The above photo comes from a blog I read; more reason to love my favorites, SWEET POTATOES. ;-)
Today I had two classes (woo, Polish history and politics!) with two more to go. I am watching a movie in my literature course ("Pan Tadeusz") and then I have my Jews in Poland class. Today was one of the days to pick up new bed linens, which is good because I spilled yogurt on both sides of my comforter. :-P Now I am enjoying some tea time since, sadly, it is not as nice weather-wise as yesterday. It is gray and chilly. Tomorrow I have Polish class and a CIEE group meeting. After those, I think I might make it INSIDE of the Copernicus Science Center. I also need to pick up my train tickets to and from Torun (I go on Friday for the day). The following weekend (25-27 of March) I head to Wroclaw (buying train tickets soon). I also think I may plan times to go to such places as Bialystok and Lodz for day trips. Other places may wait for Spring/Easter Break if they require more time to both travel and sightsee.
"I've never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It's probably because they have forgotten their own."
Falling asleep a bit early threw off my sleep schedule a bit, but all's well!
Today was another day of exploration and indoor activities; yesterday was more mall, today was more museum. And sometimes not having definite plans can allow for the good unknown to occur.
Wandering on my way to New Town (Nowe Miasto):
Cool graffiti by a soccer field/stadium
More graffiti
I like artistic graffiti, so I apprecited these ones
This is for my Mom, lover of roosters
I decided to check out the Maria Sklodowska-Curie Museum in New Town today. It is located in the place she lived in here in Warsaw (16 Freta Street). I received a discounted ticket price since I am a student. :)
Poster celebrating the anniversary of Marie's solo Nobel Prize in 1911
Cool quote by Mr. Pierre Curie, Marie's husband
It is neat to see locations being celebrated for former inhabitants
The museum is on the second floor of the address. The first floor has a cool store that I think my sister would like as well. It had "oriental" decorations and statues and gifts.
Cool store
Some of the Buddha-related statues
After the museum stop, I decided to head towards Old Town and maybe see if I came upon another museum (I know the Literature Museum is near Marie's).
MILK BAR - I saw one on Nowy Swiat Street as well, so maybe I will check one out sometime
View walking near the river
Back of the castle, turns out there was a neat art sale by local artists in the downstairs - made me wish I had a place to put some of the great artrwork I saw; so beautiful I wanted to buy some :)
Turns out it is FREE to visit the Royal Castle on Sundays. ;-) I now want to live in a castle. Why can't I be Belle and "Beauty & the Beast" actually happen? :-/
Throne + cute little boy (his Mom was taking pictures of him)
What a ceiling
Every room was amazing and a few took my breath away or made my jaw drop
Pictures do not do it all justice; going in person is highly recommended if possible. :)
Eagles. :)
Chandeliers and pretty ceiling
Chapel
SWORDS
There were tons of portraits throughout the castle tour
More fun painted ceilings
This room's name? The MARBLE room. (After the green room and the yellow room among others) :-P
That's a lot of marble
Coat checks are everywhere. :-P
After the castle, I decided to do a bit more wandering and the sun was starting to go down :-( The snow today was pretty, but it began to become quite cold around this time.
A lot of accordion players out on the streets, this one had a wicked beard
One of those street statue-guys who sometimes don't move - he both moved and spoke :-P
This was a scary street statue-guy. Is it a monk? Death? A priest? Just creepy?
I decided to head back when I felt super cold and thought I should be inside before dark. :-P Now it is tea time.
I live and go to school in Mokotow; Old and New Town and Centrum are in Srodmiescie
The weather can be pretty fickle sometimes... I was tempted to go outside because of the blue sky and sunshine visible from my window. Once I did make it outdoors, the wind picked up and it was very cold. Burrr. I wore comfy jeggings to keep my legs warm and bundled up as much as possible. :-/
Ever have one of those days where there is so much you could do and almost end up not doing very much because of it? I felt that way today because I could not make up my mind over what I wanted to do. Once I went outside, I scrapped all possibilities that would involve too much time walking outdoors. :-P Public transportation can be a godsend. I am especially grateful for the 90-day passes us CIEE program students purchased. I was even checked on the tram today for the first time (cards are needed to enter the Metro, but buses and trams I had never been checked on until today). When it became quite cold I decided to head back to finish checking out the mall, Galeria Mokotow. :) I think I am having a love affair with it. :-P I basically walked the entire place, seeing the food court and other restaurants/cafes (American chains must be nicer here on purpose. And there was a placed called Wiking that had a weird smell, somewhat fishy. I saw a ton of Asian and salad places that looked good, too), glanced into the Sephora, American Bookstore - too soon to buy books - and tea store (CUTE tea accessories), and went through Empik (similar to Borders) and a cute kid's/toy store. A small store with Asian foods was a bit disappointing and there was another store that had a lot of interesting and imported foods. I looked at the movies playing at the cinema and was not too excited to see any of them really ("Away We Go" with John Krasinski is actually here now... The only two that struck me as more watchable were "The King's Speech" and "Love and Other Drugs.") I bought some more groceries (heehee, I quite enjoy this big Carrefour; even heard people speaking English and Japanese (maybe?) while there) including SWEET POTATOES (almost took a picture of them in the produce section) and a plug-in tea kettle so I can heat up water in my room (I miss having a microwave though :-/ ). There was so much beautful clothes, shoes, bags... window-shopping can be fun. When I left the mall, the snow was coming down somewhat hard and in large flakes. Again, the weather being a tease, it seemed almost nice once I made it on my bus (after waiting a bit) and off when heading inside my dorm. What can you do?
Tomorrow will probably involve laundry. Yuck doing laundry, but yay once I have clean clothes (too bad I will not have the fun after-dryer warmth). :-P I had found Christmas lights in my dorm room, but they did not seem to be working when I plugged them in to an extension power-strip... Hmm.
Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey: Rambings & Observations Made by Me
-I think the amount of older people I see here might be a good sign. Seeing only young people might mean that a lot of people do not make it to old age. Even heard a lady on a Metro platform who sounded identical to my great-grandmother. That was weird.
-I see so many dogs here. Also what they leave behind... but maybe it is done because my Mom always said that stepping in dog you-know-what means good luck for Poles. I am not sure what to believe.
-American food chains must be putting more effort into their ventures abroad; it seems that the menus and establishments are much nicer here and pretty popular (except I heard Taco Bell did not work out so well).
-Now that I have found my sweet potatoes, not sure what else Poland is missing... maybe certain clothing stores? A lot of the ones I have seen here seem nicer anyway.
Today in class (Polish Politics & Society), we were lectured on information about Poland between the two world wars. It was interesting and we were given another map, this one showing territories during that time and the names of places are in Polish. :)
After class, I bought myself a water and went to the movie screening... and was the only student to show up, haha. At first it was difficult because a handyman was drilling holes near us (I think the same guy was drilling before when I had class...) and I came in to the classroom with just the Polish language professor there. She was munching on paluszki ("little fingers" - basically thin pretzil sticks) that were onion-flavored while doing Sudoku; I did not know that paluszki came in more than one flavor. :-P I guess I learned a few new things today, heehee. She offered me the bag when I came in and allowed me to take them home, in addition to a large bag of regular paluszki that she told me to give to the Beginning Polish group (they are learning body parts, haha, and I guess fingers was on the list).
The big bag for the Beginners on the left and the onion ones I tried on the right
The movie was really interesting - almost a modern-day, Polish-version of "A Christmas Carol." I liked it a lot. Once the movie ended, I spoke briefly to the professor and she sort of gave me an assignment ( :-/ ), in which I have to talk (or write?) about the movie and the main character in Polish. I will just ramble on a bit next time I see her. :-P She is helpful if I speak in English and ask how to say something in Polish.
Hot and cold drink machines - there's coffee, lattes, tea, soups sometimes, sodas, waters...
The hot machine
Decorative features to one of the hot machines
A Christmas bag that I found empty on the side of my bed
There was a surprise for the group as we left the hostel this morning: there was a peak of some blue sky! :-P Later on it actually has snowed quite a bit and is back to being dark/gray/cold. I also saw some music videos at breakfast - Ke$ha, Enrique, Europeans?...
Today was another day of a course presentation (the class and professor seem interesting - the woman is around my grandmother's (Babcia's) age and has the same first name as my great-grandmother. Plus, she worked a lot in the Solidarity movement as one of the intellectuals who went to the shipyard in Gdansk to help with the strike. She has also written many books and articles in addition to teaching at a few universities throughout Poland, - meetings with Bogdan and Gosia, and a cancelled tour of the library (not sure if this will be rescheduled), which meant taking it easy at lunch. We went as a group to a Vietnamese/Asian fusion restaurant near the school building (somewhat celebrating Chinese New Year?). I tried some pho (it was OK, but I am uncertain how authentic it was...), black currant juice (something Gosia and Bogdan love ordering for everyone - they feel it is very Polish to drink), water, and a dish of tofu with vegetables and some kind of sauce (said tomato...) with white rice. It was all so-so (didn't like the tofu and the sauce was just alright); I used chopsticks AND a Polish menu, haha. We also had back-up English menus and Gosia just in case. :) She now knows that I am into vegetarian food/vegetables, haha. The soup was not vegetarian, but the main dish was meatless.
Restaurant: http://sapaya.pl/
After lunch, the students in beginners and I went to the coffee spot on the ground floor of the school building. We had an interesting Polish lesson followed by a Metro adventure to Nowy Swiat Street to visit a really great (and free) exhibit about an American photographer (Julien Bryan) who traveled a lot and was in Warsaw when WWII broke out in 1939. It was an amazing sight to see pictures throughout Europe (Russia, Germany, Poland) in the 1930s and 1940s. I could actually see the devastation faced by the city and Poles. One important image was of a "peasant" or farm girl (I believe only 12 years old) who was crying over her dead older sister's body; I guess the story was that Germans were bombing near fields and, when it seemed over, women headed back out into the field to pick potatoes. Unfortunately, the German pilots returned and this girl's sisters died (See the image here: http://www.dsh.waw.pl/galerie_photo/_20101025122510/dziewczynka.jpg). There were several wonderful photographs and an old documentary (in English with Polish subtitles; I think the photographer Julien was the narrator). The exhibit was so special to me because I would look at the pictures of babies and children (especially little girls) and think of my Babcia in Poland at the time and near the ages of these small kids. It was so wonderful to see how much Mr. Bryan fought to bring help to Poles. It was also crazy to see how much the city I am currently in had been destroyed and rebuilt.
Exhibit: http://www.dsh.waw.pl/pl/3_740
Today was my first bus ride, which means that, other than walking, I have used Metro, tram, and taxi van. So I think I have covered all of the types of public transport, haha. :-P I also saw a lot of the cool downtown area - Sephora, Starbucks, Grycan (Polish ice cream I think I will have to try), other stores and restaurants. Tomorrow is the last day of orientation before my first full weekend here. I am off to finish up Polish homework and see what else may happen tonight. I have used the kitchen facilities somewhat here at the hostel (dishes, utensils, mugs, microwave, sink), which is a bit sketchy, but I only use them for tea and frozen vegetables. Last night some people made pasta, but the Chemistry experiment that it looked to be while cooking seemed to turn out OK in the end for them, haha.
Goodnight, Warsaw! (Watch the performance below of a Polish band singing "Goodnight Warsaw.")
