Discovering Warsaw...

My mom visited last week so we took in a lot of Warsaw in a week. Old Town Warsaw is beautiful. When you enter the market square there are informative boards showing the same place in 1945 when it was completely demolished by the Nazis. Here is a website where you can see some post-war pics and modern day ones: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Warsaw/Warsaw02.html .

I guess that what is striking here is the fact that most of Warsaw (about 85%) had to be reconstructed after the war yet part of the fortress wall that protected the area hundreds of years ago has survived virtually intact. Most of the “Old Town” is really rather new. The buildings were reconstructed to look like the pre-war sites through pictures. The streets leading to the market square are filled with shops and restaurants and on the market square itself there are artists selling their paintings and musicians performing. It was interesting to walk through there and hear musicians singing Pearl Jam, Guns and Roses and other American music. Radio stations play American music between their Polish commentaries. Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m in Warsaw because of the many American influences here.

Shops sell lots of Polish crafts and pottery. The Boleslawiec pottery (http://www.boleslawiecpottery.com/) is what people refer to as “polish pottery” and it’s everywhere. Amber jewelry (http://www.amberworkshop.com/) and crafts are available as well beer steins (like in Germany), Russian nesting dolls (http://www.kremlingifts.com/nesting/index.html) and lacquer eggs and jewelry boxes. My favorite creation was a vase with roses created out of amber. It was beautiful.

We also went to the Palace of Culture and Science. We went to see the science exhibit and evolution exhibit both of which were small in comparison to the museums we have in the US. They also had a Barbie and Lego exhibit that ran until last Sunday. They had every Barbie imaginable and many Lego creations. Thing 1 enjoyed the Lego exhibit of course, but even Thing 2 enjoyed the Barbie exhibit. She kept trying to grab the dolls in the glass cases.

They had Barbie’s from around the world representing different countries as well as different eras. In the World Barbie display it was interesting that all the dolls were standing except the Russian one. The Poles don’t hide the fact that they do not like Russia (Germany is a close second) and this was a subtle snub to their neighboring country.