Back to Europe: Poland!

New Journey Begins.

Start: Warsaw, Poland

Population: 3.35 million

Warsaw is a city that was 85% destroyed in World War II. It is the capital of a county that has been partitioned off, to the point where it once ceased to exist, four times. It is a city of which over half of the permanent inhabitants were not born there, where the largest and most prominent building in the skyline and in the heart of the city is still the Communist Palace of Arts and Culture, where hardly anyone speaks English and yet there's a "Coffeeheaven" on every corner, where there's a veritable underground city beneath the streets around the train station and the major center square. Compared to other major cities it has many similarities- an urban area, one metro line, congestion of the roads and smog and noise and highrises-but it has its own very unique history, a mix of Jewish remembrance and partisan resistance to nearly every takeover it has sustained, that make it a place to add to a list of dream places to visit. Mybe not mid-January of course, but I had no other time to go. Anyways, I get there at night and just check into my hostel, which is so far the best hostel I've had for the entire year, cute orange circly art deco print layout for common room with a giant tedy bear, comfy couches and pillows, rooms painted in multicolored stripes very welcoming, homey, big bunk beds with high ceilings and rooms were only half full or less so there was a modicum of privacy which was nice. Anyways, set out to see the city the next day. Morning train to Malkinia then taxi to Treblinka concentration camp, of which nothing remains you just walk around the fields and there's the large rock monument in the shape of big doors almost in the center, I was, no exaggeration, the only person there, apart from the one woma at the little trailer type setup entrance and the taxi driver stayed in his car and waited for me to finish to take me back otherwise I would've had no way to get back to the train station. Back in town I walked around the Palace of Science and Culture, hard to miss, right in front there's this huge building that looks like a warehouse made out of sheet metal or some non-permanent structe that has tons of little kiosks like a mall inside but the shops are littler, lots of clothes and shoes and really really cute pairs of boots. Kebab stands are everywhere in this city, people are obsessed (same in Krakow only there at least they had falafel too, my preference). They also sell a lot of these baguette halves cut lengthwisie with cheese/onion/bratwurst on top. Walked over to this statue of a palm tree that is in the mimddle of a busy intersection, representing the lost Jewish community of Warsaw, it's called "view from jerusalem avenue" or something like that, then walked up the popular street Nowy Swiat which led to the old town, pas the university gates, the church of the Cross, "Cockroach Milk Bar' this famous millk bar which are these places where you can get a two course lunch really cheap, left over from the communist era, walked past the royal palace and new government buildings, lots of other churches, go tto the old town which was very very cute and pictoresque, a pink royal palace, winding roads with designs on the sides of buildings, red brick frontier wall surrounding, mermaid stautue in the center of the main suqare, the mermaid being the town mascot/symbol, snow was lightly falling, I go to coffeeheaven for a cappucino and sit and read, walk over pass these cool statues made out of really thin metal that look like horses with wings get to the former Jewish ghetto area, see the statue to heroes of the ghetto uprising, umschalgplatz where the jews were rounded up and sent off to Treblinka and Auschwitz, on parts of the street where the ghetto wall used to be there's black bricks that say Ghetto Wall 1940-1943 to show the boundaries (the ghetto was huge!)

The next day take the morning train to Lodz, try to find the old ghetto/Jewish museum end up finding nothing, no maps of city and no one speaks English or if they do they say a little and really don't speak any, so it was ironic when I got completely lost in this city I walk into a tanning salon (solarium as they call it, much more professional) and I ask if the woman speaks English and she says "of course" as if everyone does (not not not true!) So I walk around, find a little square with a statue and a little christmasy tree otherwise it's just a dirty city, residential lot sof little kids going to school, overcast not great, muddy, there's a funny vintage clothing store (aparently Warsaw invented vintage clothing) and a cute little hsopping street that was ard to find with statues of musticans on the sidewal, I bought a pair of nice shoes which was a plus, got lost, finally mde my way back to the train station, in Warsaw went and explore the "Stalin Town" buildings with old communist socialst realism architecture, then headed back to the hostel.

Day 3 woke up late, was going to go to Gdansk but I decided it was too far, instead I walked tot he train station then found a giant mall next to it and walked around there, found the only left part of the ghetto wallwhich is hidden in between these two residentail buildings in a decent part of the city in the middle of this courtyard, I don't know how anyone could ever find it it's not marked on the map or anything, walked boer to the Museum of the Warsaw Resistance for the warsaw uprising (Aug 1 1944) very good museum, then up to Jewish cemetery (closed on Saturdays saw the big red wall surrounding it) little plaques of where the ghetto wall used to be were over there as well. Walked over to the Old Town aain (a UNESCO site!) then down to the university library which is this new building made of steel, brick, glass, very retro greens and purples, then back to hostel home base done exploring Warsaw! Weird drunk Welshmen in hostel room came back at 6:20 am!! That's our financial adviers= that's why the economy's tanking.

Little things about local culture: in Malkinia and the little towns outside of Warsaw there were lots of little old people riding their old bikes around and lots of shrines (Catholic) in front of people's houses, but not makeshift ones actual little mini buildings maybe ten feet hight but made out of plaster or whatever you make houses out of, with these multicolored ribbons hanging off the sides, I think they were primarily built during one of the world wars when people couldn't go to church to pray. Pierogis are big here so i read but i never actually saw a place selling them, in Willy Brandt park over by the old jewish ghetoo they're going to build a museum of history of the polish jews, on the ghetto wall two bricks have been taken out and one i in Houston the other in Yad Vashem Jerusalem, the interncontinental hotel in the heart of the city ha a huge hole int he middle of it to allow daylight into neighboring buildigs, there's a night bar bus across the street= only open at night, the palace of science and culture is known as stalin's wedding cake, built 1955, loved and loathed symbol of communism, the house of the party (communist party HQ) is now ironically the stock echange, the column in old town is of Zygmunt III Vasa, warsaw's oldest secular monument erected 1644. Mermaid legend: Once upon a time 2 mermaid sisters swam to the shoes of the Baltic sea from their home in the depths. One swam further north and sits ona rock at the entry to the port of Copenhagen. The other swam to Gdansk then up the Vistula River. She came to rest outside Old Town Warsaw, she liked it so much she decided tos tay but she was disturbing the fishermen and their nets so they decided to capture her, but when they heard her beautiful voice singing they decided they liked her and let her stay, a rich merchant came and captured her to put her on show, a young farmhand son of a fishman came and freed her from captivity, and the emrmaid swore that if the residents of the city were ever in danger she would protecct them always (that's why she has a sword and shield).

Krakow, Poland

Population: About 1 million

Next day (sunday, Jan 25) onto Krakow via train. Get to Krakow, check into hostel that's right near the trains tation (which is again connected to a gigantic mall, this one bigger than anything I've yet seen in Europe, then explore Old Town Krakow. I like Krakow ten times better than Warsaw already. People speak English, it's a smaller city so less congested/urbany and more of its unique characteristicis come out, it hasn't been rebuilt as much so all of the mediveal era walls are still there and the bastian/citeadel/prison and it's very beautiful and peaceful, streets are clean and there's no strange people lurking out at 5 am (not that there were in Warsaw either actually, Poland seemed like a safe enough place from what I saw) and it was just a different type of city. Get there, put my bags down, and walk out into this park where there was thisbig circular building with little pointy turrets on top like a crown all made of red brick, that used to be a prison/mini entrance gate to the city, behind it is the real entrance to the medieval era city called Florian's Gate, this beautiful white stone gate with big doors and inside there's one main street but two little streets on either side, wide pedestrian avenues with christmas decorations still up, and at the very end of the boulevard you can see through the fog the spires of the cathedral in the main square, where there's also this huge huge building with lots of arches/voutes and there are little shops set up inside , wooden toys and furs and Krakow shot glasses and lots of souvenirs with dragons on them because the dragon is the symbol of the city. There's also a bell tower in the main square and this circular white building with an oxidized green copper roof that I think is a church structure of some sort. But returning to Florians' gate, there was a seller of art with these pictures of many colors spreead out three time the height of a man and at least thirty times as wide, this huge colossol wall of art outside that was very pretty, and then you walked down the main street and saw all the doner kebab shops but also these little stands like popucorn stands i guess int he US but here there were little old ladies in aprons or cloth dresses selling bread donuts (Dobra Kena) from 1.30 zlotkys (polish currency, three and a little equal one euro) and they were seriously everywhere, and everyone on the street had one in their hand eating it too. As you passed the main square and kept walking down the main street yo uhit Wawel, the symbol of all Polish culture and history so the sign says, it's this big fortress/castle that has been built and rebuilt over the centuries on top of this hill and is still int he midst of reconstruction, where the duke of the region lived and it had support of the Austrian monarchy and its essentiall y a big complex, with imperial rooms, a cathedraol, and lots of other rooms. It reminded me a lot of the castle in Slovakia that I saw, the same layout. It was full of tourists and looked right out ont ot he Vistular river. I climbed down and walked along the river to another church , following the route of Saint Stanislaws in his yearly pilgrammages or something like that, then over to Kazimierz which is the old jewish quarter right at the southern end of Krakow. Unfortunately this was a huge disappointment because the entire area is in ruins, run down clearly poor, but more than anything you can't tell it's the old jewish quarter there's no signs or markings and certainly no jews live there now, it was the only part of the city really to have graffitied walls and it was just not a place you'd go to visit. There was the old synagogue in the middle of it which is still there and I think functional, it had wroutght iron fences with little jeish stars welded in, but the building itself couldn't have been further from what you'd consider a temple to look like, it didnt look like a house of worship at all really, also no jewish bakeries or falafel stands like in the Venice Jewish quarter, as small as that was, no schools, nothing, it was beyond run down actually parts of the streets were dug up but the construction had stopped, lots of auto parts places and junkyards and there used to e a tramway line running through that part but it doesn't run there anymore. So out of Kazimierz, back to main krakow, I go to the mall for a little, find this traditional market that is kind of like the one in Warsaw in that it's a bunch of little stands but they are made out of this cheap building material its not in an actual building, like little kiosks all set up next to each other in one square yard. Next day I spent the entire day at Auschwitz-Birkenau, first at Auschwitz I where the barracks are made of brick and are still there and it reminded me of Theresienstadt because it looks like a miniature town almost, with streets and buildings and such, not like theo ther camps where they looked like summer cmaps today or if the barracks are just outlined in rock they look like fields. Then I walked the 3 km over to Auschwitz II-Birkenau (after getting lost and walking at least 1 km in the wrong direction, then having to walk back) and I was surprised and the sheer size of Birkenau, it was huge!! 5 crematoria, and they were in the process of expanding it back in the fields, they had this huge sewage plant to manage the camp and each square of the camp had barbed wire around it so it was cut off in to litlte sections, and it just went on forever there were at least 75 barracks in total, and the train tracks ran straight through the main camp gates (which had non saying over them like in other camps). So I learned a lot and saw a lot that day and probably walked at least 6 miles, who knows how many kilometers, but I was dead tired when I got back and then just stayed in the hostel and did work/packed up to head off to Germany the next day. The other thing that you are supposed to see if you go to Krakow are the Wielzcieka Salt Mines that are sort of a day trip out of the city but they've been in operation fro 900 years and form an important part of the economy over there, I didn't get there but I saw pictures and they're supposed to be beautiful, like caves with diamonds or really sparkly jewels on all the walls. So I'd definitely return to Krakow and reommend anyone and everyone to go visit.