The Real Warszawa

Warsaw had lovely weather for two hours.

The rest was really cold and rainy.

I was actually prepared for cold weather when I left Ohio.

However.

When I got to Oslo, and we didn't even need our jackets, I took the opportunity to lighten my load and threw out my big warm sweaters.

Not one of my better decisions.

I coped with Warsaw by: wearing leggings under my jeans, long socks on top of that, one tank top, one t-shirt, two long sleeve shirts, and an extra warm scarf and gloves I borrowed from Gosia. 

I was like the little brother from A Christmas Story.

Back to those precious few hours of sun...

Gosia and I went out to breakfast at this fabulous little cafe whose staple was their delicious marmalade.  You got a basket of assorted breads, and then you got a few jars of different marmalades and then swapped flavors with your neighbors.  There was orange, raspberry, chocolate and white chocolate.  Absolutely amazing.

Gosia's friend Tomick (sp?) met us after breakfast.  He was studying medicine in Warsaw and was from the same town as Gosia.  As usual I was surprised at his impeccable English.

Sometimes I like to test the waters a bit, use more slang or more complicated words to see where my boundaries are when I'm speaking to a non native English speaker. 

Both Gosia and Tomick's English vocabularies were stellar, perhaps even superior to some American's vocabularies. 

The three of us walked through a very pretty park, and they pointed out the prime minister's residence as well as the president's.  Apparently they have both. As we talked a bit about their government, Tomick asked me what the capital of Poland was.

Krakow of course.

Nope. Warsaw.

How embarrassing.

Here we were making fun of American girls that didn't know Turkey and Hungary were countries, and there I go not even knowing where the hell I was exactly.

In my defense, Krakow WAS the capital of Poland a while back.  My other excuse was that I didn't have wifi on my train to Poland and so I couldn't catch up on my Polish history....

Whatever.

Anyways, just as we were making to leave the park, it started raining.  And blowing. We made it to the bus stop and got off at the old town.  By then the weather was a little calmer. 

Old town is kind of a misnomer.  Almost everything in Warsaw was destroyed during the second world war.  Despite the extensive wide spread damage to the city, the citizens returned to the city to build it back up.  The old town was actually rebuilt top look exactly as it had, based on paintings of it from before the war.

It was gorgeous.  People had warned me that Warsaw would be ugly concrete and feel like communism, but you didn't see any of that in the old town.  Lovely stone masonry on the buildings.  Some belonged to the university, some were churches, done were just historic buildings.  Benches that played Chopin (by far my favorite classical musician) dotted the district.

We climbed a tower to get a view of the city.  Afterwards we escaped to a cafe, as it had started raining again.

Tomick left us shortly after, and Gosia and I continued on to a photography exhibit.  It featured old pictures of Warsaw, most of which were post war, I believe.  Even without English captions, they were very interesting.

We watched the movie The Pianist, a true story based on a Polish Jew's experience of WWII.  It was actually filmed in Warsaw where the real events took.  Gosia pointed out the spots we walked that day, as well as the places she would show me the next day.  Apparently her current apartment was once part of one of the Polish ghettos.

After such a depressing movie, of course we went out to a club.

I can't recall the name of the place, but I will never forget the decorations/furniture.  It was as if some one had stolen a single item from every grandmother in a ten mile radius.  Random mismatched chairs and sofas. Tables nailed to the ceiling.  Miniature porcelain cows stared at you from cheap china cabinets.

It was fabulous.

What made it even better, was the currency exchange that worked out in my favor.  One dollar to approximately three Złote .  This was a much easier conversion to do than dollars to Kronors, especially after two beers.

The next day, Gosia and I went to the Uprising Museum.  Uprising refers to the even that occurred towards the end of the war when the remaining occupants of the ghetto (those that hadn't already been shipped off to concentration camps) revolted against their German captors.  Fighting also occurred outside the ghetto by Polish that were never imprisoned there.  Russia had promised aid in this uprising, but they remained on the opposite bank if the river until the worst of it had died down.  Now I'm skipping over quite a few details here, but the uprising led to the eventual liberation of Warsaw and also Poland.

There is apparently still debate on whether the uprising was a good idea or not.

Even when Germany admitted defeat, they still took the opportunity to destroy any building in Warsaw that they could.  Literally, pretty much all of Warsaw and it's buildings were destroyed by the time it was liberated.  Meanwhile, Prague, for example, didn't revolt at all and that is why all it's old beautiful buildings are still intact.

Maybe if Warsaw had remained complacent, more of it's buildings would have survived.  But then again, maybe not.  In my opinion, the pride gained from fighting is worth more than the architecture lost.

The museum dedicated to The Uprising, was huge.  Interesting, yet overwhelming at the same time. 

Every year in my elementary school, starting in about second grade, we studied WWII. And I mean every year.  We never actually explored the topic any further, we just drilled the lesson that "Hatred of others is bad".  We learned that Germans hated Jews, but not the events that led up to antisemitism feelings in Europe. We learned that the Japanese were on the German's side. Not why.  I'm pretty sure we never got to the bottom of whose side Russia was on (does anyone really know whose side Russia was on...besides Russia's side). 
My point is, WWII was my only form of world history until college.  Yet, based on what I learned, the war basically started in Hawaii and ended in Japan.  I couldn't even have told you Auschwitz was in Poland until a few years ago.  As if it were a big secret, obviously the American education system is lacking.  (I could go off on a tangent about how our history is so much shorter than everyone else's, and you'd think we could branch out more, but that's for another time...)

ANYWAYS

Gosia showed me around some more sights, including the university, which is very old. We also saw where the ghetto walls existed, as well as the bridge that linked the large ghetto to the small one.

She asked me once while we were walking, what differences did I see between Poland and America. I immediately mentioned my bubble.  I've briefly discussed my bubble on my blog before, but never did it become so important to me as it did in Poland.

You see, I could not walk with Gosia in a straight line.

It was a continuous zig zag.

We'd start out our dance in the middle of the sidewalk.  As we progressed, I would move further away from her in order to have a more comfortable conversation distance.  Following my lead, she would quickly close the gap I had just created.  Eventually, I'm pinned between her and either the wall or oncoming traffic.  I would find a reason to switch sides, and we'd start the dance all over again going the other way. 

I'm sure we could have gotten to our destinations much faster, had we not zig zagged the whole way.

This constant edging away happened during standstill conversations as well.  Often I'd pop out a leg or elbow with zero effect.

When I mentioned the bubble, I told her not to be offended, I just needed a bit more space.  And, if it felt like I was moving away from her, I probably was.  She mentioned that she had noticed it a bit, but I doubt she noticed the extent I went to "be able to breath".  I wish the vicinity thing didn't bother me because I don't want to be rude.  But it does, so I try to explain it when I can.

We stayed in that night.  Somewhat because Gosia had to be at work the next day, but also because I had been frozen all day and being sick on this trip was not an option.

Gosia's roommate was to take me out the next afternoon to see a bit more of the city, as it would be my last full day in Warsaw.

Dobranoc Warsaw
Tegs