Warsaw, Poland (2006-05-28)

I arrived in Warsaw around 9:40PM, getting out of the airport was easy, and I was downtown before 10PM. When I got to my room I was surprised, for a little more than the Holiday Inn Express in Amiens, I got a 3-star equivalent room here in Warsaw. I wanted to get room service when I arrived, I was pretty tired and didn't want to search for something open around town. But room service had already stopped, so I ate a bunch of granola bars instead.

The next day I got myself lost around town. It was a nice sunny day, I got lucky because it was supposed to rain all day. There are a lot of nice parks around the city, not to mention Kilo-Niners. The Polish people are very nice and helpful to silly non-Polish speaking people like myself. Walking around Warsaw reminded me of a mix between Moscow and Prague. Although the Czech Republic was under communism for a long time, it wasn't destroyed during the war... so it's unique architecture wasn't lost or replaced with a ton of stuff from the Soviets. The Russian embassy in Warsaw was by far the largest in terms of land area, they demanded it after the war of course. But in my opinion, the Pols should have taken the land back and given Russia a tiny piece instead. I like Russia, but in some cases they deserve to get it stuck to them :-) All the embassies in Warsaw are located in the same area, they are held in former affluent properties (seized/abandoned/destroyed around war time). Russia's is the biggest, America's is the ugliest, and not surprisingly, France's is the coolest looking one. Enjoy the pictures, but keep in mind that during WWII the Nazi's destroyed around 85% of the city, so most of what you see was rebuilt following the war. Since the commies moved in after the Nazi's left, you'll see a lot of Soviet "inspired" architecture.

Shout out to Nicholas Copernicus!

[Warsaw, Poland - More Info (en.wikipedia.org)]

[Poland - More Info (en.wikipedia.org)]