Warsaw Poland

I traveled to Warsaw (Warszawa) to get to Greece. Norwegian air shuttle makes a cheap hop from Warsaw to Athens twice a week and I needed a way to get to Athens from Northeastern Europe on the cheap. That was pretty much my only reason for taking the train to Warsaw. I’ve never heard a glowing review of Warsaw and you’re not going to find one here. Overall, it’s a big post communist city that’s westernizing quickly. There are tall hotels and commercial buildings, some big city nightlife, large shopping centers and in the center of it all, the Palace of Culture and Science.



The Palace of Culture and Science. was a gift from Stalin to the people of Poland. While it’s an interesting building, I have to say that if I got something like that as a present, I’d hope there was a gift receipt inside. It’s too much of a monstrosity to regift and too damn expansive and prominent to have in the center of town. Many people joke that the best views of Warsaw are from within the building for the simple reason that it’s the only place in the city where the building can’t be seen.

Through my travels through Eastern Europe I’m starting to realize that communists had downright awful taste. Yea, some of their buildings and artwork are cool in their own soviet way but the utilitarianism with which they approached architecture boggles the mind. Didn’t they realize these things were frightening utilitarian symbols? Were they attempts to remove the humanity from the city and thus the people, in a totalitarian bid to turn the people into machines of the state? Perhaps that was the point but then one must wonder, why would someone want to live (or create) a state where the people are subjected to such things? What type of people would actually believe in this shit?

As a westerner, I’m not qualified to answer these questions. However, I find the following excerpt from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being relevant:

Anyone who thinks that the Communist regimes of Central Europe are exclusively the work of criminals is overlooking a basic truth: the criminal regimes were made not by criminals but by enthusiasts convinced they had discovered the only road to paradise. They defended that road so valiantly that they were forced to execute many people. Later it became clear that there was no paradise, that the enthusiasts were therefore murderers.

Then everyone took to shouting at the Communists: You’re the ones responsible for our country’s misfortunes (it had grown poor and desolate), for its loss of independence (it had fallen into the hands of the Russians), for its judicial murders!

And the accused responded: We didn’t know! We were deceived! We were true believers! Deep in our hearts we are innocent!

In the end, the dispute narrowed down to a single question: Did they really not know or were they merely making believe?

OK! OK! I’ll get back to the travel stuff.

The hostel in Warsaw was packed. In fact, every hostel in Warsaw was full for the weekend. I could only book Friday night and was left to fend for myself on Saturday. What was really surprising was the number of Warsaw residents staying in the hostel. This might be due to the fact that Warsaw lacks any midrange hotel options. There are budget hostels and upscale business hotels but nothing in between. If you need a place to sleep and you don’t want to spend a lot of money, you’re staying in a hostel. While it wasn’t a super friendly or personable place to spend a night, I did manage to meet Polish students, a Polish teachers and a Polish businessman. I also played Monopoly with a gang of English soccer hooligans. Good times.

For my second day in Warsaw, I stashed my pack in the hostel locker and set out on foot to explore the city. Since I lacked a home base, this left me with a lot of walking and time to sit in cafes drinking overpriced espresso (drip coffee isn’t very popular here in Eastern Europe). Despite the rain, wind, a broken umbrella and 40 degree temperatures, I got around to a lot of the museums and sights. Old town is incredibly interesting if for no other reason than it’s a complete recreation of the original old town. The site was leveled by the German army in WWII and meticulously rebuilt in the 1950s to match its prewar state. It’s got a bit of a Disneyland sheen to it but, in the end, it works!



The other highlight was the Warsaw Museum of Contemporary Art. They had a few good exhibitions, including “Fly” by Yoko Ono. Her work includes a number of projects that bring the Museum patrons into the creation process. You’re invited to decorate plates with magic markers and construct works of art from their broken pieces, write on the walls and adorn leafless tree branches with small pieces of paper you’ve written on. She’s included personal notes to Warsaw, framed on the walls. Very fun.

At the end of the day, after an unsuccessful search for other accommodations, I resigned myself to spending the night in the Warsaw airport. Norwegian Air Shuttle flies out of Warsaw Airport’s Etiuda terminal, a terminal that has a reputation for being for being one of the worst in Europe. It’s a fitting reputation. After a few hours of shuteye on a metal bench in the international terminal, I made my way over to Etiuda at 4:10AM to check in for my 6:10 flight. I was a bit shocked to find that, even at 4:10 AM, the line to check in was already out the door. In hindsight, I would have never made my plane had found a place to stay in the city.

After waiting in line for a while, I passed through security, conked out on the plane and woke up in Athens. Upon exiting the plane I was greeted by warm Greek air and could feel the sunshine radiate through the terminal windows. It’s funny but, in my first 5 minutes in Greece, I could tell that I was in a country with a completely different mentality than Poland. Free, laid back (if not lazy) and cool (with a certain 80s flair in their style). It’s not a European city as I know them, it’s Mediterranean and it’s a nice change.