Warsaw - by James

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Hi there!

Day 1
Our stay at Warsaw was not as cool as Riga. We arrived after a 13 hour coach journey at a station that looked like it could have been in the middle of nowhere. We had 0 money and a vague idea of how to find our hostel.

We walked around for about 5 minutes before returning to the coach whose passengers were still on a lung killing break and asked where an atm was. The driver basically said 'no way' and the crew members offered a swap of Euros for Zloty (Polish currency). We accepted and thanked her for her help.

I was feeling a bit odd as it was midnight and we were in a new city station which says 'crime hot-spot at night... avoid' in the guide book. We still had no idea where to go, but luckily met a Spanish bloke going to the same hostel as us. 'Is he serious? or a rapist trying to steal my cattle?' were the first thoughts that crossed my mind. Luckily he was just as lost as us, so we decided to travel together to find the hostel.

After a very, very long time, and after exhausting all of our minds capacities (2 minutes after changing the money and meeting the spanish cattle rapist) we decided that it was safest to just ask a taxi how much he was willing to take us to the hostel for. We agreed on 30zl (6 pounds - between 5) to take us to the hostel. So, we piled into the car after a small delay where the driver said 'i cant take 5' and we said 'you are' and started the 30 minute journy. When we were about 5 minutes in I said cockily 'ha ha I bet he'll ask for hazard pay' to Lilly... Unknown to me, he knew English and decided that was a great idea... Our taxi cost us 50zl (10 pounds - by 5), his reason was that 5 people technically made 2 taxis and therefore he should be paid more. Apart from the fact that we had agreed on the price, I thought that was reasonable.

We arrived at the hostel and checked in. We were given a room with two guys in it, one of which was fast asleep. We made as little noise as possible and organised our beds to sleep in. Really comfy beds!

Morning came and it would seem that our efforts to soften the noise of our arrival was not appreciated. Mr. Sleepy had woken up at7am and made lots of noise in what I think may have been some sort of revenge. He exited the room with his pack and I nodded to him... I hope he was pleased.

We woke up at around 8am and went to the kitchen for free breakfast! We stayed there until around 12! when we finally dragged ourselves out of the hostel to see the lovely old town. Unfortunately the story of Warsaw old town buildings is the same everywhere you go... 'destroyed by Germany as a punishment for the attempted uprising of Polish locals', the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. All the buildings were re-built and have been standing from around 1945.

On our walk we bumped into our Spanish friend from the night before. He suggested that we see the old town that's across the river. He said there were some original walls that had bullet holes in them from the war. He said 'go now it's dangerous at night'. We continued our walk around the old town and popped into a couple of souvenir shops where I bought a Polish bag badge to add to the bag😊.

We made our way back to the hostel for a nice dinner and chat. We met a nice Polish lady who told us the story of her life for the next 2 hours of ours.

She told us that her and her daughter live in the UK. Her daughter was in Gymnasium, and she was a single mother working for them to live. Now, I was confused why her daughter was studying Italian, Polish, English and all the Gcse's that we did in a Gym... It wasn't until the next day that I discovered that Gymnasium is the Polish name for High School. Suddenly it all became clear. Anyway, this lady who we will call brenda (i cant remember her name), told us that when she last came to Poland, the UK basically called the child services on her for leaving a child 'unattended', which was not true. She had left two people in charge of taking care of her daughter. One was a family and the other was a 19 year old girl. The 19 year old girl failed at delivering her to places she needed to be, or left her at places she needed to be, but too early. Anyway, she arrived in the UK to find that the Police were not happy.

Day 2
We woke up fairly early and had some breakfast. We then headed out to find a book cafe to chill out in for an hour or so.

We arrived at the cafe after 5 minutes of walking around. After buying some cake for the girls, we tried to find some books worth swapping for ours. There were probably only about 6 English books all together, and I was bored very quickly. I decided to leave the girls there and go to buy some cheap water from a local supermarket.

As we left the cafe, we were lucky enough to be rained on. It was cold and wet and miserable for about 15 minutes. We walked back to the old town to see a monument of a small boy in adult soldier clothing. It was in memory of the scouts who died in the uprising.

After seeing the boy, we walked to the main city to see the only Synagogue remaining from before the German occupation in the city of Warsaw, as the Nazis destroyed them all. It wasnt really any different to any other churchy thing we'd seen, and you couldn't get inside it either. So, we continued to back to the hostel but stopped in a supermarket to buy some vegetables for our pet rabbit.

Dinner was pasta with cheese sauce and broccoli made by Lilly and I, and washed by Mim and Alice! And after dinner we had another chat with our friendly Polish lady friend. She was such a concerned mother, and very anxious. She was worried that her daughter would be stabbed, raped, beaten up or kidnapped. She was also upset that her darling had turned into a horrible mono-syllabic tetchy girl... We told her the word for this behaviour... teenagers.

After our chat, our Polish lady friend seemed to be reassured that the reason her daughter is not talking anymore was not because she hates her.

Day 3
Our third and final day in Warsaw was very much un-planned... We had no train tickets and no hostel booked for Krakow.

At around 9:30, I started to look for possible hostels to stay at. I booked one just outside the city centre (online). Unfortunately they told me that my booking was not possible but they could offer us a 16person dorm for 60zl a night per person, which was alot more than 18person dorm for 40 a night. I told them that I would find one that suited us better... So, after talking to the receptionist, I booked another one which was in the heart of the city. The receptionist booked it actually. She booked 3 nights for 4 people at 40zl a night. Great!

After checking out at 11:00am we headed for the train station. On arrival we went straight to the ticket desk and asked for some new covers for Alice and Mims tickets. The covers are basically a travel log that need to be filled out on every journy you take. Im not sure when or where, but those covers were thrown away and then we realised that they were actually needed. Anyway, we managed to find new covers and get our passes validated for interailing.

Alot of interailing trains require you to have a reservation, and that means you have to pay something like 25zl (5pounds). So, 100zl and 45 minutes later we had lunch and were sitting comfortably on the train.

Goodbye Warsaw

Thank you readers.


P.S - The symbol of Warsaw is a Mermaid. She's beautiful. I love her.

Just so its easy to understand my not easy to understand stories:

Kelly (not her really name) - Copenhagen Mermaid
Aniela (not her real name) - Warsaw Mermaid
Joshua (not his real name either) - Greedy man

The story goes (according to our Warsaw book) that Kelly and Aniela were swimming around and decided to go to Poland by the Baltic Sea. Kelly said 'well actually I'll go up the danish straits, cheers bye' and now can be seen sitting at the entrance to the port of Copenhagen.

Aniela reached Poland and relaxed on a beach... two fishermen wanted to catch her, but when they heard her lovely singing, they couldn't find it in themselves to hurt her. So they became friends instead. Happy ending.

BUT THEN! (insert suspense music if you have any)

Joshua found out about her, and he was a very greedy man. He wanted to catch her and take her back to Warsaw to show her at fairs and make lots of money. And he did.

After a while, two local boys heard her moans and pain at being locked up and decided to help her. One night they snuck into the barn and set her free. (insert peaceful music) She swore to them that she would forever protect the city. Now she can be seen on every bin and lamp post possible and her official statue is in the market square at the centre of old town, armed with a sword and shield.

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Photos

a statue of a famous Polish person

statue of the king that united poland
he is holding a cross and looks very familiar to the alexander angel holding a cross in front of the hermitage

Comments

[susan Skinner]

Thank you for blog
hi James, Many thanks for your blog. It was a good laugh. I am glad UR all safe. We are off to Hillsong local group where I am doing dinner. BFN love Susan