like a couple of sore thumbs. With Della driving on the right hand side of the car in a
country that drives from the left, every single person in every single car that we passed took to staring at me, the driverless passenger sitting in the typical driver seat. At one point, I got so tired of being stared at that I just started waving at everyone that passed so they knew I knew they were looking. The funniest person I waved at though, turned out to be this young German kid, which I told Della reminded me of the boy in the movie Euro Trip… for those of you that do not know this movie, the child is in the background of one particular scene with a unique mustache attributed to one person in history, marching in a manner that could only be described using the year 1942 (or there about.) Now, the kid in the car was doing nothing so stereotypical, but when I waved he gave me a sharp nod of the head, (rather than the American wave) and continued to stare. From what Della tells me this sharp nod of the head is a very European nod not meant to be rude, but merely acknowledging.
When we pulled into Poland, we had to find
Warsaw, Poland
Park Pictures. a way to turn our Euros in Zlotys at around ten o’clock at night, but luckily we happened upon a random Kantor, aka exchange shop, at a gas station where we had our gas filled by a nice Slavic man whom we could not communicate with, but who helped us fill out engine with water and our tank with gas. (I said thank you, but he did not respond and shut the door instead.) From here, we made our way to the tollway, starved, delirious and riding off the exultation of finding jumper cables this morning. By about the 10th gas station we passed, I told Della she really needed to pull in so we could get some semblance of food before we continued, as we had not eaten since lunch the day before. She pulled into a gas station with a giant sign featuring some delicious looking pizza thing, which we both became very excited about, but unfortuneately she couldn’t figure out how to park, and barely slowed down as we sped past and accidentally ended up back on the motorway. As I started to really look at the map we had though, I noticed that this particular gas
Warsaw, Poland
Park Pictures. station was our last chance to buy food (or gas) for the next 100 miles. Luckily, we did not need gas. We drove through Poland until about 1:30 AM when we were close enough to Warsaw to justify stopping, and slept in our car behind some grungy looking gas station surrounded by giant trucks with drivers doing the same I’d imagine.
For those of you that are not aware, the reason we had to be in Poland by a specific time and date was because we were going to Eurobasket 2009, the major basketball tournament between European countries, where Great Britain was playing Spain in an epic battle of the nations. We also had to pick up Della’s dad from the airport who had the address to the flat we had rented for the three days we were to be spending in Warsaw. We pulled into Warsaw at about 10 AM barely rested from a night in the car, filthy and smelling slightly off. Only to realize that this was the first time that we really had to navigate without the wonder of technology in the form of the car GPS system (known as the SatNav from here on
Warsaw, Poland
DOG PARK!!!! Maggie Blue, I love you :) out.) Again, keep in mind that mainland Europe drives on the left… imagine driving down the street and seeing a woman with a map fully spread out staring at it, while the car moves down a crowded city street during rush hour. I could not help but laugh at the various people looking very concerned as they drove past us. We eventually reached the airport, three hours early only to come to the realization that we are now in Eastern Europe, where very few people are overly concerned about having WIFI in a place where laptops are rare. So… we sat…. and sat… had some ice cream… and sat, then decided to do arts and crafts where we colored various welcome signs and a Great Britain flag to welcome Della’s dad and the numerous other people she knew on the flight.
Finally, they arrived and we were able to get on towards our flat, which ended up being in a very shitty looking building, what I can only describe as slightly ghetto, which was very worrying as we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. Carrying my backpack and my laptop bag up the grimy concrete steps
Warsaw, Poland
Dogs were leaping in and swimming through the fountains, it was beautiful, most peaceful day I've had in Europe. towards the unknown, I began to feel very grateful that the internet is so widely used in my country so you can get a general idea of the situation you are coming into as long as you look the place up on the web. But to our great relief, and satisfaction, our rented flat was a New York paradise amidst the grunge of post war Warsaw with a beautiful kitchen, two beds, and a bathtub (with a shower head!) For Della and I, after our long two days in the car, it was a paradise, and the bath shower could not have felt better. After freshening up, we went to meet Della’s dad, Dave and Fred (two crazy English blokes Della knows) at a sports bar in a Marriott.
This particular experience would be my first with the wide variety of English accents that not many are aware of. First there was Bada (Paul) and Dave Forrester from New Castle, who spoke a form of English that simply cannot be described as English, as I could not understand a single word they were saying. To be perfectly honest I did not think they were speaking English at all, I
Warsaw, Poland
Did I mention I really like trees? thought they were speaking a foriegn language. I had to really focus hard to understand what the hell they were saying to me, but eventually got the hang of their heavy accents. Next was the Manchester crew, with Collin and his wife Catherine, Chris and his wife Claire, and Chris’s Sister Lisa. This crew was the life of the party, without a doubt. Their accents were easier to understand, though I had to laugh, as the stereotypes associated with this particular accent in America are much less attractive, though they turned out to be wonderful, fun-loving, great people to get drunk with. They were definitely the boisterous, loud, some what obnoxious though wonderfully entertaining people that I had hoped for in coming to Europe. Fred, Dave, Pat and Della are the more southeastern English with a more reserved, dry sort of attitude that could come off as a bit antisocial, though when you get to know them they too have their odd quirks. Thus I started my stay in Warsaw with the blacks, greys and whites of the English countryside framing my little American self.
I was not able to get into the basketball game the first night, as
Warsaw, Poland
Note the second to last menu item... yes, this was a menu at a restaurant... what do you think it conisists of? it was Great Britain versus Slovania, which was seemingly the most evenly matched game of the tournament, and was coincidentally sold out. (Slovania slaughtered GB, but we’re not going to talk about that.) The next night Dave, being my savior, figured out how to sneak me into the game (legally of course) which was GB versus Spain. For those of you that do not follow basketball, Spain was the only near equally matched opponent for the US in the most recent Olympics. As such, they were expected to annihilate GB. Much to the surprise and utter exhilaration of all the GB fans, and the Slovenians alike, GB put up one hell of a fight throughout the entire game, even managing to pull ahead of Spain in the fourth quarter before being beaten by a mere margin in the end. The last night of the tournament I was able to find a legitimate ticket, though GB lost again to Serbia the final night.
The night of the Spain game was definitely the most eventful game of the three days. After GB played a fantastic game against Spain, the lot of Englishmen and the lonely American went out for drinks at
Warsaw, Poland
The mammoth restaurant, delicious chicken wings, and awesome pickles! a Warsaw Pub with a poor girl who was obviously not used to the loud, boisterous outbursts of the English. While drinking enough beer to drown a goat, and enough vodka to kill it’s kid, we spent the night in an excited reverie celebrating the almost, but not quite success of English basketball and the joy of good company. After thoroughly annoying the Polish staff, we walked home in exultation to sleep in our beautiful flat in the beautiful East Europe city of Poland.
To my surprise, none of the other English visitors took to seeing the sights of Poland except Della, Pat and myself. We must have walked at least ten miles each day we were here in an attempt to see everything we could. The most memorable thing we saw was at the Warsaw zoo, where they have European bears next to the main street to entice visitors into the zoo gates. Though this later goal did not work on the three of us, we did stop to watch the bears both times we walked past. It seems as though they were performing bears as the younger bear sat up and posed for one gentleman with an
Warsaw, Poland
Ummmm... tree. apple.
Warsaw is rich in history, as it was an area that was highly affected by Hitler during World War II. We saw numerous things including the Jewish Ghetto Wall which was the last remaining part of the Jewish Ghetto. Bricks from this particular wall are currently housed in Washington D.C. We also saw a part of the city where the movie the Pianist was filmed, the only part of Warsaw that was not damaged during the war. We also saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is housed in the remainder of an old Palace that soldiers refused to destroy. In addition we saw numerous unique architectural wonders formed over the course of thousands of years including numerous old churches and cathedrals as well as the last Synagogue in Warsaw. In one church I remarked to Della that it must be a church where people come to make pilgrimage to which she looked at me confused and laughed. I had never been in such an old ornate church with people actively worshipping, they honestly looked like they were paying homage to some sort of mystical church they had travelled miles to see.
That is all on
Warsaw, Poland
Another thing I understand, Yamaha, for you Daddy :) Amsterdam to Warsaw for now. I would like to post the picture and the story for you, as I am miles behind on posting my story.
Love,
Jess
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