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| Warsaw, Poland |
Ah, well we made it to Warsaw and had a wonderful last two days of our trip. We took a nice, easy, pleasantly breezy morning train to Warsaw, spent an hour wracking our brains to figure out where on earth the 175 bus line was and where we could catch it...and then, once we reached Foksal street and found 12 Foksal, I ended up asking a travel agency on the block to help us - and the woman graciously used her cell phone to call our contact. We waited ten minutes and a cute blond showed up to show us our apartment. Whew. But seriously, actually getting the kilometer or two from the train station up to our apartment took over an hour and a half.
After all that was over, we ate a lunch at a Mexican restaurant - which are actually very difficult to find around here, and then set out to explore. We headed towards Old Town Square, figuring it was a great place to start. It's a moderate walk and we enjoy the scenary along the way, stopping for pictures when we want, peeking into churches, etc. We reach old town and enjoy checking out some of the shops and meandering down the alleys. The exhibit I really wanted to check out was closed indefinitely so that made things a little challenging. We decided to go ahead and get all our stuff sorted out so that we could have a full last day of touring and spent a few hours getting everything sorted out and organized for Daniel's flight on Saturday. After that we set out to explore some more and find a good restaurant for dinner - we found a neat place that had delicious food and really enjoyed ourselves. We wandered around more after that and decided to call it a night. We had gotten up fairly early to catch the train and had not slept well on the night train the evening before - and besides, we wanted to go full throttle on Daniel's last day.
We woke up and Daniel went down and got yummy things from the shop that was on our block. We got ready and set out for a moderate walk to Lazienki Park. We walked through a pretty garden and then reached the park and the Chopin monument. I had visited the palace and the park in January of 2005 while I was on foreign study and had always thought it would be pretty, but wow. The park was absolutely beautiful! A vast variety of wildlife and luscious plants, flowers, and trees abounded. While heading towards the palace (which is in the heart of the park) I was on the lookout for the special squirrels I had seen while on foreign study. They are red, extremely friendly and cute, and have very hairy ears - they just look different than any squirrel you would ever see in the US, and I remembered being floored by how unique and cute they were. We had been walking for a while and no squirrels were to be found anywhere. I was getting worried. But! Just as I said to Daniel "Sigh, I really wonder where the squirrels are!" one popped up!
We had gone to the grocery store prior to heading to the park, and I had happened to buy sunflower seeds as a snack for myself, but ended up pulling them out to try to attract the squirrels. I had remembered that Andy Pendley had crumbs in his pocket and had nearly gotten the squirrel to eat out of his hands. The squirrel was interested, but timid -- but the birds were not! After recovering from the shock of being dive bombed by the birds, I had a truly "Snow White" moment. I scattered a bunch of seeds on the ground for the squirrel adn then refilled my palm with more seeds and stood, palm up. All these really pretty little birds - with blue, grey, and green colors came flying into the palm of my hand! Up to three at a time were flying up, taking a seed and flying back away.
How fun! Daniel took advantage of the situation and snapped away while I delighted in the sensation of the little birds firmly grabbing your finger and taking a seed. They came from all over - there must have been nearly twenty of them swooping in for a snack. We fed them for a while and then headed deeper into the park along the wooded paths, heading for the palace.
When we reached the palace - which basically is sitting on top of a river, so there is water on both sides, we saw peacocks roaming the grounds! They were a brilliant shade of blue and were just milling about all around the palace. It was mating season - as the brown females were taunting the males and the males kept opening up their feathers and pomping just a few feet away from us! It was really neat! We saw field mice, swans, turtles, large fish in the ponds, peacocks, pidgeons, ravens, finches, red furry squirrels - all very fun! We strolled around for a while and managed to take lots of pretty pictures and really soak up the beautiful, peaceful park.
As we were heading out (which was going to take a while, b/c we actually got lost a few times), we were approached by a very friendly, ambitious squirrel! I actually got her to eat out of the palm of my hand! A little while later one approached Daniel and he got to do the same thing as well - a very fun little suprise in our afternoon.
After that we ventured to Old Town by bus to save time and grabbed lunch at a brewary that had excellent excellent food. Then we perused through Old Town looking for gifts for the Melbourne guys. Daniel had thought long and hard about what he wanted to get them - but we actually had to find what he was looking for.
We returned to the apartment with our loot and took care of few last things that would get Daniel travel ready. After that we set out for Daniel's last European dinner and a night on the town of Warsaw. We even managed to find a jazz club to check out for a while.
Saturday morning came early - we had both been dreading its arrival for the past few days. We have said goodbye to each other many times, but I don't think it has ever been as hard to part from Daniel as it was at the airport on Saturday. We are a very busy couple - we do not have kids yet to keep us even more busy, but between graduate classes, full work schedules, all of my teaching obligations (track, Model UN, AP) and evertyhing else we don't have a lot of uninterrupted time together. During this vacation we got to experience twenty-three uninterrupted days together, during which we were absolutely inseparable - we were each other's English speaking world. And there were some days when the only people we talked to were each other. It was absolutely wonderful and the past three weeks were some of the best we have ever shared - and because of that, parting was excruciating. I cannot begin to tell you how much it hurts to begin writing the travel journal and blogs with "I" instead of "we."
Ah, what a wonderful trip we shared! Daniel kept a 76 page journal (Mark Shelley you can go ahead and do a double take) that kept track of our adventures in vivid detail - so if you have real detail questions ask him. I kept the blog going and continually picked out the best pictures to showcase our trip so we could share it with all of you. At times I wondered if I was mis-spending my time, but decided that if I didn't do it as we went along, I would never manage to put it all together later. I don't regret sitting down periodically and reflecting and posting about our adventures.
I am currently sitting in the Bristol Hotel waiting to meet up with the Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teacher's Program. I have spent two days by myself in Warsaw, feeling a bit like a mute, craving conversation - but any minute now a group of thirty or so dedicated, passionate teachers who share my interests should be wakling through the door.
I will continue the blog as I continue my adventure and quest to acquire a deeper understanding of it all - thank you for reading so far! I am beginning to crave messages from back home - so any emails, comments, or greetings, that you would like to send my way would be greatly appreciated. (beth.hals@gmail.com) :)
On I go!
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