26.07.2011 – 26.07.2011  24 °C

Got an early start this morning as I planned for a big day of sightseeing around the city. I had two goals for today; book my train ticket to Krakow for later in the week and see the Resistance Museum.

This seemed to work as the station was on the way to the museum. The plan was sound, but until I actually started walking I had no concept of how far the Resistance Museum actually was from the Old Town. To put it in terms most of us can relate to- the museum would have been at least as far as New Farm is from the Gabba.. And no (for those of you who know me well) I’m not in any way exaggerating.. I could actually be underestimating the distance.. I walked and walked and walked and walked.

Finally made it to the museum to discover that they had closed the interior of the museum to the public because they were showing VIPs through!! I was able to see the outside exhibits but still… It was funny, but I wasn’t angry I was just so tired.. it was almost comical that I’d walked so far to see this museum to discover that it was closed!

On the way back I stopped in for a well-deserved hour long break in this shopping mall where all I did was eat lunch and read my book (geez I needed that break—and god did my feet hurt when I started walking again!).. Also bought my train ticket.. Another amusing story; I waited in line (like a good communist does) for quite a while to get my ticket.. I’d already read the timetable so knew which train I wanted to catch. Got up to the ticket window to have a huge language barrier.. The lady behind the register had no idea what I wanted.. I tried miming, writing it down.. to no avail. She also indicated to me that no-one else spoke English either!!! (this is the main train station in the country and not one of the 10 tellers spoke English!) I had decided that the stars just weren’t aligning today and so had resigned myself to walking the 40mins back to the hostel and getting the lady at reception to write it down for me so that I could walk back the 40min to buy my ticket.. Just as I was leaving the station a beggar stopped me to ask for change to catch his train.. I did the whole “shake head, nyea polish” only to have him say to me “you speak English?” Anyway cut a long story short I paid him to go up to the teller and buy my ticket for me.. The most profitable $5 I’ve ever spent in my life!!! He even took me into the station to show me where to catch my train! What a nice beggar! (And how is it that a beggar speaks awesome English and the lady behind the register speaks none!!!!!—the beggar was laid off work in IT and now can’t get a job.. poor dude)

Also stopped off at the only remaining piece of the Jewish Ghetto wall. The Ghetto actually took up a fair amount of the space of the main part of Warsaw.. when you actually walk it (and I’ve walked half of it) you can appreciate how big the ghetto actually was.. Sadly, almost 300,000 Jewish people were taken from the Ghetto to Treblinka death camp and were exterminated.. The Jewish population before the war was over a third of the total population of Warsaw and once it had ended only 1500 remained alive..

Almost nothing remains to remind you of the horror that occurred in Warsaw but the little that remains is chilling.

Returned to the digs and spent the evening showing a young Aussie dude, Polish food. Poor bloke had only been eating McDs and Pizza Hut because he wasn’t game to try the local fare. Anyway early night as every bone in my body is aching!