Warsaw, Poland

Warsaw has been an interesting experience. The weather here hasn't been great which I think has added a bit to the less than stellar experience I have had here. (A sea of white in the sky all day when you are sight seeing tends to make it a little slower paced. Plus with the low cloud cover it gets difficult to see the tops of the taller buildings.) I can deal with a little overcast weather, but I think Poland would be a much different experience in the summer.

It was also a little weird because the woman at the tourist information desk at the train station was a little off with some of her advice. She got a little crazy with her ball-point pen and our map of the city. She circled a bunch of areas and made some illegible notes on it that covered a good portion of the map I had. On the first day Jules and I were here, we walked to the historic old town and Jewish district (where they forced all the Jews to live during WWII, behind these huge brick walls).

We decided to get a bite to eat and headed to an area circled on our map thinking it was a place that the woman at the tourist desk suggested as a good place to eat. Well, I don't think we actually saw a single restaurant in the entire area, so we walked across the river to the west side of the city where the woman said there was a large arts community that had made the area really trendy. We thought, "artists need to eat, I bet we can find food there." At first when we were walking around we kept thinking, "maybe this is 'Polish Trendy,'" since the stores were nothing impressive and there was no real arts influence visible. Finally, we stumbled on this small hole in the wall place that had a limited menu, but we were starving, and I would have eaten dog or cat as long as it came with something to dip it in. The menu did include Kielbasa which I knew was some sort of sausage and since it was Poland we both thought sausage was appropriate. However, we did also get a plate of spaghetti because it is hard to mess up spaghetti, a safe bet.

After dinner, Jules and I continued to walk around the 'trendy' part of Warsaw, but only stumbled on a Mall, where she bought a much needed SIM Card. The mall was really the arty-est thing we saw... LOL. But after the long train ride and a day of walking, we were both very tired so we went back to the hostel to regroup for the next day.
Today we went back to the Old Town, in order to see it during the daytime. It was really impressive and beautiful, and the Jewish section was just incredible. It was powerful to see the walls that segregated all of the Jews into an area where they would be starved and shot by the Nazis. Now they have turned most of the area into a park, but there is an enormous monument in honor of the Jewish Community. After walking there, we decided to go to an area not circled on our map by the woman at the tourist desk. It ended up being GREAT. Filled with life, shopping, restaurants, and nightlife. We learned, don't go to anywhere circled on the map in black pen. We walked around, did some window shopping, and ended up seeing "The Women" in a movie theater. It was not dubbed, so I was able to understand what was going on, and it was nice to just sit and relax after a full day of walking.

All in all, Warsaw was not terrible. I just wish we had gotten a little better info at the train station. Jules and I would probably not have wasted an entire day walking around "dead" areas. I also learned to trust the LonelyPlanet when it says "that area is not very popular with tourists" generally means, nothing to do.

Tomorrow I am heading to Prague. My friend, Shelley from Webster, is going to be in Krakow on Saturday, so I think I will head back to Krakow to meet up with her, and we can see Auschwitz together, which means I leave Jules tomorrow. It was fun getting to know someone, and travel a bit with them, but at the same time, it will be nice to get back to my solo lifestyle. I have slowly learned to love being out on my own.