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The Free State
"Man, in a word, has no nature. What he has is - history."

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Part IV: Warsaw's Seen War

The train ride to Warsaw included lots of quaint polish cottages and haystacks. When we arrived and climbed out of the train station, it was a bit bewildering. Roads going everywhere, criss-crossed with trams and taxis. This is a city which was wiped off the face of the Earth during WW2, it's a blooming city today. With adequate symbols of such. Searching for a way to the hostel, our cluelessness must have been evident because a friendly Polish woman pointed us to the right tram. On the way Wyt bought some cheap sunglasses he later despised for their unevensidedness.

We got to our hostel, but was dismayed by the manager telling us we had no reservations. Could our (mainly Wyatt's) meticulous planning have a flaw in it?! No, of course not, the hostel had made a mistake. They obligingly gave us, not a room, but a common room with a sleeping old fat guy included. Later that night he would awake, go to the bathroom, get back to bed, and snore. Hmmm... The hostel was really nice though, and they gave us free internet after that.

Then we were off into the streets to explore. We were, uh, surprised by one of the human-statues. Dodgy. Moving on, there was quaint parts, including the Royal Castle on the right. We visited the inside and it was suitably pompous for a castle that is in fact a replica of a one of the middle ages which was destroyed during WW2. The we visited an exquisite military museum which went over Poland's military tradition as the Republic of Nobles and it had armours of the winged knigths they used in battle. It also had stuff on Poland just on independence with the DeGaullesque Pilsudski and the Battle of Warsaw (with a spirit winged-cavaliers). It also included a big ol' section on Pope JP2 (he had just died you see) and included this Portrait of Pope Power. Around this time Wyatt got his, very needed, Poland flag.
The next day was spent mostly just wandering around and observing monuments such as this guy (and yes, I like those things) and a monument to, I believe, the Warsaw Uprising (as opposed to the Ghetto Uprising) which was very grim and dark. Our visiting was interrupted with severe rain though, so we were stuck under a toy shop for a while. Wyatt was patient and waited outside. I ventured into the toy store and found out it only, only, selled teddy bears. Useless. One nifty thing though was the bill board on top of it I mean, the 10 year old boy looks soooo weird. Like too cool for my innocent-bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed biatch on my shoulder.

We got to eat that evening and kinda got conned. We noticed the price were slightly below average at the restaurant we were at, but we figured we'd eat well, we both ordered some sort of meat. The waitress went off, but the manageress came back saying "Are you sure you don't want potatoes with that?" and were uh... duh of course. It turns out every order was not a course, but a little addon to your plate. We ate and overpaid. It wasn't bad, but there was that bitter taste of being conned. We didn't have dessert there but then got like 2 or 3 deserts at different stands and then some beer.

We also found this place, which looked totally gay, called 'testosteron' but claimed to be a hetero club. We thought about going in, but then we saw their wheels and thought better of it. GRATIS!!1!!11!! The way back to the hostel was kinda surreal, we were tired and things sortov blurred. They put trippy writing on the pavement, I got a pic of one with my stumpy legs. And, a last, on the tram.

We got back safe and crashed. We'd soon be off to beautiful Gdansk, but just a short stop there, for ahead lay the mysterious Kaliningrad Oblast.

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