First Night in Warsaw

Its 5:49 on this lovely Tuesday morning. I didn't sleep on the plane on the way here, so I was quite tired but managed to stay up over 24 hours until about 10pm Polish time. Then woke up at 5:30am because I had a bit of a scare as I thought we may have slept through our alarm and missed our 8:30 tour pickup. But, in fact, its just really early.

The sky is blue and we are ready for our first tour of Warsaw. Last night we got to explore Old Town here in Warsaw. My first impression was that it was stunning. For a city that was damaged so much by the WW2 70 years ago, this part of the town has certainly been able to rejuvenate itself. We saw one sort of message board describing the what Warsaw was like in the aftermath of WW2. Its amazing that this city was able to rebuild itself to what we see today.

We are staying at the Hotel Bristol, which is literally 5-10 minute walk to Old Town, and right next to the place where the Warsaw Pact was signed. Here's a picture!

As we continued to walk towards Old Town it is impossible not to notice the beautifulness of this city. It is certainly busy with tourists and locals.

We HAD to have a traditional Polish meal of course! Although, for those that did not know, I have a bit of Polish in me, and we always enjoyed making traditional Polish feasts during special occasions growing up. We had some sort of cheese and onion perogies, I think, that were fried up. Quite delicious. And we shared a 30cm link of Kielbasa, which we now know we've been saying wrong for a very long time. Its pronounced, according to our waitress, KEEL-BASA. Nonetheless, it was some of the best kielbasa I've ever tasted. Except it was served on top of a nicely presented plate of ketchup haha. Take a look.

I am amazed at two things. First, I am shocked at the level and amount of English in this city. I haven't met anyone who doesn't know English. Even the street performer and our waitress knew English. Also, I amazed by the prices of everything. Even with the exchange rate, I am surprised at the prices of most things here. Maybe this will change soon, but its very reasonable. Even for a large glass of beer, which I certainly had a couple of. 

So today we are going on a four hour tour of Warsaw with our guide Adam. And then a 4 hour excursion to Summer Palace and Park Wilanow. Then tonight we will probably head back to old town where we were last night, maybe have another Polish dinner because it was so good, or Italian because there seems to be a lot of that too! And ice cream too. So many ice cream shops all around.

But until then, będę mówił do was wszystkich jutro!