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First Day in Warsaw
i’ve been jonesing to go to warsaw for years now. there’s so many preconceived ideas of what it’s like there and i couldn’t wait to see it for myself. to best appreciate warsaw, you have to take into account it’s strange history. it looks so new in many areas because almost the entire city had to be rebuilt from the ground up. this is why to me, it seems so much of a modern mish-mash. i still don’t quite know what warsaw wants to communicate to the world; what it wants its grand message to be. (below, the famous palm tree) it’s not necessarily the grey dreary city you’d always…
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Notes From the Road: Poland
twenty two days is a heck of a length of time to take a trip. woo, boy! certainly our most ambitious to date, save for the time that we were actually vagabonds in late 2012. but this is a different story: fitting in a big summer trip before the school year starts up. the transport: we’ve been mostly taking buses and booking on the road a couple days before. i didn’t anticipate this much bus-riding, as buses tend to make me a bit nauseous. i look forward to train trips when they happen so i can read books and walk around in a generally unrestricted fashion. also, trains are unimpeded…
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Weekend in the Tatras
i love to break up cities on a trip with a bit of nature, so after some recommendations from friends, i decided to steer us towards zakopane, a polish town south of kraków very near the border of slovakia. zakopane is the most popular winter resort town in the entire country because it lies at the beginning of the tatras, the highest mountain range within the mighty carpathian mountains. i (and thousands of other poles) have found that it also makes a very pleasant summer holiday as well! zakopane did surprise me a little. i was expecting a tiny mountain town with a couple grocery stores maximum. little did i…
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Restaurants I Love: U Babci Maliny, Kraków
u babci maliny was my favorite restaurant when i visited kraków eight years ago, and i was determined to go back and show alex how amazing it was. let me paint you a little picture: eight years ago: tired, hungry, and having just checked into my pension on my first night in poland, i was determined to walk as little as possible but still eat delicious polish food. i saw that the building right next door was a restaurant, and wandered in and descended down a long staircase to what seemed like another world. the dining room was furnished with world war I era wallpaper, candelabras, picture frames, tables, cushioned chairs,…
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The Beginning of a Massive Poland Trip: Krakow
kraków was the first stop on my polish odyssey, just a mere hour or two over the czech border. i visited eight years ago, but it feels like an eternity. back then, i remember thinking at the time how polish was the most incomprehensible language i’ve ever seen or heard and that it was nearly impossible to pronounce or decipher any of it. but after living in the czech republic for almost two years, i was pleased to see that many words and phrases are similar and communicating hasn’t been a problem. it feels good to have this slavic language knowledge, although i am still an amateur… a learned…
