August 13-16, 1999 - Warsaw, Poland
We decided that there was one word to describe
Warsaw: Utilitarian. And it wasn't surprising: over 80% of the city was destroyed in
W.W.II, and in a fervor to get it rebuilt, style and aesthetics were definitely not the
Pole's priorities. They obviously wanted their city back up and running in the fastest
possible way.
A gray cloud hovered over the city the few days
we were there; Kelly even took off for Krakow a day early she was so anxious to move on.
(Dave would have joined her, but he had to stay until Monday to collect his replacement
credit card at the American Express office.)
So, what did we see? Besides lots of chunky,
gray, dorm-style buildings? Well, our first stop was an IKEA store. Dave had never
been to one, and it was right by the train station. We figured it would fit into our
"experiencing the culture after we leave a country" theme we started in Spain
when we ate Moroccan food. And we had recently left Sweden without visiting an IKEA, so we
thought this was a good chance. Like much of the city, the store was functional but left a
lot to be desired: it had only one level of stuff and didn't serve Swedish meatballs like
many of the stores in the states did. Oh well. We'll have something else to look forward
to upon our return.
We saw the reconstructed castle in the center
of Warsaw; it was destroyed in 1944 and rebuilt between 1971 and 1984. Citizens had risked
their lives to keep the original treasures inside away from the Nazi's during W.W.II, so
at least some of the contents of the castle were authentic. The outside still looked too
new.
There were lots of churches; there were lots of
weddings going on. At one point on Saturday afternoon we saw 5 brides within a one-block
area of the city.
We saw the Chopin Museum, the Memorial to the
Uprising of the Resistance in September of 1944, the Stalin building, which the locals
claim to hate except for the view of the city it offers. We liked it if only for the
contrast: it angled up into a pointy-tower instead of stretching into a long flat
rectangle like every other building.
Our guide book was really off with Warsaw.
Three of the three places we needed to find on their map were in the wrong place: our
hostel, a bookstore, the AmEx office.
We discovered a brand new vegetarian place,
Mata Hari, an American Book Store. A statue of Copernicus. That was it. We didn't have
high expectations for this place, but generally we can find a small area in any town with
something quaint; something unusual to appreciate. We may not have looked hard enough, or
in the right places, but we just didn't find it here. Maybe Krakow will make up for it...
