Warsaw was kind of a blur. By the time we got there, all the European cities were starting to mend into one big place and that is totally evident if I listen to the recording I made of Warsaw and what we got up to. I struggled to remember much of anything we got up to and actually started to confuse it with Riga instead.
Luckily, with a bit of time has come some perspective and the memories are slowly starting to flood back in. My mom asked me yesterday how I remember random small details about a specific city, but it’s usually the random details that I do remember and the main facts and history that I can’t hold onto.
In Warsaw, it was the tour guide that we did a free walking tour with. He had grown up in Poland and tried to teach us a traditional Polish dance that is still done at weddings. This was all to no music, in the middle of the courtyard of the Royal Castle, doing the archway of arms with everyone dancing underneath and all the other tourists (not in our group) – standing and laughing as we danced by. I was kind of surprised to not find it on Youtube the next day under the heading – Crazy tourists dance in Warsaw. 🙂
The tour guide whose name eludes me also showed us where to find the best Polish food in Warsaw. I thought the name of the restaurant was the Milk Bar. After Googling it later, it turns out that a Milk Bar is any sort of self service restaurant in Warsaw and there are many of them. I think we ate at one of the oldest though. Being a traditional local food place, they only spoke Polish. That was one language I didn’t even try to learn, with half of the words not having any vowels in, I knew I wouldn’t be able to pronounce things even if I tried. So instead, I made Luch do it and went to hold a table for us. Lucky I did, because it turned out to be a really popular restaurant and just kept getting busier and busier. At least we knew to order Pierogi which are the traditional Polish dumplings.
Somehow, Luch managed to order us a plate of savoury and a plate of sweet dumplings. I’m still not entirely sure what the meat was in the savoury ones, but they were dam good. I still found the funniest thing about the restaurant was that you had to go and order at the counter, get your own plates and cutlery and when you were done with the food, take your dirty dishes back to the kitchen. Lucky for us, we love to observe what other people are doing, or I think we would have had little Polish women jumping down our throats for leaving dirty plates on the table.
I also remember that we were actually in Warsaw over some kind of Midsummer festival. With women walking around with flower crowns on their heads, every restaurant being packed to the brim. A huge stage in the royal gardens where musicians were busy practicing for their later performance. Food and drink stalls and a yacht race, randomly enough.
We couldn’t help but join in on the revelry. We decided to try some of the mead that was recommended to us and we weren’t disappointed. Apparently Dominican Monks have been making it the same way for 300 years and we tried it hot and cold. There are not many drinks that are delicious both ways, but mead definitely is. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting whenever I thought of mead, but it certainly wasn’t an amazing honey drink that felt comforting and like drinking dessert all at once.
I found myself once again absolutely loving the Old Town, but in Warsaw the contrast between the Old Town and New City (with all the high rise buildings, I can’t call it a town) was huge. We booked another Airbnb apartment and from the outside of the building, it looked a bit rundown and old. Oh but did that change when we went inside the apartment. Suddenly we were in the fanciest apartment that I could have sworn was used in a movie. We didn’t know it at the time, but this would be the start of the pattern. The pattern of dodgy buildings with amazing apartments inside.
Some of the areas in Warsaw were medieval looking with their cobblestone streets, old defensive walls and even the Warsaw Barbican which was a fortified outpost, but in reality looked like a mini castle. As it turns out though, about 85% of the beautiful old buildings in Warsaw were destroyed during World War II and the Warsaw Uprising. Their citizens managed to rebuild and reconstruct in the five years that followed the war and I can’t help but admire the Polish people and all of their determination and will to set things right. They have one beautiful country and I for one can’t wait to return.
