Thursday, July 31, 2014

Thanks to Zack for teaching us all of the Polish we need to know!  Pywo (Beer).  "Nice Driveway!"

August 29 - August 31, 2014 Poland


Dzin dobry!  We are off on another adventure, so the blog is running again!

Day one was exhausting.  We were on an overnight flight from Toronto to Paris, during which we slept for about 40 minutes.  We had lots of leg room due to our carefully chosen emergency exit seats, but that does not help you lie down to sleep!  We flew with Air France which served really good food, highly recommended to any future travellers.  All we can say about the Paris airport is that it is big and smells a little funny. 

From Paris we immediately flew to Warsaw.  When we arrived we ate and then slept for several hours (yes, we know you should wait until the evening to help with jet lag...but we were exhausted to the point of nausea).  We got up and had a LONG walk around town.  There is a mix of old world buildings with modern skyscrapers.  Very much like any large city in the world.  We had dinner in the lovely lounge on the 40th floor of our hotel and went back to bed.  It was not the most productive of days, but it was enjoyable in the end!

We are now in Gdansk, a beautiful town in northern Poland.  Most of it was destroyed during WWII, but they have carefully rebuilt it all using pictures and paintings of original buildings.  Amazing!  We got here around noon so we checked into the Radisson Blu Hotel (thank you for the free upgrade to a Business Class room – big and lovely).  Right now there is a street festival so the streets are full of vendors and street performers.  This makes it interesting, but crowded.  We had to resort to a long meal of Polish cuisine and beer while people watching.  Our basic conclusion is that the Polish women dress nicely (lots of summer dresses) and the tourists wear a lot of short shorts and belly shirts.  We are giving Colin’s leg a chance to rest, than we will be out and about for dinner (and perhaps more beer).  Over the next few days we will explore more of this city and relax a bit as well before meeting Daen in Krakow on Sunday.