Days 1->5 Warsaw
The Warsaw train was kind of strange. It was only 2 cars and both cars only had cabins. I ended up sharing a cabin with a Polish rail employee who slept most of the way.
As I walked out of the train station and turned around I was smacked in the face by this giant building towering over the city. It's the Palace of Culture and Science. Apparently it was modelled after the Empire State Building. It was a "gift" from The Russians while they still occupied Poland so apparently the Polish don't like it very much.
It's got some museums and a cinema and whatnot in there now. Regardless it's a very impressive building and they project colours onto it in the evenings to jazz it up.
Checked into my hostel not far from our giant building overlord then went out for a wander. It's nice to be back in a big city again. I'm not staying in the old town area this time like I did in Kraków. I didn't end up straying too far from the hostel really. It felt like I walked more than I did but looking at my google location history I really just walked a big square around the giant building in the middle. Obviously I stopped at a craft beer place on the way back for a couple of beers and some food.
One of the guys in my room at the hostel went out for some drinks when I got back. He was just coming back when I was leaving the following morning. Big night!
On the 26th I started with a walking tour of the Warsaw "old town". The old town was completely flattened during WW2 and was rebuilt afterwards. I believe the guide said the rebuild was completely community funded rather than government funded and for that reason has been listed as a Unesco site. The tour was pretty good but was really just an introduction. There are some pretty good looking and interesting buildings and monuments though.
Now at this point in my trip I realised that I was heading to Norway next and that my cold weather getup was pretty lacking. Poland had started to get a bit cold and I could already tell the stuff I had wasn't going to be very useful if it got any colder. So I decided to spend a bit of time the next couple of days doing a bit of shopping. Which I hate. But it was sadly necessary.
So I jumped on a bus and headed out to a sort of discount outdoor store called Decathlon to see what I could pick up. The place is huge and they've got heaps of options for outdoor gear but I'm not really sure whether it's any good. So after wandering around there for a while I picked up a few things then decided to investigate some proper hiking stores the following day.
For dinner tonight I signed up to do a meal through a website called Eataway. Eataway is basically a service where a home cook hosts a meal for a price and people sign up to go for the meal. Just another string to the bow of the social economy. I originally heard about it from a guy in Kraków and forgot about it but remembered when I arrived in Warsaw.
I had hoped to eat at a Polish person's place but there weren't any available so I signed up for a Bangladeshi meal. I've never eaten Bengali before but I suspected it was just going to be "Indian" food. And I was right. The meal was OK but certainly not inspiring. Had some deep fried chick pea flour dumplings with a capsicum sauce for first course (kind of bland - could only really taste the oil), chick pea curry with daal and roti for main course (tasty but I really could have used some rice to go with the daal) and jeelapi with chai tea for dessert (great!).
So while the food wasn't amazing it was fun to have a night out with some locals. While the host was Bengali who has been living in Poland for a couple of years the other 2 guests were Polish women around my age. It was fun talking to them and getting off the tourist trail.
On day 3 (27th Nov) I went to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. This was a really good museum with a LOT of content displayed in some really cool ways. It used a lot of technology and had some great immersive sort of rooms and buildings within the museum. While there was 1 section dedicated to the debacle that was WW2 there were 8 other sections of the museum dealing with different parts of Jewish history in Poland. Pretty interesting stuff and the summary is that Jews basically got shafted at every point in human history while at the same time being productive members of every community. It was a lot of information though and towards the middle of the museum I started to get a bit of information overload and ended up just wandering through the rest without really absorbing a lot of it.
It's a good museum though and I would recommend it to anyone going to Warsaw.
After that I did my round of outdoor stores looking to fill out my winter kit. The first couple I went to didn't have anything in my size but the third one had a jacket that fit so I picked up a few things from there. Let's not talk about how much I spent but rather focus on the fact that it's good quality gear that will last a long time :). Still missing a couple of things though which I'll deal with tomorrow.
Took my stuff back then (obviously) went to a craft beer place for a nightcap.
Day 4 (28th Nov) I went back to Decathlon to get the last few bits I didn't pick up at the other stores. It was a struggle to get pants in my size but I managed to find a few pairs at Decathlon that fit so I picked one up plus a few other smaller things (headlamp, balaclava plus others) And a small duffel bag to carry it all. Sigh. I am now a 2 bag traveller. Disappointing. That said I've now got 3 jackets plus a couple of fleeces I'm carrying which all take up a lot of space.
And I didn't really do much for the rest of the day. I did go see a movie (Justice League) which was pretty average though it was in English so I can't really complain. I didn't even go out for a beer though I did have one with dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant On the way back from the movie.
The next morning I headed to the airport to fly to Norway! The Warsaw airport is not particularly inspiring. I did end up getting some stamps or something on my receipts for tax free shopping. That turned out to be an annoying process and I've apparently got to go back to one of the stores before I get my money (the expensive one obviously) so I'm hoping they'll take a digital copy.
I've really enjoyed Poland. I haven't done anything amazing I don't think but it's been a really pleasant country to visit. Scenic cities, some nice countryside, good food, fairly cheap and friendly people who spoke a lot of English. It's a really modern country as well so add it to your list.
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