know!!Back to the story: We arrived in Warsaw on thursday morning and made our way to our first HC host. He turned out to be a sikh (we had read this in his profile) and owns an indian restaurant in Warsaw. After dinning at his delicious restaurant for lunch and a quick nap he took us to his temple for the Indian new year. A unique experience that was not so far from home! We were the only white people in there (of course) and we listened to Indian singing as well as an Indian prayer for 1.5 hours. They did reward us with dinner afterwards. This was our very first experience in an Indian temple and an interesting one!!
The next day we spent walking around this city, which is actually quite big. We followed the local tour map and tried to discover this busy city on our own. We found the monument for Chopin, the composer, beautiful old palaces, churches and a gorgeous park. Our book led us around and explained any interesting facts about Warsaw.
Friday evening after a rest we headed out on the town to a local bar and club with two polish people and a typical LA boy. There we learned our first polish words and had some heated political discussion
s. Polish people are a kind unto their own. We found them to be very abrupt, but once you got to know them or addressed them directly they softened up. We did have more than one person give us the glare and our third host gave us some insight into the situation!! They said that many young people from Europe/North America come to Poland and get very drunk and behave badly because it is inexpensive. In turn young tourists are not always liked! We did find that men always opened the door for us and refused to go ahead of us. We found Warsaw to be inviting and an impressive city. We drove with three different people there, and all of them were crazy!!! They go very fast, and very close to one another (yet they have fewer accidents than we do!).We left our first host on Saturday, and went to the second host, a young girl about thirty who lived 30 minutes outside Warsaw. She was super friendly and took us salsa dancing
that night, where we received our 2 hour lesson in Polish. The instructor even used Nina as an assistant and it took her five minutes before Nina had to admit that she didn't’t understand the instructions. Still her dancing skills were clearly evident!! As Remembrance day in Canada passed so did Poland’s Independence day. Many people from their army were present downtown along with tanks and a huge cross made up of candles. We also met some locals through our HC host Agata. We also tried our first polish perogies which were super delish! Sauerkraut and mushroom and russian style (cheese and potato). Agata also took us to see one of the remaining walls of the Jewish Ghetto. It was a very powerful and sad experience. I find that most people don’t speak English very well here, but are ha
ppy to point you in the right direction if you can get your message across. Some people still have the post-communist stare which can be unnerving. As Canadians/tourist we are constantly being stared at with curious looks.Besides our obvious language differences, Polish people have a classy way of dressing (a luxury we as tourists don’t have). They mostly wear jeans with tall black boots and black or brown button up winter coats. Our snowboarder coats tednd to stand out! Still we are enjoying our cultural experiences and look forward to writing you about Krakow (where we are currently staying).
p.s. we are eating well and trying to eat less and look more "European!"
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