Holy wow nobody told me how beautiful Warsaw is. Or that it'd be 17degC and blue skies in November.
This is day 1. I did a walking tour and saw the old town, walked along the river and through some parks. The University library (the green and pink leafy building) is incredible inside and out, and has a 1 hectare roof garden!
Of course I arrived on a national holiday, as is traditional with my visits to Poland, so most things were closed. I did mange to find food at Mango Vegan Street Food and a Hare Krisna place called Vege, which was senselessly cheap and filling.
Also visited the Warsaw Hackerspace; no pics there though.
Day 2: another sunny day, mostly cafe working. Featuring Loka Dela Krem pancakes and Kryzys, the anarchist cooperative vegan squat cafe. I stayed in Kryzys all afternoon, and in the evening a punk metal gig in support of antifacism happened around me. It was pretty great. I somehow had time for pizza (at Leonardo Verde) afterwards, too.
Day 3: a gloomy foggy day. I wandered around, found a warm museum in the citadel, ate pierogi, went to the cinema in the Palace of Arts and Culture (to see First Man) and then went for super fancy pants sushi at Youmiko.
I bought a day pass for the trams and zoomed about everywhere (15PLN). Which was nice because it was gloomy and drizzly again.
I went to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, which is free on Sundays, and spent a solid 3 hours there. It's super big and interesting with quite diverse installations and all very informative about Warsaw during and after the Second World War.
Then I trammed to Praga, over the other side of the river, with the intention of having lunch at Vegan Ramen Shop. There was a line down the street when I got there, and I was starving, so I figured I'd come back for dinner instead, and doubled back to a vegan falafel place (Zudi) I saw in the tunnel under the road/tram and had a really good seitan kebab.
Then I trammed to the Praga Museum, which I thought was also free on Sundays but turned out to be 15PLN. It was a bit weird, but some things were interesting. It's about local history and culture of the Praga area. I got really into the stories in the audio guide for a while, but then the battery ran out. There are some more modern exhibitions by students trying out traditional handicrafts, too. The whole museum wasn't huge though.
I wandered around Praga a bit before it got dark, then went back to Vegan Ramen Shop. There was still a line down the street. Unbelievable. This time I could wait though.
Totally worth it. I think the mad queues are for their limited time hallowe'en menu..
The clouds cleared up, so I went up to the top of the Palace of Arts and Culture. Visibility still wasn't super high, but I waited until sunset and everything is really shiny at night. I also wandered around a cemetery, and through the grounds of the Museum of Polish Jews. Then pizza.
A last beautiful day in Warsaw. I walked through some parks, saw some statues (including Chopin) and some squirrels and the Palace on the Water. Breakfast at Coco Bowls, lunch at Lokal, and a train to Kalisz.
One night and a morning in Kalisz, a bus to Turek, a taxi to Dhamma Pallava.. and some pics of the centre, before (warm and sunny) and after (frozen) the Vipassana retreat.
Winter is come, it's pissing freezing, and I'm still in Poland. It's not that things aren't going according to plan, more that my plan wasn't very good.
I put twitter in night mode and now I keep thinking I'm looking at Mastodon (via pinafore) and getting excited that someone I knew from twitter now has Mastodon and then being disappointed when I realise it's actually twitter.
A day of touristing and eating in Wroclaw. A walking tour of the gnomes, with Communist history, and then one of the bridges and islands after sunset. So much great vegan food.
Aaaaargh I'm tired. Seems like a good day to take a nightbus that arrives at 6am to a city with no places open until mid-moring on weekends. Right? Right.
Cafe working in Wroclaw. Some more gnomes, and finally the sun came out. Not long enough for me to get to the top of the Sky Tower, but I tried. Not the best investment, alas.
A weekend in Bratislava. Which, I forgot, is never a good time to go. Many things close on Saturdays and most things close on Sundays. However there was a christmas market, and its various extensions around the city. I got to visit Vipassana friends in their homemade container house on the hill.
There are lots of little quirks of English language I enjoy from people whose first language isn't English as I travel around Europe, but one of my all time favourites is "she just got a baby" instead of "she just had a baby".
It's funny because it carries connotations of picking a baby off a shelf, or finding one lying around.
It's profound because even though that's not usually what the person means, it is more inclusive of people with new babies who didn't personally give birth to them.
It also makes more standard grammatical sense if you think about it hard enough.
