Warsaw (Warszawa)

Warsaw was nicer than I anticipated. The cultural activites and information was plentiful. The old town was beautifully restored after German and Soviet destruction during WWII. The surrounding city area had large sidewalks, effective public transportation, old and new buildings, parks, handfulls of national treasures, shops and malls of all sizes, small cars, lots of fences, and was always beautiful. The land surface was flat and the clouds always big and puffy. People were very nice, but I could feel some communist tension still in personalities - mostly the older people. Given the oppurtunity strangers would be very open and warm and I wasn't able to really explore this as my Polish language skills are lacking. There are many western influences here and I forsee many more as people realize the investment value in the country. I'll talk about Warsaw more later as it is my favorite city.


Statue found in the middle of Warsaw in the old town. This is the Warsaw Mermaid or Syrena. It was fairly recently moved to the center and is sits atop a flat fountain. Its likeness appears in many forms of art. More info on virtual tourist page. During the week is was nicely busy in the center, but on the weekends it went to exciting crazy busy.


View of the Old town from atop the bell tower of Saint Anne's Church. I think it cost about 50 cents each to climb to the top.


Normal street in the old town. buildings unknown to me.


Pilsudski Square located next to the old town. This is a tremendously famous square. Once the Saxon castle sat near here. In 1979 Pope John Paul II visited this to speak to what I could guess as a tremendous crowd. Parades and historical events fill history books from this site. I'm not sure what the boys were doing here, but behind the picture is the unknown soldier memorial with guards that change every couple hours. Some of the girls were taunting the guards.


View of Warsaw from top of cultural building. You can see how flat most of Poland is here. In the rural areas you could see trees miles away on the same plane as the ones next to you.


My favorite subway stop. Centrum. Here young folks did activities and hung out among commuters. Here the kids were seeing how creatively they could jump over that little wall there. At other times I saw musicians, silver duds (those people that wear heavy makeup and move when you put money in their cup), people handing out advertisements, and police.


Lots of new flats being build near Justyna's house. I happened to get up at 5 or so in the morning for this picture. The guys would work from 7 to 7 on this building. The construction for most buildings in Poland is cement. Europeans use cement extrememly well and the masons do incredible work. I had the chance to see a master mason building part of a wall in the building. This is near the Imielin (E me E Leen) subway/bus stop.


Typical apartment or condo buildings. This picture is just a normal typical scene found in Poland. Very much different from what I am used to in the States.


Statue of Nicolaus Copernicus. Impressive person and statue. He was born in Torun, Poland and lived near there his entire life and was trained in math, law, medicine, more and of course set the foundation and thinking for science today.


Another typical set of living units. I can't remember where these are exactly.


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