Again, the Gdansk post is coming, and is worth looking forward to because Gdansk is probably my favorite city in Poland. It has the sea, it has Baltic architecture, it has shipyard workers, it has the largest grassroots resistance movement in the former Soveit Block so what's not to like?
But until that happens, I figured I'd recap the few weeks with Hilary...because she is gone, she is awesome, and I miss her!
A few days after Hilary arrived in Warsaw we decided to check out Praga, which is across the river from the main part of Warsaw. Apparently, the other side of the river gets the same rap that the other side of the tracks does, and many Poles have warned me about the dangers of Praga...if you must go, go during the day and with a group. There are hooligans there! Hil and I figured we're pretty tough looking gals, so we made the treck across the bridge, and saw some cool stuff, like an Orthadox Church, an old Vodka factory, and some REALLY AWESOME THRIFT STORES. Hil bought a beautiful, beautiful dress that MIGHT have been worn by a Babcia at some point in the past, and has the most lovely colors. Best thing is that it cost 5 ztolty. We made a plan to dress up at least once, her in the beautiful dress of many colors, me in the beautiful green polyester trench coat-dress that was mom's and Babcia bribed me back to Poland with.
Of course, we put this plan in action, and dressed up last Sunday for the Chopin concert at Lasenki Park. The old ladies were REALLY checking us out, and quite jealous. Here's Hil with a couple of the gals:
And here I am crossing the street near Metro Politeknika. Note the lovely, lovely buildings.
The concert was great, and we felt a bit like glamorous Fitzgerald-esque ex-pats. We ate some delicious, over the top waffles and then Hilary started twirling.
I would too, if I had that dress.
We celebrated our last days together and Hil's birthday by going out to the bars in the barracks behind Nowy Swiat. They are pretty awesome, kind of shady and some have really trashy decorations that I can't begin to describe. One of them is awesomely retro with some sweet brown tones and that's where we spent the evening.
Here we are in the brown toned bar with our matching Russian shawls! Really, so much about Hil's time in Warsaw had to do with us embracing our old age early.
For Hilary's actual birthday, we started out with sight seeing some cool monuments. Hilary's an awesome tour guide. Then we ate kabobs, went shopping, and used the internet at Wayne's coffee, where the beverages are caffinated and the music is bangin'. Then Hilary and I had a date in the old tonw, followed by a drop by at a Polish party and then we danced the night away. Believe it or not, that night Hilary and I celebrated her 21st birthday AND the techno remake of "Satisfaction." It was sweet!
It was a great reunion.
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