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Published: June 26th 2006
Me!
From a tower of sorts in Old Townthere, i said it. i love warsaw. in fact, i like it here so much that we're coming back for 3 nights after gdansk. sorry, toruń...
the train ride here was no problem at all, taking only two hours and forty five minutes on the inter-city train. walking up the stairs and out of the station there was warsaw sprawled out before us, with the palace of culture (a "gift" from the soviets) being most prominent. immediately i could tell that it was going to be a hell of a lot different than krakow - cosmopolitan, more fast-paced, trendy, and modern.
our hostel was only a short walk through some garden and it basically above some bank. being led to our room. we're both sleeping in like treehouses, these bunks some 10 or twelve feet off of the floor. we eventually met our two roommates, akish and will from the uk. one night we ended up just chilling and talking with them for like 3 hours which was cool.
after getting settled, we headed out to find something to eat. walking to find a place, we saw what a big commercial area we were in...Espirit, H&M, Sephora, random
Sleeping in a treehouse
My bed is like 12 feet in the air european stores etc. etc. Could be dangerous...We picked this Austro-Hungarian themed place for dinner. I got this seasoned grilled pork loin in a tomato sauce with fries and this delicious salad of pickles, dill, onions, and i think there was some kapusta in there. After dinner we ended up going to McDonalds for coffee to plan the next day. I tried to get a kawa mrozona (our obsession) but they just dumped ice in my coffee. Nice try..it was hot still.
Saturday we got up around 9 to face the hostel showers, which ended up being totally fine with no waiting or anything like that. We dropped off our laundry for them to do and headed out for Stare Miasto. Walking through the city, I seriously can't understand why this city gets such a bad rap with its awesome mix of old and new. Anyway, stare miasto was somewhat Disney-esque considering it was also reconstructed after the nazis destroyed it, but it was really nice. There were several small-ish squares crammed with cafes and restaurants.
Since Warsaw is "worldly", we decided to see what Thai was like in Poland. They didn't have even Pad Thai on the menu,
McDonalds + Palace of Culture
Like a block from our hotel, the palace of culture is in plain sight...plus the golden arches, haha but whatev, we still went. All I got was Tom Yum and some Zywiec, but we were pretty hot ordering (after practicing for like 5 minutes beforehand lol). After dinner we went to tour the Royal Palace, not much to look at on the outside, but better than Wawel on the inside. I think my favorite room was the marble room.
On the way out we noticed a tower to climb, and since we love twisty staircases, we headed up, but it was definitley worth the 2 zlotych for the awesome views. After that it was kawa mrozona time, so we stopped at this classy cafe there and ordered. Not gonna lie, the coffee tasted like miso soup, but the ice cream in it was good, so it balanced out haha. Back at a the hostel we wrote some postcards and freshened up before going to the supermarket to get snacks (not that we eat anything here). Paprika Lay's, Cheesy Burger Cheetos, and Ketchup Cheetos were among our weirdo purchases.
A bit before 10 we headed to Rasko, this small named after a bar in Chicago on Halsted (the owner worked in Chi-town for 15 years). Ordering was
Good 'ole american cooking
we'll definitely be trying the lasagna pizza from pizza hut at some point...(be jealous, andy) sure fun, considering it took me 3 people to get 'rum and coke' across. They played stuff from Footloose and even my favorite old-school Italian songs like 'Felicita' and 'Ti amo'. we made friends with a bunch of people there, and ended up getting asked out by the bartender which was fun. We headed to this club, galeria, and by the time the club closed it was 6am and light out. What a great night. Jarek walked Kasia and I to the hostel where we collapsed. We were gonna meet up again the next day.
Considering how late we got back, we didn't actually end up doing anything until like 1 when we went and got...surprise, kawa mrozona, plus a muffin. i couldn't even finish the drink of the muffin. i think my stomach is broken. after that we met up with jarek and took a bus to the warsaw uprising museum. it was one of the best museums i've ever seen, everything was so well put-together, with all kinds of multimedia presentations and whatnot. kasia and i put on warsaw ghetto uprising insurgent clothes which was rather amusing.
after that we pretty much roamed the city, walking
Stare Miasto
One of the many cafe-filled squares in Stare Miasto. You can kind of see the Disney-esque "magic" in its reconstruction down all these cool streets and whatnot. for dinner we went to a vegetarian bar. we all got delicious chłodnik, a cold beet soup, and then i got vegetarian enchiladas. i don't know why i keep getting polish mexican food. more mushrooms inside, haha. at 8 we had a table reservation back at Rasko for a show/concert, so we headed back there. this drag queen or sorts sang all these songs from what we gathered were polish musicals. i wish i could've sung along. i did get to sing 'sto lat' for some girls birthday, so at least that made me feel legitimate.
post-rasko we went back to Galeria, the club from last night. There was some drama, which i'm not going to get into for a number of reasons, but yea, it was an okay time. Jarek went home around midnight since he had work, but we stayed for a while after listening to Polish karaoke. quite amusing...then it was back to the hostel to check email and hit the sack.
we woke up this morning to no roommates since everyone had gone. after getting ready, we headed out around 12 to get crepes at this place
From the tower
From a tower of sorts in Old Town we read about near łazienki park. i got the naleśniki with miód i orzech (honey and nuts) and of course a kawa mrozona truskowka (strawberry shot) we went to the post office to buy phone cards to call her cousins who live in warsaw and decided to meet up, heading to their aprartment. we stayed and chatted for like an hour before both of them had things to do, but we'll meet up again when we're back next weekend. we might actually end up staying with them instead of oki doki (our hostel) when we come back. we'll see...
this internet cafe is like a broiler, so we're gonna head back and shower and change before meeting up with jarek and being cool polaks somewhere. to na razie! (but not really)
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Francine
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Insurgent wannabees...LOL.