Poland, Terri’s ancestral land

We flew LOT (Polish Airlines) to Warsaw. It was a fairly short and comfortable flight of just over two hours.

We arrived at our Airbnb in Warsaw and found it to be another beautiful European style apartment. There was even an elevator and security guard in the foyer!

We were eager to test Terri’s limited Polish language skills but luckily discovered that most people in the hospitality industry speak English.

The bread and pastry shops in Europe are phenomenal! Our new morning ritual is for me to walk to the local shop and bring back pastries for our breakfast. Having passed the security guard a few times and not received much greeting, I bought him a cinnamon roll and presented it to him on my way through the foyer: nothing different, a slight nod of the head with an inaudible grumble.😔

Our first dinner was in the basement of our apartment building. It was a cute place that had great reviews for Polish food. The waiter took great care of us making many suggestions: Goralska Polish vodka, made from pee(?-say what?) “Sorry made from peas! “ It’s now my favorite! He brought our drinks with bread rolls and a spread. The spread turned out to be pork lard, bacon snd seeds: not our favorite!🥴. Dinner was red and green cabbage rolls and ribs in a plum sauce: very good!

We spent much of our time in museums, parks and walking the city. Poland’s history is long and complicated with much change occurring in our lifetime. The city was decimated in WWII but has been entirely rebuilt as it was prior to WWII. It is a beautiful city.

The Warsaw Uprising museum we found very interesting and disturbing. The civilian underground fought against the Germans for 63 days in an attempt to liberate Warsaw. The Germans, in retaliation, leveled the city.

We did find three “Byczkowski’s,” (Terri’s family name), on the Warsaw Uprising Memorial wall honoring those killed in the uprising.

Our last night in Warsaw we decided to see the new James Bond movie. We went to a theater in a local mall snd were astounded to see how crowded the mall was, it looked like Black Friday at home. The mall was large and not a single store was closed nor were there any vacant storefronts. The movie was sold out.