WARSAW, POLAND
2016-01-13, 20:45, JASON
STAY: OKI DOKI HOSTEL
After the excitement of our Balkans tour earlier in the year, March, we decided to do another stretch of tour through the Baltics. We went from Warsaw, to Vilnius, flew to Helsinki, cruised to Estonia, and then traversed across to Riga, all the while taking a flight back to London.
We had no impression or desire to go to Warsaw in the past; fair enough, most people don't. Sometimes, it's assuring to let the prices do the talking. We land in at night, and immediately look for our hostel. I think what we did is took a bus in to some part of the city center, only get off the bus looking at this:
Yup, the "Palace of Culture and Science." I love it. I love how nontraditional it is. It's not beautiful. It's not stylistic, it's functional, unapologetically so, and prides itself on that. Since it's late, we just look for our hostel, stop on the street for some good kebabs, and then head into our hostel for the night. Unfortunately, for these bigger hostels, they resemble hotels and have a larger party vibe, so it's bro city.
We get up the next morning, and then start exploring. First, here's a picture of the building during the day:
Then, we begin what seems like the world's longest walking tour. We had to take our bags and check out, so we walked around all day in sunny Poland sweating bullets. We walk to the Church of the Holiest Savior which is pretty good. There was some rainbow installation in the front, which made me want to believe that the gays were supported, but, I think it was just a rainbow. From here, we walked onto Łazienki Park and did a tour of the grounds as well as the Palace, where the last king of Poland lived. It was a good time to get away of the hustle in the city and check out the nature. I always like what European cities bring to parks, since so much surrounding territory is urban space.
After, we keep walking down towards the main downtown square. I think we had a glass of wine somewhere or two, and I got tipsy and bought a pack of cigarettes for one Euro. Two things: I only smoked like two of them. Sorry lungs. Second: ONE EURO?? Jeez, it's as if you don't smoke it's like you're getting ripped off. I was shocked. Anyway, went to the main "old town square' section, and just walked around and observed some of the architecture. Nearby was the Royal Castle and we obviously didn't pay to go inside, and just admired from the outside. Surrounding the old town was a series of old, rustic stone walls and so we just climbed those and walked around.
A part of his dynamic posing series.Afterwards, it seems my camera died down so there are no pictures. But, we walked all the way to this place that a girl supposedly said there was a beach. OK, it already sounds sketchy when I mention it, but, that's how it went down. This girl said it's a pretty popping place in the summer (we went in May), so we thought to check it out. All it turned out to be was some muddy shore.. and I don't think my beach preferences are exceptionally high, I mean, I actually went onto Brighton Beach and nearly bruised my soles! The point is, we walked for probably a good 15-20km just to see this beach. We had to rectify this situation. So, we decided to go to what was probably the coolest library I've ever seen. The entire roof was this green space, and the design of the library was phenomenal. Different to that initial communist style building, and glorious in its own.
Rooftop of library.We ended up back at the castle walls, and decided to just mosey around and take some more pictures. We were going to take an overnight, 12 hour bus into Vilnius, the next closest capital to us (don't quote me on that, what I mean to say is, in the direction we wanted to go, so, obviously it's the closest.. in my mind..). After going to the castle, we headed over closer to the station and got a more commercial side of Poland. There was a super huge mall, what we call a 'non-space' since you can transplant it anywhere and have it adapt to the surrounding culture. The cool thing to do at malls for us to watch the kinds of people that go through, since that speaks volumes -- encyclopediatric volumes, if that's a word -- more about the locals. There were some punks that were just chilling around smoking, one lesbian couple among the punks, and your general businesswomen and men. Thorin and I just bought a local Polish sausage, some bread, and had a sandwich while we awaited our bus. No, the Polish sausage wasn't a reference to a Pole.