Saturday, November 06, 2004
Back in Vienna from Poland
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 10:02:31 -0800 (PST)
We are back in Vienna after our trip to Poland. We
were in Vienna for a day and a half before we left for
Poland and found it nice but kind of boring. It was
all saint's day on Monday so everything was closed, so
we thought we would go to a museum on Tuesday, but it
was closed on Tuesday becuase it was open on Monday!
usually it is closed on Monday but I guess it was open
becuase everything else was closed. anyway, we walked
around the city, had some sacher torte and relaxed.
The sacher torte was good but not all it is cracked up
to be.
Then on Wednesday we left for Poland. We left Vienna
at 3:30 and flew to Warsaw which only took a little
over an hour. When we landed in Warsaw at 4:45 it was
pitch dark! The sun sets there around 4:00 I guess.
But it wasnt that cold, in fact we had pretty nice
weather the first day, I even took my coat off. The
second day it rained a little, but was still pretty
warm.
Zdzislaw and Halina Goschler met us at the airport
with a friend of theirs from Warsaw. I thought we were
staying with family but we stayed in a hotel in the
room next to them, and the couple from warsaw showed
us around. They met Z and Halina in Hawaii - they
noticed that they were speaking Polish and started
talking. But this couple - Marek and Monica - are
really nice and they speak english. So the first day
they took us to the 'old town' which incidentally was
completely destroyed - like most of warsaw - during
the war and rebuilt to pretty much look like it did
before. So it isnt really old but it looks old. We
toured the palace which was nice and had some
interesting paintings and things about Polish history
- all in english. And we saw remnants of the city wall
and marie curie's house and several churches and the
memorial to the victims of the warsaw uprising against
the nazis. I guess a bunch of people - not soldiers -
fought back against the nazis and were slaughtered.
Since it was two days after all saints day when we
were there, there were flowers and candles all over
the memorial - in fact all over these little memorials
all over town, and covering the cemetaries. They take
all saints day seriously in eastern/central europe and
put flowers and candles on all the graves of their
relatives (that is why Z and Halina were in Poland)
and on the memorials to people who died in war and
stuff around the city. It was pretty and sad at the
same time. Another interesting thing about that day
was that there were very few tourists. Everywhere else
that we have been there were lots of toursits even
though it is the off season. Here I felt like the only
one. A few Polish tourists were around but that is
all.
Oh and maybe the most intersting thing of the whole
day was getting up in the morning and finding there
was no water. Apparently there is no water in our
hotel from like 8am to 8:30, we dont really know why.
It seemed like a remnant from communism or something.
The hotel was interesting, clean and perfectly
acceptable (except the no water thing which we solved
the next day by planning for it) but it was in this
huge block building with really plain rooms. Near a
school for soldiers or police or something. So all the
other buildings around looked the same, it was very
much what you think of when you think of Poland and
communist countries.
We had dinner at Marek and Monica's house. They have
two sons one who is 10 and the other who is 3. the
older one is speaking english pretty well already.
They transferred him to a school in the city that they
have to drive him 45 minutes to everyday so that he
could have 8 hours a week of english.
Anyway, Monica made a traditional Polish dish from the
region she is from. It was like a potato cake with ham
and bacon in it. I thought it was really good, the
potatoes were whipped like so they were really fluffy
and good. Seth didnt like it becuase it had ham and
bacon, so he ate the salmon cream cheese stuffed
tomatoes instead. He did try the Polish blood sausage
though - I couldnt do that. He said it was actually
not bad, but he only took one tiny bite. Even if it
tastes good, it is hard to get past the fact that it
is blood.
We also had Marek take us to the grocery to buy some
Polish vodka so we sampled some of that before and
after dinner. We tried this one kind that is famous
and flavored with bison grass or something. It was
kind of sweet and really interesting. We bought some
to bring home.
The next day Marek and Monica had to work so we were
on our own with Z and Halina. Oh by the way, Zdzislaw
is pronounced like JeeHoo. Weird huh? Either that or
that is a nickname becuase that is what everyone calls
him. They took us to two palaces just outside of the
city, but since it is winter they were closed for
renovations, so we just walked around the grounds in a
light drizzle. Then Z and Halina left and we stayed at
the hotel resting and waiting for Marek and Monica.
They came around 8pm and took us out to dinner at a
pub where I had perogies and seth had kielbasa and we
all drank Polish beer. Polish beer isnt very good, but
it isnt bad either, just kind of light beer. But they
serve it, if you want, with a little bit of raspberry
juice, so that is what I had becuase it tasted a lot
better that way. Monica had that too, it is a girl
drink I guess.
Then we had to get up early and Marek took us to the
airport at 6:00 am. Our flight from warsaw to vienna
was cancelled so they had booked us on a connection
through Dusseldorf. Which, if you look at a map, is
really stupid. we had to go twice as far practically.
AND then they gave us no time for the connection -
like 20 minutes, but we arrived in the international,
non-eu terminal from poland and had to go through
customs then out and into another terminal through
security to get our flight to vienna. We would have
missed it except they held the plane becuase a lot of
people that would have been on our original flight
were doing the same thing. When we got to Vienna we
wanted to run errands, but it was afternoon on
saturday and everything is closed already. We are
doing laundry here at the hostel and we had to track
down a 24 hour pharmacy becuase our contact solution
leaked on the plane and is gone and we needed new, and
you can't get it in the grocery store here. In fact
there are three different stores that make up one of
our grocery stores, the strictly food grocery store,
the pharmacy with the pharmacist (which sells the
contact solution) and the drug store like place that
sells soap and stuff but not medicine. Weird.
So tommorrow I guess we are going to see the musuem
that we didnt see the other day, and then we have an
overnight train to Venice.
Megan and Seth
We are back in Vienna after our trip to Poland. We
were in Vienna for a day and a half before we left for
Poland and found it nice but kind of boring. It was
all saint's day on Monday so everything was closed, so
we thought we would go to a museum on Tuesday, but it
was closed on Tuesday becuase it was open on Monday!
usually it is closed on Monday but I guess it was open
becuase everything else was closed. anyway, we walked
around the city, had some sacher torte and relaxed.
The sacher torte was good but not all it is cracked up
to be.
Then on Wednesday we left for Poland. We left Vienna
at 3:30 and flew to Warsaw which only took a little
over an hour. When we landed in Warsaw at 4:45 it was
pitch dark! The sun sets there around 4:00 I guess.
But it wasnt that cold, in fact we had pretty nice
weather the first day, I even took my coat off. The
second day it rained a little, but was still pretty
warm.
Zdzislaw and Halina Goschler met us at the airport
with a friend of theirs from Warsaw. I thought we were
staying with family but we stayed in a hotel in the
room next to them, and the couple from warsaw showed
us around. They met Z and Halina in Hawaii - they
noticed that they were speaking Polish and started
talking. But this couple - Marek and Monica - are
really nice and they speak english. So the first day
they took us to the 'old town' which incidentally was
completely destroyed - like most of warsaw - during
the war and rebuilt to pretty much look like it did
before. So it isnt really old but it looks old. We
toured the palace which was nice and had some
interesting paintings and things about Polish history
- all in english. And we saw remnants of the city wall
and marie curie's house and several churches and the
memorial to the victims of the warsaw uprising against
the nazis. I guess a bunch of people - not soldiers -
fought back against the nazis and were slaughtered.
Since it was two days after all saints day when we
were there, there were flowers and candles all over
the memorial - in fact all over these little memorials
all over town, and covering the cemetaries. They take
all saints day seriously in eastern/central europe and
put flowers and candles on all the graves of their
relatives (that is why Z and Halina were in Poland)
and on the memorials to people who died in war and
stuff around the city. It was pretty and sad at the
same time. Another interesting thing about that day
was that there were very few tourists. Everywhere else
that we have been there were lots of toursits even
though it is the off season. Here I felt like the only
one. A few Polish tourists were around but that is
all.
Oh and maybe the most intersting thing of the whole
day was getting up in the morning and finding there
was no water. Apparently there is no water in our
hotel from like 8am to 8:30, we dont really know why.
It seemed like a remnant from communism or something.
The hotel was interesting, clean and perfectly
acceptable (except the no water thing which we solved
the next day by planning for it) but it was in this
huge block building with really plain rooms. Near a
school for soldiers or police or something. So all the
other buildings around looked the same, it was very
much what you think of when you think of Poland and
communist countries.
We had dinner at Marek and Monica's house. They have
two sons one who is 10 and the other who is 3. the
older one is speaking english pretty well already.
They transferred him to a school in the city that they
have to drive him 45 minutes to everyday so that he
could have 8 hours a week of english.
Anyway, Monica made a traditional Polish dish from the
region she is from. It was like a potato cake with ham
and bacon in it. I thought it was really good, the
potatoes were whipped like so they were really fluffy
and good. Seth didnt like it becuase it had ham and
bacon, so he ate the salmon cream cheese stuffed
tomatoes instead. He did try the Polish blood sausage
though - I couldnt do that. He said it was actually
not bad, but he only took one tiny bite. Even if it
tastes good, it is hard to get past the fact that it
is blood.
We also had Marek take us to the grocery to buy some
Polish vodka so we sampled some of that before and
after dinner. We tried this one kind that is famous
and flavored with bison grass or something. It was
kind of sweet and really interesting. We bought some
to bring home.
The next day Marek and Monica had to work so we were
on our own with Z and Halina. Oh by the way, Zdzislaw
is pronounced like JeeHoo. Weird huh? Either that or
that is a nickname becuase that is what everyone calls
him. They took us to two palaces just outside of the
city, but since it is winter they were closed for
renovations, so we just walked around the grounds in a
light drizzle. Then Z and Halina left and we stayed at
the hotel resting and waiting for Marek and Monica.
They came around 8pm and took us out to dinner at a
pub where I had perogies and seth had kielbasa and we
all drank Polish beer. Polish beer isnt very good, but
it isnt bad either, just kind of light beer. But they
serve it, if you want, with a little bit of raspberry
juice, so that is what I had becuase it tasted a lot
better that way. Monica had that too, it is a girl
drink I guess.
Then we had to get up early and Marek took us to the
airport at 6:00 am. Our flight from warsaw to vienna
was cancelled so they had booked us on a connection
through Dusseldorf. Which, if you look at a map, is
really stupid. we had to go twice as far practically.
AND then they gave us no time for the connection -
like 20 minutes, but we arrived in the international,
non-eu terminal from poland and had to go through
customs then out and into another terminal through
security to get our flight to vienna. We would have
missed it except they held the plane becuase a lot of
people that would have been on our original flight
were doing the same thing. When we got to Vienna we
wanted to run errands, but it was afternoon on
saturday and everything is closed already. We are
doing laundry here at the hostel and we had to track
down a 24 hour pharmacy becuase our contact solution
leaked on the plane and is gone and we needed new, and
you can't get it in the grocery store here. In fact
there are three different stores that make up one of
our grocery stores, the strictly food grocery store,
the pharmacy with the pharmacist (which sells the
contact solution) and the drug store like place that
sells soap and stuff but not medicine. Weird.
So tommorrow I guess we are going to see the musuem
that we didnt see the other day, and then we have an
overnight train to Venice.
Megan and Seth
