“As a soldier he is a bad politician and as a politician is an equally bad soldier.”
Adolf Hitler on Churchill, May 1941
I awoke at 7.30 to 3 snoring bunk mates and the stale smell of sweat and shoes,
I decided to take this liberty in stride and headed straight for the showers.
The Hostel I’m in is located on the top story of a local apartment building and has almost a loft like feel about it, hostel houses around 26 guests but its very quiet , there is only about 10 here, most are polish people visiting the city for business or partying and don’t speak a drop of english…. my luck right!
I got out of the shower and made a swift exit for the street, one thing about the heat is the further you can get ahead of it the easier your travel is each day.
My first part of my journey consisted walking 5.3Km to the “old Village”most of the city was bombed to hell during the Second World War but after 1945 the people of Warsaw worked tirelessly to salvage a small portion of government buildings and housing complexes, th e walk was littered with convenience shops so i made sure to get my water and electrolytes as the temperature was creeping into 30 degrees at 8.30AM
As I gradually made progress through the Eastern European style shops and apartment complexes the building slowly started to change to a more village like approach to the architecture as i rounded the street Kopernika i came across a beautiful town square finished in bright colours and cafes along one side, i decided to sit in the local “Cafe Nero” , i have found these cafes across Europe to be very accomodating to travellers and also serve great coffee, Unfortunately being a corporate chain i do pay about 4 NZD for a coffee however it is a very important part of routine and there is nothing worse than bad coffee in the morning!
I class myself as a well organised traveler bringing enough creature comforts, i say this as i always take my iPad and my Bluetooth speaker, i sat down out the front of the cafe with my Coffee turned on my speaker and listened to some Jazz music while tapping away , as i typed away more people started to fill the square , tourists , locals , school trips and the cafe slowly filled up out the front… eventually a French man sitting over in the far corner asked me to turn it up as he couldn’t Hear it…. I think he thought i worked at the cafe… but soon realised I didn’t when i opened my mouth.
After my coffee i slowly transgressed my way up to the National Museum of history, this walk was about another 5km into the city and i was growing weary that i might had bitten off a bit mor than i could chew for the current conditions, however after practicing my French in the heat of the sun i made it, according to the Museum it opens its doors at 10AM … however not today…. today was the only day they were not opening for the whole year and no one updated the google hours!! Drenched in sweat and slightly deflated i hopped on my mobile and found the next closest Museum called the “warsaw uprising Museum” this Museum was focused on the polish ad Jews efforts throughout the war.
It took me another hour to get to that Museum and i had made the cocky mistake of thinking i could get away with wearing my chinos….. BAD IDEA ANDREW!!
When i arrived at the Museum i was ordered to put my bag in a locker, the Museum houses over 8000 articles all to do with the polish war efforts and I assured them Gerald wasn’t going to take any of the items but they weren’t having a bar of it, i some how am glad i left Gerald in a storage for a locker for the duration of my visit to the Museum as i don’t know how you put a positive spin on the death of millions of Jewish people…..
It all started for poland on the 1st of September 1939, the German troops moved upon the country by Land, Air and Sea and within the blink of an eye the country has been involuntarily entered into world war 2 , on the 3rd of September Poland agrees to join the Allies (France, Britain) and declare war on Germany, unfortunately the German forces are to strong and the polish armies are ordered to retreat, by the 17th of September the Soviet Union joins Germany and pushes there forces into poland violating treaties one agreed upon.
By the 5th of October the polish forces have resigned to there fate and the occupation of the valuable territory starts taking place, the first “ghettos” were established in October 1939 and then the first concentration camps were built by Jew for Jew in the early weeks of 1940.
There were 4 main camps built throughout the war,: Sobior, Belzec, Trblinka and the most famous Aushwitz, 3 million Jews were murdered in cold blood and and 90% were of polish origin, i don’t think anything compares to the amount of loss of life that took place here from 1939 – 1945.
The polish were happy to surrender their land to the Reich but hitlers view of a master race ensured that no one would stop him…. heartbreaking really… makes you think that loosing a Dog and lover is not so significant in the broad scheme of things.
I spent around 2.5 hours in the exhibition looking at all the articles on display…. sobering
After i evacuated the museum i had made the judgement call to go and get some shorts the heat was unbearable … i was on my 3.0l of water and still couldn’t regulate my body temperature.
Google is fantastic over here, just whack in what You wants and Hey Presto you have a detailed turn by turn navigation along with public transport options at your fingertips.
Yet again I wasn’t going to let the heat of the sun get he better of me! I was going to conquer it. My walk to the main shopping mall was about 6.3 KM, by this stage my Archillies tendons in both legs were starting to give me grief, i had had the pain since i ran though the airport in Bucharest and although the paint was bearable at the start of my journey it was becoming increasingly more volatile. I slowly made my way through the main CBD, past the glass buildings displaying economic pride and power… Serbia didn’t have this… Serbia was very much a poor nation in comparison.
I got to the mall and as i walked in the cool blast of the AC system hit me and i breathed a sigh of relief. As i wandered to an information board i had strange looks from people, Gerald i don’t think makes as much sense to people here as it did in Serbia, i managed to track down an Addidas story and payed top Polish dollars for a set of synthetic running shorts. And made my way to a bathroom t get changed……… annnnndddd instant relief!
It was about 2.30 pm and the wolves were starting to growl so I assessed the area and made my way to a local restaurant, food here is relatively cheap, a meal will cost around 15 NZD with a beer, my lunch was a simple salad as the thought of meat in this heat was not going so well.
The time is now 3.45 pm and seeing how i had finished my book i booted up my best friend google and looked for an english book shop…. and to my surprise there was just one and it was 3KM away, i limped slowly to my next stop and had a look though the shelves of english books only… strangely the lady who ran the shop didn’t speak english ….. WTF, anyways I was surprised at the cost of books here, 15NZD each Half the price of NZ, a win for poland!
As i left the shop it had just started to rain an the relieve form the heat was incredible, as the rain came down it sliced the temperature by 30% down to a very comfortable 22 degrees, this was my chance to make the 7KM dash back to the hostel without seating my ringer out.
The walk took around 1 hour 20 minutes and i was blasted by sharp rain on my face, I’m not worried tho its refreshing, i arrived back at the hostel around 6 30 pm and i made my way to the balcony that looks out across the balcony and opened up chapter 1 of John “Grisham’s the Racketeer” its an easy book to read well scripted which is exactly what i needed, as i as reading I didn’t notice but my calf muscles and Archillies tendons hard started to bruise… i did some googling very quickly and have isolated that i either have 1 of 2 conditions …….. Archillies tendinitis or….. cancer… but google always says its cancer so it’s defiantly not cancer.
Google tells me that i need to keep off it for a few days and ice it the only thing I have about this is that I get bored and there is no way i am sitting in a a stinking hot hostel for 2-3 days letting it heal…. maybe I’m a sucker for punishment.
I stretch my legs and slowly make my way back out in the cool evening air to a local pizzeria about 50M away from the hostel. There seems to be a big Italian culture where i am staying and it’s actually very very good food, a few beets and a pizza later my legs are starting to go numb. I must go to a drug store tomorrow and see if i can find something to alleviate my pain.
It’s now 9.30 and I’m lying on my bed staring at the roof i can feel my eyes starting to droop…. Goodnight Warsaw
” A day without Laughter is a day wasted” – Charlie Chaplin
Quantum Entanglement 