Warsaw, Poland

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Today has been much better than expected! We arrived in Poland before 4pm so the bus ride didn’t seem too bad. We had time to explore a bit on our own this afternoon. Actually, we were in Poland at 10am but it took a long time to reach Warsaw. We had a lunch stop at a Polish restaurant where everyone had preordered their meals so they were ready for us when we arrived – Polish schnitzel with vinegar-based coleslaw for me and chicken stuffed with vegetables for Kamie. We shared and they were both good. We arrived into Warsaw, Poland long before we made it to our hotel because traffic was so crazy. Warsaw is 1.8 million people, 2 million with commuters during the day. It feels like every bit of that and then some. I like it.



We are back in our room tonight after just having a group dinner that was way too big and formal - - tomato/mozzarella salad, mushroom soup, beef bourguignon for the main course, and a blueberry/chocolate mousse dessert. We are ready to get out and about tomorrow and try some Polish perogies and kielbasas with beer!



Just a few things about the trip…. people and the food….



- McDonald’s in Lithuania (the only place we ate McDs) charges 50 cents (Euro) for every ketchup packet.



- KFC in Lithuania had chicken, chicken sandwiches, chicken strips, etc… but only four sides…. Small French fries, Medium French fries, Large French fries, and Corn which consisted of a small bowl of corn which looked like it had red bell peppers in it. No mashed potatoes anywhere. Actually, we see potatoes everywhere – at breakfast they are boiled, at lunch and dinner they are boiled with onions and sometimes with spices, today at lunch they were baked and cut-up. Never have we seen a mashed potato. We are in the land of potato and the potatoes are bland and terrible here. Funny.



We have tried liquor in various foods, sometimes by accident. The people in these countries like their chocolate and their hard liquor.



- We bought Estonian Vodka, Lithuanian, Vodka and Poland’s “amazing according to Kamie” Bison grass vodka. We are bringing a bottle of each home. Yes, this is legal.



- We had chocolate filled with Latvia’s “black death” hard liquor with 24 herbs. It was like taking a full shot of hard liquor that tasted like bleck! I HATED it. Kamie said it wasn’t good enough to spend money on (we were given free samples while on tour).



- We accidentally bought some ice cream today – like a little individual takeaway ice cream cone from the supermarket – and it was with Amaretto – very strong Amaretto.



Remember my buddies Wilfred and Paco? Well, we had the names wrong… these gentlemen are Wilfred (sounds like Alfredo) and Pardo. They are still very much our buddies, mainly mine. Pardo pretty much has no idea where he is most of the time. It cracks me up. I told Kamie that Wilfred is my second husband. He is a troublemaker and I like him. We laugh together a lot.



Out of 43 people we are traveling with us…



- 6 ladies are traveling on their own. Now, one of them never got married – she is with her mom and she’s part of the Golden Girls and she has a female partner back at home. Three of the four golden girls are divorced. One lady is traveling by herself and she looks quite young to me – possibly 60 at the most? She is here alone but not really… her neighbors of 30+ years are an older couple who are here too. They flew together, etc. She is divorced. There is one lady here who didn’t know anyone else pre-trip. She is Eileeen, she is Asian but lives in the San Francisco area with her husband who is “much older” and very sick. She travels alone all the time apparently.



- 7 men are travelling without their wives but they are all married (we think). However, I don’t know about Pardo. If he has a wife, he probably lost her somewhere. 2 men are good friends from years ago and live in different states but they travel somewhere together every year and one says “the wives are busy with their clubs and stuff.” 1 guy travels a lot – sometimes with wife, sometimes no wife. He is on his third tour this year to various places with our tour company – one he took with his wife, one with an old law school buddy, and this one alone. I just find it odd that we know for sure that 4 of the 7 men have wives at home who did not wish to come on this trip with them.







Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland are all part of the European Union or EU. There is more to it but basically 28 countries agreed to be somewhat like the states in the U.S.A. Citizens of one EU country can travel between another EU country freely, move to another EU country, and work in another EU country. Goods can be bought and sold between countries freely. There is no border patrols between two EU countries. Today, again, crossing from Lithuania into Poland was like driving from Missouri to Arkansas.



Our friend Alan is out of the hospital and doing okay. He returned to the tour today and we had lunch with him. He said they called the ambulance for him early in the morning hours and took him from our hotel to the hospital. He was taken in a back area and his wife was asked to sit outside. There was no place for her to sit so she stayed separate from him and waited. Nobody came to talk to her at 8:30am, 10:30am, etc... it was 4:30pm until they were out of there. They *finally* got an American doctor who was nice and gave him an IV which took a very long time and talked to him and ran an EKG. The doctor left the hospital with them and showed them the local pharmacy to get medicine. They invited the doctor to dinner and he went with them and they all ate at a very popular local restaurant together. The total hospital bill was very long and included the ambulance, IV, doctor fees, etc... and it was 59 Euros total. They paid with a credit card. Apparently, having a heart issue is cheaper than smoking cigarettes in the EU. Alan told us today he is no stranger to health problems in other countries. He was on a cruise ship outside of Tahiti and had a heart attack. They took him off the boat and her with four big suitcases. He sat in a small hospital most of the day while they did an EKG. They then flew him on a small medical plane about 10 minutes away to a different, larger island. She had to take a ferry with all four suitcases to the same island. He was there for three days before they flew them by medical air to a San Francisco hospital where he had bypass surgery. A doctor was required to be with them from the airplane in San Francisco to the hospital and this doctor ordered a limousine to take them from the airport to the hospital. The cost of just the "medical limousine" was $11,000 US dollars. The cost of the small hospital in Tahiti was 3,200 Euros a day. Alan has Kaiser-Permanente health insurance so he was covered for the entire heart attack. Kaiser negotiated a deal with the "medical limousine" and paid just over $1,000 for the ride.

There are lots of stories told on this trip by the other tour members. Interesting stories.

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Photos

Polish lunch stop restaurant
We stopped about 2.5 hours outside of Warsaw, Poland and had lunch here

View of the former palace (from bus window)
We should walk by here tomorrow

Supermarket
Just down the street from our hotel. They sell everything from tomatoes to leggings to liquor. There are very tall apartment buildings all around the very tall business buildings. The supermarket was packed today.

KFC in Lithuania
Alcohol for sale

Comments

[Stacy]

Good lord we need better medical care in the USA. Ugh. Traveling solo sounds super sad and lonely. Not my cup of tea at all.

[Mallory]

You are definitely traveling with some interesting characters! And what a unique place to eat...and mostly drink! Haha! Sounds fantastic! If you get sick, go ahead and get sick there...not in the US!