I’M ALMOST BACK I PROMISE

She’s BaaAAaAaCk

When I left for Poland it didn’t occur to me to let all of my thousands of readers know that I wouldn’t be able to update ya’ll for a week, and for that I apologize. It has been an amazing trip and I’m going to retell it with fewer words than it deserves.

Po-land of Pierogîs and Plum Beer

We began in Warsaw, the capital of the country. Our train car held six, so I got to meet new people who I ended up spending the entire trip with. We played a camp game called “Contact,” which kept us laughing and yelling throughout the week (which was very necessary). The city of Warsaw has a difficult history, and we spent a lot of time dealing with the weight of where we were. Most of the city was bombed to nothingness by the Germans during the war, so as we walked along the main streets on our first day the tour guide kept repeating “This reconstruction...”

Chopin was born in Warsaw and is their PRIDE AND JOY. We joked that it was a Chopin tour and not a historical one, but still learned about Warsaw’s most recent history, as well as their post-democratic system.

We had pierogî for dinner the first night, which are small potato dumplings with cheese or meat fillings. They were surprisingly terrific. We ended up coming back to the same pub for dinner two nights in a row. 

The second evening was spent exploring Warsaw’s nightlife instead of attending a Chopin concert (oops). After many hours of dancing/complaining about old Polish people/being cold, we headed home. The next morning however, was a 9AM tour of a castle—of which I can tell you almost nothing because I was so tired from “clubbing.” Everyone else was on the same boat. We found a small cafe for lunch, then I headed off on my own to the Warsaw Zoo. Famous for hiding escaped Jews during WWII, it was ridiculously spacious and filled with families watching animals (I was looking for historical clues). I befriended a pygmy marmoset, saw some sad looking elephants, and walked amongst singing birds for the afternoon. 

“This is the part of our story that gets a little bit sad”

Our last day in Warsaw began with a walking tour of Jewish history in the city. We didn’t have to walk very far before it was clear what this tour was going to be like—upsetting. We walked parts of the ghetto wall, saw the oldest surviving synagogue in Poland, visited the memorial for those lost in the Ghetto Uprising, and stopped at the train station from which 300,000 Jews were sent to the Treblinka death camp from. Lunch afterward was weighed down by the morning’s activities, so I again decided to go off on my own for the afternoon. I took public transportation (which doesNOT run at the same level as Berlin) and eventually found the Neon Museum, which was a small collection of signs from the past almost-century.We had delicious pizza that night, and stayed in to watch “Skin,” a Spanish film with a plot you wouldn’t believe if I tried to explain it. I recommend everyone reading to check it out. 

GENQUI

Finally, on Tuesday, we arrived in Gdansk! Gdansk immediately lifted everyone’s spirits. We had Japanese food for dinner (bad. 0/10.) and then watched Borat in honor of the Polish phrase “genqui” which we had been saying all week. The next morning was another walking tour. It was extra chilly since we were along the water, but also really pretty. Gdansk has a definite Eastern European feel, which in comparison to Warsaw is more colorful and romantic. We stopped in an enormous cathedral with rainbow-stained glass and beautiful altars; I had tears in my eyes just being inside the building. Our tour guide told us a story about the assassination of their mayor which I’ll be repeating (to the best of my memory) here:

Every year, Gdansk has a day of charity. There are concerts and parades and everyone donates to a worthy cause. This year at a festival celebrating the giving day of Gdansk, the mayor, Pawel Adamowicz, went up on a stage to speak to his citizens. His last words to them were of love and gratitude for his city, before he was stabbed to death on stage. Our tour guide said she had seen him around before his passing, since they frequent the same areas, and went to pay her respectsto him with other tour guides. They got in line at 8PM to “see him one last time” and waited until 2:30AM. She said now she is more conscious of mental health as an issue, and that she pays more attention to her friends and family in this aspect. It is very visible how much this city values empathy—from Solidarity to the death of Mayor Adamowicz—you can’t miss it. 
TTFN
Author’s Note: I wrote this on a glitchy unofficial Blogspot app, sorry for the weird spaces/lack thereof. I’ll fix it when I’m home <3



I have to get up early for my solo Treblinka tour tomorrow, so I’ll be finishing Poland stories either Saturday evening or Sunday. Happy to be writing again, talk to you all soon.