On the way there, the only place near our lunchtime gas station stop was a McDonald's, so Dr. Hatteberg let us do something he never does and allowed the eating of fast food in Europe. I mean, he condemned us all when we got back on the bus, but he allowed it.
We finally arrived in early evening at our destination, with just enough time to check in, eat, and explore the city as the sun sank beyond the horizon.
Dinner had an odd mixup, as there were two restaurants in our hotel...because the same building was two different hotels connected at the lobby, or something like that. Anyway, I got to sample two Polish buffets is the point. Then, it was off for a stroll.
The hotel was just outside the old city wall, and the old city was truly beautiful, especially by the sunset light:
Found a path that lead through a square and passed by some fellow cardinals also out enjoying the evening:
Continued on toward a church, then further to a bigger square with bars and restaurants teeming with nightlife:
Got approached by a couple "adult club" promoters trying to pretend as though our American-ness impressed them enough to offer exclusive prices, just for us. Not buyin it, guys...literally!!!!!!!
Returned to the hotel just after dark and went to bed. Another early morning the next day - we had our drive to Warsaw, but on the way, wanted to stop at Auschwitz, which is nowhere near on the way.
There was a slight misunderstanding about where exactly we were supposed to go, so we ended up at "camp II", the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau, rather than the main camp with the museum and videos and whatnot resided. So what we toured was literally just the skeleton of the former camp and hardly anything else - making an already bleak experience that much bleaker.
Auschwitz's infamy comes from the fact that it was an extermination camp, not a concentration camp. Though this is not without exception, for the most part, there was no ruse of labor or mere imprisonment - you were there to die. Chilling.
With our tight schedule, there wasn't a lot of time, so I was able basically to just walk the length of the train track there and back, then we were off again. For lunch, we pulled off at this restaurant - which was way too fancy and slow to accommodate a busload of us in 45 minutes. A good chunk of us hiked down the highway to a nearby gas station (which...why didn't we stop there?) to get snack-type food to hold us over.
At last, we reached Warsaw, about an hour late for the dinner the Warsawians had planned for us. We were there, by the way, at the behest of an area University, the director of which had seen us at ACDA and invited us down for a visit and a concert - the only concert of the latter half of this trip, as a matter of fact.
They took us to a local place and served us a lot of Polish food that included Borscht (I think?) and dumplings - I'm sorry, pierogis.
Some shots from our walk to the restaurant:
After, we split into three groups for the walk back to the hotel, but it was unclear to me why we were doing this. When our guides informed us they intended to stay out, get to know us, and just generally hang out, we figured that was the purpose of splitting up - but apparently no, as we were all supposed to go back to the hotel and go to bed. Nevertheless, we followed our Polish student guides through the city and to the riverside, where we spent the remainder of the evening.
In my opinion, a lovely evening getting to know some of our hosts.
Next morning was the guided tour, which was something on the order of four hours between our walkabouts and the busrides to the next destinations.
We had an earpiece that the guide talked through, which was very disorienting as I could never tell where she was or where the voice was coming from. It was also disorienting because she had some sort of tick or something where she kept raucously shaking her head and scratching her nose - nevertheless, she was very good, with pretty good English, to the point of having some amusing one-liners:
"You will have to excuse me this morning, since I have a cold, so there will be some special effects"
[in a story about the origins of Poland] "...then birds came down and chirped: 'Polin! Polin!' The birds chirp in Hebrew"
"Most of the people here can trace their ancestry back many many generations. In Poland we have very Polish Poles"
[speaking about these statues:]
"The priest did not want them to be in a very public place. Why? Because: Look! At the tits."
and a few that come from mistranslation:
"It is just like in the Godfather: A proposal not for refusal!"
Anyway, it was a fine morning stroll, with a lot packed in:
We also saw the changing of the guard at this place:
And then to this memorial built around an old Jewish temple? Maybe? I wish I remembered specifics more than I do:
It was neat building, anyway.
Then a busride:
Then a big park!
Then finally ending up at the Polytechnic University which was quasi-hosting us for our Warsawian stay, which looks unbelievably nice:
Wow!!
Had lunch there, then off to the church, where that evening's concert would be held, for a rehearsal:
Then food, then the concert itself, the final concert of our trip. There was still China, of course, and only a rough fourth of the group is ever in their final year, so those for whom this was their final Cardinal concert was few; still, there were some, and it made me think of my own final concert, likely still a year away - I also thought of the most recent "last" concert, in China the year before. I'm sure it'll hit me in unexpected ways when it comes.
After, the Polish hosts had reserved some spot in a local mall for a goodbye party. This sounded strange to me, like something was getting lost in translation, but it was genuinely a oomph-oomph nightclub on the third floor of a massive shopping mall:
It was great fun, and came with two free drinks for each person! Once the dance floor died down a bit, the bus picked us up and took us to the hotel.
And in the morning, we were on our way again.
