Fell up the stairs in KFC today

---

well its almost half 5 here and Ive just finished my first proper day sight seeing in poland. Firstly I went to get a Warsaw card from the tourist information. Its about the size of a credit card and allows you discounted entry into museum etc and covers all your public transport. I was going to get a 3 day one to cover all the days I'm here for but the bloke in the tourist information told me that a lot of the museums are shut on a monday so there wasn't much point. So I just got a one day one, but what he also didnt tell me was that the museums are free on a sunday so I havent used it yet. So Im going to activate the transport one when I head to the zoo tomorrow then if I get up early on tuesday it should cover me to get the tram to the main train station.

So first stop was the Warsaw uprising museum. I've come up with a new way to find museums- head in the general direction then when you see what looks like a tour group or school group follow them. Im not going to bore you with what the Warsaw uprising was. You can google it if you care. But it was one of the best museums Ive been to. They used lots of different ways to get the information across and had a replica of a plane right in the middle of the museum. They had a huge monument to the people that dies as well. IT ran all the way down the middle of the place and then it had a heart beat soundtrack and played 'sounds from the uprising' I couldnt work out if it was acctual sounds or fake. But either way it was amazing.

Second musuem was the Palawski (possibly spelt that wrong) prison museums. It is in the basement of a german prison where thousands of people were imprisoned and killed during the second world war. It was destroyed at the end of the war then in 1967 they cleared the rubble and opened the museum. There's some pictures of former prisoners clearing it. Theres a bronze statue of a tree outside. The tree managed to stay alive throughout the war. They once it had been cleared of rubble people started attaching plaques to the dead to it. However it started to decay so they cast an exact bronze replica of it and have kept the branches inside. They have pictures of Pope John Paul praying in front of it.

Then my feet were hurting and I was thirsty so I headed to the nearest place that sold coke. Which happened to be the KFC. Luckily I had drank my coke and was heading to the toilet to sort my hair out when I fell up the stairs.

I headed to the old town next. They still call it the old town but its fairly new. 85% of Warsaw's buildings were destoryed during the course of the war. But they rebuilt many of the buildings exactly the same. So it looks very pretty but its not really the same.

I went into the old Royal Place, which was destroyed and rebuilt. Some of the rooms in there are lovely, but it was a bit like walking around a giant dolls house or something because I knew it wasnt genuine. I got told off a few times because I kept thinking I'd turned the flash off on my camera for good and then it would come back on again.

Just down the road from the place is the national museum. I got in trouble there too. You arent allowed to take pictures and you have to put your coat in the clockroom. They had a display of angel statues that I wanted to take a picture of, because they looked like the angels from an episode of dr who. Dont know why I didnt want to put my coat in the cloakroom. The museum itself is ok when you arent getting into trouble. There was lots on very very old poland and the war but not much about post war and solidarity. I dont know if this is just because its not really history to the people here that lived through most of it, or if they just havent got the space. The basement was being renovated so maybe they are going to put something in there.

Walking out of the museum I saw a bloke dressed as a pint talking to a bloke in old fashioned polish clothes. I think I managed to get a picture of it before they moved. After that I went up to a viewing tower thats attached to the side of one of the churches (possibly that Cathedral Im not sure). I've taken pictures from pretty much every angle up there so you can all look at them. It was funny though on one side you could hear the local skaters, then on the other you could hear mass from the church.

I was leaving the tower as the church was letting out. There was people outside handing out leaflets to the congregation. Dont know what they were about but I still think its a bit strange.

I did some wandering around after that, took some pictures of building but then it started snowing. It was just a few flakes but I thought I'd head back to the hostel anyway- I was shattered and it was -2. So here I am. I think the plan for tonight is to have some soup and my free beer in the bar.

---

Comments

[Jan]

Proper interesting that Amy. Really makes me want to go and visit the place. It makes me realise too that there's a bit more culture and refinement to you than supping the pints of ale that you do would indicate!