30rd of December 2017 - 1st of January 2018
Introduction:
After some time in China, Gutcha and Ala finally got back to Europe (well Gutcha only reduced the distance to Brazil by half compared to China, but much closer to Paris instead...:)). Excellent news because I haven't seen them for 2 years. Indeed, several months in India and 2 years in China had strengthen up our relationship and they are what I can call my second family.
Another good news was Kathy's coming back to Poland too. Another person who had become like a family member after China.
And last but not least, Robin, our Indian mate also has been living in Poland for the last years... the decision to celebrate NYE there was more than easy for me. There was not a better way to finish the year and start the new one!
On the other hand, I was really curious about Poland because with Bulgaria they had the same heritage after the WW2:
30rd of December 2017
I was so excited on Saturday that I realized afterwards I had missed several corners after shaving in the morning...
I landed around 4pm at Warsaw airport and 10 minutes later I was already out. I really like those airports where you can easily get out. Gutcha was waiting for me and we took a bus to his place. He was living in the Ochota district which was halfway between the airport and the center of Warsaw.
My first impressions:
We reached Gutcha and Ala's place where Kathy was waiting us.... So good seeing them again! It has been such a long time !
The plan of the night was meeting Robin for a dinner in the downtown in a traditional Polish restaurant, then going for a drink and then walk around the old town.
Something strange however: the exchange rate €/zloty offered in the downtown is lower than at the airport... usually it is the contrary. Anyway will remember it next time :)
We went to Zapiecek restaurant located on Novy Swiat street which is one of the shopping area of the city. And this is where I felt in love with the Polish dumplings. Excluding them I found some similarities between the cuisines with Bulgaria especially the sour cabbage with pork. The Polish rye sour soup is quite particular but also delicious.
A friend of Robin joined us and we all moved together a little bit further on the same street to something like the bar corner or even better the bar square. There were 31 small bars/ pavilions on two floors (small for the standards of Poland I guess because this is the regular size of a bar in Paris...). I don't know what the purpose of those pavilions were before but transforming them into bars was a great idea. This is where I saw the first street art of the city: it seems that Polish are fan of the serial Stranger Things as there were several painting with the characters and even the alphabet which was used in the first season to communicate between Will and his mom. We got some shots at Pawilon 31. I have always thought that kamikaze shot is a type of shot, well in Poland is four shots of vodka with a flavor :)! They know how to do things right ! :)
We finished the night by walking to the old town which was destroyed and rebuilt after the war.
The Christmas spirit was still there: decoration and Santa Clauses (one of them on a rickshaw... why not!? :)). The street decoration was fabulous and was offering different pictures spots. I was thinking if this kind of spots were made in Paris the Chinese tourists will invade them in less than a second...
We stopped at the Polish Academy of Science where a statue of Copernicus was standing, passed by the presidential Palace, walked through The Old Town Market Place which was totally restored after war into its original state. The weather was cold so we started looking for mulled wine to fight against the weather... well, not easy to find one so we finished our walk at the Barbican Castle in red bricks which was the main medieval gate to the old town.
After some time in China, Gutcha and Ala finally got back to Europe (well Gutcha only reduced the distance to Brazil by half compared to China, but much closer to Paris instead...:)). Excellent news because I haven't seen them for 2 years. Indeed, several months in India and 2 years in China had strengthen up our relationship and they are what I can call my second family.
Another good news was Kathy's coming back to Poland too. Another person who had become like a family member after China.
And last but not least, Robin, our Indian mate also has been living in Poland for the last years... the decision to celebrate NYE there was more than easy for me. There was not a better way to finish the year and start the new one!
On the other hand, I was really curious about Poland because with Bulgaria they had the same heritage after the WW2:
- the communism
- and then some years of transition before joining the EU.
30rd of December 2017
I was so excited on Saturday that I realized afterwards I had missed several corners after shaving in the morning...
I landed around 4pm at Warsaw airport and 10 minutes later I was already out. I really like those airports where you can easily get out. Gutcha was waiting for me and we took a bus to his place. He was living in the Ochota district which was halfway between the airport and the center of Warsaw.
My first impressions:
- The infrastructure is really good and the public transportation seems very well organized. The city has two lines of subway and trams which are totally modern. Indeed, the Pesa trams are also famous in Bulgaria since Sofia had purchased some several years ago.
- I was surprised seeing Gutcha respecting the lights on the crossing zebra... I mean a Brazilian respecting the lights... come on, you must be kidding me :D ! He explained me that now you can get fines if you cross on red light but in the meantime this is not so true when you cross streets in the old town... This made me think about the situation in Tokyo where I crossed the street on red light (while no cars of course) and when people on the other side were starring at me such as I was coming from Mars. Since then I am respecting the local culture and keeping my "Parisian" way of crossing for Paris.
- Gutcha and Ala are living in a residential area with a lot of "communist" looking buildings. The main difference with Sofia is the space between the buildings which is bigger with a lot of parks and green areas and the best: the buildings are, for the majority, smaller than in Sofia (6 floors compared to 8) and renovated. Gosh, it is so good seeing that those buildings can actually look good when they are not painted in grey... So yes, Warsaw did a lot for the same amount of time and this is great! Well of course its strategic location, in the center of Europe, and the market size helps, but I hope Sofia will be able doing the same ... one day ... maybe :)
We reached Gutcha and Ala's place where Kathy was waiting us.... So good seeing them again! It has been such a long time !
The plan of the night was meeting Robin for a dinner in the downtown in a traditional Polish restaurant, then going for a drink and then walk around the old town.
Something strange however: the exchange rate €/zloty offered in the downtown is lower than at the airport... usually it is the contrary. Anyway will remember it next time :)
We went to Zapiecek restaurant located on Novy Swiat street which is one of the shopping area of the city. And this is where I felt in love with the Polish dumplings. Excluding them I found some similarities between the cuisines with Bulgaria especially the sour cabbage with pork. The Polish rye sour soup is quite particular but also delicious.
A friend of Robin joined us and we all moved together a little bit further on the same street to something like the bar corner or even better the bar square. There were 31 small bars/ pavilions on two floors (small for the standards of Poland I guess because this is the regular size of a bar in Paris...). I don't know what the purpose of those pavilions were before but transforming them into bars was a great idea. This is where I saw the first street art of the city: it seems that Polish are fan of the serial Stranger Things as there were several painting with the characters and even the alphabet which was used in the first season to communicate between Will and his mom. We got some shots at Pawilon 31. I have always thought that kamikaze shot is a type of shot, well in Poland is four shots of vodka with a flavor :)! They know how to do things right ! :)
We finished the night by walking to the old town which was destroyed and rebuilt after the war.
The Christmas spirit was still there: decoration and Santa Clauses (one of them on a rickshaw... why not!? :)). The street decoration was fabulous and was offering different pictures spots. I was thinking if this kind of spots were made in Paris the Chinese tourists will invade them in less than a second...
We stopped at the Polish Academy of Science where a statue of Copernicus was standing, passed by the presidential Palace, walked through The Old Town Market Place which was totally restored after war into its original state. The weather was cold so we started looking for mulled wine to fight against the weather... well, not easy to find one so we finished our walk at the Barbican Castle in red bricks which was the main medieval gate to the old town.
31st of December 2017
The last day of the year started by a nice homemade breakfast (Polish cheese is delicious btw), shopping for dinner and a walk in the city center.
We started by the Palace of Culture and Science: a gift from the Russians... I guess this must have been the moment when Polish people stopped believing in Santa Claus ...(kidding). It is actually a tall (237m) massive Staline style tower, which except the cultural events and theaters, offers a nice 360 degree view over the city. We were about to check it out until we saw the queue... so we preferred going for a walk instead of waiting.
This area is actually really interesting because it is a mix of classic, communist and modern architecture. Indeed, on one side of the Palace a new business district seems growing with tall and high glass skyscrapers, on other side the old renovated living blocks were standing and in the surrounded parcs a classic palaces.
I was following my guides so we walked through the parc behind the Palace of Culture and Science, passed by the Lubomirskich Palace and the Kosciuzsko monument (an American general). Something interesting about this statue: it was built on the place where a communist monument used to stand and which has been destroyed in the early 90s... Hmm, a known and commun story in Bulgaria and to what had happened to some Russian monuments there too.
We were heading to Hala Mirowska which is a big covered market looking actually like an old train station and where we wanted to stop for a bite. The plan changed again as almost everything was closed (one of the exceptions: the Chinese shop where you can buy almost all the things we were eating in China... quite funny).
We landed at Zbawiciela square where we found a nice place to have a bite: dumplings of course, but also a schnitzel (not very Polish but delicious anyway) and mulled wine. On some of the buildings there were some communist statues of the hard worker socialist.
It was getting dark and we needed soon going back to get ready for the New Year's Eve. Our trip ended by a walk in the the Lazienki parc. The Lazienki Palace was standing right in the center of it in the middle of a lake, very similar to some of the Loire Castles you can see in France but a bit smaller. On one of the bridges there was a monument of Jan III Sobieski Eski who has prevented the Ottoman Empire to conquer Europe. Well unfortunately not whole the Europe...
The last day of the year started by a nice homemade breakfast (Polish cheese is delicious btw), shopping for dinner and a walk in the city center.
We started by the Palace of Culture and Science: a gift from the Russians... I guess this must have been the moment when Polish people stopped believing in Santa Claus ...(kidding). It is actually a tall (237m) massive Staline style tower, which except the cultural events and theaters, offers a nice 360 degree view over the city. We were about to check it out until we saw the queue... so we preferred going for a walk instead of waiting.
This area is actually really interesting because it is a mix of classic, communist and modern architecture. Indeed, on one side of the Palace a new business district seems growing with tall and high glass skyscrapers, on other side the old renovated living blocks were standing and in the surrounded parcs a classic palaces.
I was following my guides so we walked through the parc behind the Palace of Culture and Science, passed by the Lubomirskich Palace and the Kosciuzsko monument (an American general). Something interesting about this statue: it was built on the place where a communist monument used to stand and which has been destroyed in the early 90s... Hmm, a known and commun story in Bulgaria and to what had happened to some Russian monuments there too.
We were heading to Hala Mirowska which is a big covered market looking actually like an old train station and where we wanted to stop for a bite. The plan changed again as almost everything was closed (one of the exceptions: the Chinese shop where you can buy almost all the things we were eating in China... quite funny).
We landed at Zbawiciela square where we found a nice place to have a bite: dumplings of course, but also a schnitzel (not very Polish but delicious anyway) and mulled wine. On some of the buildings there were some communist statues of the hard worker socialist.
It was getting dark and we needed soon going back to get ready for the New Year's Eve. Our trip ended by a walk in the the Lazienki parc. The Lazienki Palace was standing right in the center of it in the middle of a lake, very similar to some of the Loire Castles you can see in France but a bit smaller. On one of the bridges there was a monument of Jan III Sobieski Eski who has prevented the Ottoman Empire to conquer Europe. Well unfortunately not whole the Europe...
End of 2017 and 1st of January 2018
We went back to Ala and Gutcha's place where we got ready for the night. We attended 4 more people and enjoyed a nice international dinner. The private fireworks started to appear from 9pm which made me think about the way New Years are celebrated in Sofia or in China.
Robin took care of the rest of the night. Indeed, he had book a table at Ritual Bar located at Mazociecka street which was parallel of Novy swiat. Well, nothing to say: amazing show and great time spent all together dancing, singing and of course drinking. Is there a better way to spend the New Year !? :)
The next day we took our time to say good bye and spent some time peacefully home. A promise has been made, seeing each other as soon as possible.
We went back to Ala and Gutcha's place where we got ready for the night. We attended 4 more people and enjoyed a nice international dinner. The private fireworks started to appear from 9pm which made me think about the way New Years are celebrated in Sofia or in China.
Robin took care of the rest of the night. Indeed, he had book a table at Ritual Bar located at Mazociecka street which was parallel of Novy swiat. Well, nothing to say: amazing show and great time spent all together dancing, singing and of course drinking. Is there a better way to spend the New Year !? :)
The next day we took our time to say good bye and spent some time peacefully home. A promise has been made, seeing each other as soon as possible.
In conclusion, it was one of the best New Year's Eve I have ever spent. I think we did great regarding the time we had, the things we managed to visit and the time spent celebrating together.
Dziekuje Warsawa & thank you guys ! See you soon! :)
Dziekuje Warsawa & thank you guys ! See you soon! :)