Time Spent in Warsaw

I wish I could say that the last few days have been insanely busy, but the truth of the matter is I'm fairly certain jet lag has stolen mine and Sarah's stamina.

After my post on Wednesday, Sarah and I roamed a few of the streets around the hostel before our plans were slightly dampened by the pressing need to fend off a nasty migraine that threatened to ruin the day.  I discovered two things that day: firstly, the migraine fighting team I carry in my purse REALLY puts you to sleep when you're already exhausted.  Secondly, Polish Powerade is insanely sweet.  I had to force myself to drink enough of the bottle that I could dilute it, and still had to do so twice before it was palatable.  I fell asleep around 2 in the afternoon and didn't wake up until about 7 the next morning.

Thursday was fun.

We got up, had breakfast at the Hostel and then made our way to the bus stop at the roundabout with the fake palm tree.  From there we were attempting to get to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, but wound up missing the stop entirely.  Not only were we lost, we couldn't even ask for directions by the time we got to the suburbs because nobody on the tram spoke English.  In the end, we got off just before the end of the line and took another tram that appeared to be heading back to the centre of town and eventually found the right stop because the route map indicated that there would be a station named after our intended destination.  We were also assisted by a lovely Polish girl who was trying to find her way to the same place.

For most of my experiences with Canadian museums, they are small buildings that you can easily navigate in an hour or two.  That was definitely not true here...

We spent about 5 hours in the Warsaw uprising museum and didn't manage to take a good look at everything.  In fact, Sarah was so exhausted by the end of the upper floors that she missed the exhibits in the basement entirely and I only had time for a quick look because I had arranged to meet her by the "water closets."  All in all it was still a very informative experience and I am very glad to have gotten a look into a small part of the history of the city we have been visiting for the past few days and the country we will be calling home for the next few months.  By small I mean that it was a brief period of time in relation to the span of history, not that it was insignificant.  It definitely wasn't.  I wish I could say more, but the words fail me.

Today we met a couple of young ladies over breakfast at the hostel and struck up a discussion about plans for the day.  Emily, who had only arrived that morning, mentioned that she was going on the "Orange Umbrella" walking tour of Old Town Warsaw that morning.  Thinking it sounded like a fun idea, we went with her to Sigismund's Column, where the tour started and ran into the other girl who was staying at the hostel.  From there we followed Beata --our native Varsovian guide-- through the reconstructed Old Warsaw.  Unfortunately most of the city was destroyed in the Uprising, so almost nothing we saw was original construction.  The Soviets were very thorough in their re-creation of the Old Town, so you could almost be fooled into thinking you entered a time capsule from the Renaissance.

Sarah and I are relaxing at the hostel for now, but we are both thinking we might check out some of the nightlife on our last evening here.  At night we keep hearing a great deal of singing and live music from the local pubs, but we are generally undressed for the night and too tired to want to satisfy our curiosity.  Coming from me, that means a lot.

Warsaw is very beautiful.  I wish we could stay longer, but I am also very much looking forward to Radom, and our apartment so that we are no longer living out of four fifty-pound suitcases.  I'm sure we will be making the occasional weekend visit to this lovely city over the next ten months.