Day 8--Wandering Warsaw, and a little more food

An interactive listening booth

Chopin's last piano

We are on our own once again, as Surani is off to business meetings. We decided to go to the Chopin Museum, although I am not much of a music person. Patrick, it turns out, is; he played the piano for 12 years! On foot once more, we walked up Nowy Świat to the Muzeum Fryderyka Chopina. All I can say is WOW. We spent three hours touring the exhibits and listening to music, and could have spent the whole day. What an interesting man Chopin was, yet to the end he was unsure that he really had talent, and was fearful people liked him for what he was (rock star of his day) rather than who he was.

Patrick's photogenic meal

After finally emerging from the museum, it was past 2, and way past time to eat. We ended up eating at a restaurant on Nowy Świat called Dawna Smaki. There I had...wait for it....Żurk staropolski gotoway na wędzonce z grzybami, doprawiany tartym chrzanem i majerankiem, podwany z biatą klełbasą oraz jajkiem. So there, I actually did that for three reasons: now you know how a dyslexic much feel, nothing much makes sense; Polish has way too many consonants and not enough vowels (not to mention too many ”z's”), and finally, look at all the special characters I now know how to produce. BTW, this was actually sour rye soup with egg, bacon and kielbasa...very tasty, now that I mostly can taste again (hurray). Patrick had a lovely plate of...wait for it... nope, once is enough, potato pancakes with salmon and caviar. Much more photogenic that my soup.

Too bad I don't teach FIZIX any more

Produce section

We decided against going back to the hotel, then coming back the same way for supper, as we are to meet the cohort at 6:45 in Old Town. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking up to Stare Miasto, the Old Town. It is still amazing to me that most all that we saw was reconstruction after the total destruction of WW2. What attention to detail went into this, much of which was with money supplied by Polish Americans, as the dollar was exceptionally strong after the war. We passed the University of Warsaw, a statue of Nicolaus Copernicus, a great grocery store (remember I said I like to go in grocery stores), and many churches, including the Church of the Holy Cross, where Chopin's heart in inurned.

Church of the Holy Cross

Sausage anyone?

 

 Notice how lovely the sky is?  It was a nice sunny day in Warsaw, a change from the past few grey, rainy days.

Luscious latte

Amazing hot chocolate

We finally got to Old Town and had time to walk through several shops, have coffee (me) and hot chocolate (Patrick). My coffee was good, but Patrick's chocolate was amazing...it was so thick you could eat it with a spoon, but, oh how tasty. 

Look, we found it.

Being distracted by a street show, we totally missed the group going into “Polka,” so we were a few minutes late for dinner, but made it before the main course, which was duck in honey served with pan fried beetroots. (For those of you who like to suffer-Chrupiące udko z kaczki lakierowane miodem podane z zasmażanymi duraczkami)(Actually, I'm just showing off.).

Finally back to the hotel after 12 hours out, I get to sleep in tomorrow while half the group goes off to Auschwitz. I get to go look for material, wish me luck.