Poland 1

Finally landed in Poland after about 24 hours of flying. The flight is typically 8 hours from New York to Warsaw but my flying time compounded because I flew from Phoenix to Los Angeles to New York to Warsaw.

The flight attendants were very polite (absolute angels when compared to those in US Airlines) and even gave me a vegetarian meal although I had not asked for one in advance. Baggage took a little longer than what I'm used to but immigration was a breeze.

Polish people are fairly friendly but you would have to initiate the conversation. My hotel room is a little smaller than most American hotel rooms but facilities are comparable. Yesterday I was out try to buy an adapter plug for my laptop as the piece of shit, Radio Shack sold broke in about five minutes. After getting directions and an address for an electronics shop from the hotel receptionist I some how got lost. So I started asking people for directions making liberal use of body language and I got an overwhelming response although none of them could actually help me until I asked a girl.

Unfortunately her English was as good as my Polish. She started giving me directions in Polish and some sort of heavily accented English but stopped in the middle of her rant when she looked at my clueless face. So she decided to switch to sign language and said "Go straight (Using her hands), down - tuk tuk tuk, up tuk tuk tuk and turn left (using her hand again)". Considering my outstanding navigational skills, I did not get the directions so she finally said something in Polish and starts walking. At this point I thought I bugged her enough so I was looking around for a different person and all of a sudden I felt somebody tugging me. It was the lady I was talking to. I realized that she was actually going to show me the place which was very considerate of her. When we finally reached the little electronics store her initial directions made absolute sense. By the way down - tuk tuk tuk meant I had to go down a tunnel and walk up. This is how you cross major streets in Poland. The tunnel itself is very fascinating but I will talk more about in the next post. I thanked her profusely.

Warsaw's landscape is very interesting. It is mix of beautiful old buildings sprinkled with modern high rises, reflecting western European taste and dilapidated structures - a constant reminder of the years of communism. The city seems to have lots of trees but this being fall most of them have shed their leafs. The picture is not a true representation of Warsaw but a good one.