A Polish Anniversary pt1

These caricatures from the safety video of Fly Dubai cracked me up. Best safety video ever. 

I think it was the beginning of the year searching up Andrea Bocelli concerts that I discovered a concert on our 25th anniversary. Poland was a new country so it didn't take a lot of convincing for Matt to take me. I did NOT realize it would mean missing the first day of school but thanks to Eli's generous presence at home we left them all in good hands.

My Mom sent me such a thoughtful package and included an autobiography of Andrea Bocelli that she was reading that I didn't realize existed. I'd fallen in love with his voice and now I was able to learn more about his life and his thoughts.

 Welcome to the Warsaw Airport Marriott. The kind of airport hotel that's across the airport pickup road and is attached to the airport parking. We enjoyed these precious horderves, a lovely bed, a comfy workout room and delicious breakfast the next morning with lots of new to us Polish foods. A theme of culinary appreciation during this trip is DILL!

When we were preparing for this trip, we watched the Rick Steves Poland videos which explained the origin and subsequent nickname of the building above. It was gifted to the Polish people by Stalin and has apparently been referred to as "Stalins Peen*s". Warsaw definitely had some communist era vibes in places but we felt like it was also full of charm as well as reverence to heroes in their history, epecially the WW2 resistance fighters.

We used GPS my city's free walking tour of Warsaw and previewed the Old Town. While the weather was warm it was a treat coming from Oman. Even though Warsaw was completely demolished during WW2, the Polish people were able to rebuild it with all the old world charm and attention to detail. I loved the colors, textures, patterns, and architecture. 

This reminded me of a book I loved reading my kids. These sweet owls look like 'Sarah, Percy and Bill' and they are sitting and thinking because "...all owls think a lot."

I think Matt really wanted to buy me a piece of amber jewelry and we were definitely in the right place for that. There were lovely shops everywhere.

Matt and I could be food bloggers. Experiencing culture through traditional food is probably our favorite part. Probably not but we definitely aren't good at just grabbing an apple and a piece of bread from the market. We will do that to save money or take a break from eating out sometimes but we both get very excited to try all the food. This assortment of pierogies from Zapiecek in Old Town were delicious. The wild mushroom was hands down our favorite. The dumplings, over all, were lighter than anything I've ever had. There were also cheese and bulger, lentil, spinach and feta, and sweet dumplings as well.

We also split a potato pancake with mushrooms which was basically a large delicious hash brown with a mushroom gravy and I loved every bite. Al fresco dining.

We saw the church where they buried Chopin's heart. They have benches throughout the city where you can read the engraved story that particular bench commemorates from Chopin's life while listening to a piece of his music. I have a video from it but videos are hard to put on Blogger in my opinion. There were so many fun whimsical pieces of art around the city. 

Poland is very proud of it's progeny, Copernicus is another beloved Polish contribution to the world.  

Instagram had me well supplied with dessert ideas and I started being on the lookout right away but especially as it became time to head back to the train station. We found a little place that had this "cheesecake" in a jar. Matt fell in love at first bite and spent the rest of our trip trying to find another one unsuccessfully. It was good and we truly cannot get enough berries. One of the first stops we made was a tiny produce store that overhwelmed us with the smell of dill as soon as we opened the door. We left with a basket of raspberries that were not too many for us.

We were very happy with the ease of getting from the airport to the main train station where we could easily lock up our bags in a locker and then pop out into this mall and into the city. Warsaw was getting ready for the concert!!

We headed out to Krakow before dinner. Matt felt the train seats were uncomfortable but I was perfectly content to sit for the 4 1/2 hr ride while watching the sun set over the farm lands of Poland. We arrived in the dark and walked to our apartment that was supposedly a Marriott property but our stay was definitely not up to the Marriott expectation and it was a hard landing in Krakow.