Day 46 – Arriving to Warsaw

Dan and I are sitting in the outdoor café in the Rynek Square of Warsaw with our laptops. He is having a beer and I am having a tea with endless side trappings. It is drizzling out in preparation of the heavy thunderstorms planned for the rest of our stay in Poland. Georgia and Dan’s mom are at the apartment getting ready to go to sleep. My Mac, which is does not know it yet, but will be retired upon return to US is not picking up the wireless in the square. But Dan is connected so maybe I will be able to push this blog entry out if I finish it before his powersucker runs out juice.

Today we took off a little after 7am. We planned to stop on the way at Bialystok. The trip was exciting and filled with adventures.

First, as we got in the car, we found that Dan’s mom accidentally threw out our food for the trip (pretty much all the perishable contents of the fridge, plus some freshly made pancakes, candies, fruits, and other delicacies into the trash container. On the worse note, the gifts for the Polish relatives suffered the same fate. And the trash container had been recently emptied and all the goodies landed on the bottom. Dan was able to get back the gifts. So that wasn’t so bad but Dan’s mom was pretty unhappy about it.

On a note to be followed up later, Dan asked how much money everyone had. In case we get pulled over by a cop.

Next, as we were exiting the city, I was questioned about and found that even though I packed 2 rolls of toilet paper and a pack sterilizing pads for the kitchen, I forgot to pack the map. So we had some exciting time trying to figure out where to go so that we don’t end up in Byelorussia. The GPC was really helpful in Riga but for Poland did not offer any other options than through Kaunas.

Finally, as we were getting ready to pull into the nearest settlement to get some food and maps, Dan got pulled over by a traffic cop. Dan’s prophetic question earlier was getting realized before our eyes. This was a “SchoolBus” type of pulled over – the cop was driving towards us and turned on the happy lights as soon as the eye contact had been made. We were going about 50km over the limit for the area and the cop’s fine-tuned body machinery had made that determination on the spot. Dan made his very first in life negotiation out of the speeding ticket. The cop seemed to be uncomfortable to be in a predicament brought about by Dan’s morning remark. So he asked how Dan’s wife would feel about a speeding ticket. Dan said that she would call him a goat, or “kozyol,” which is more colorful. The cop could relate to it. They settled for 150LT, Dan gave him 200, the cop returned 50.

Having paid the dues to the road toll collector, Dan continued at the same speed and soon we arrived to Alytus, where we got some food, directions, and now that it had been made necessary, the money.

Soon after that we arrived to Bialystok. We stopped at Dan’s uncle Marian. It is always good to see him. Even though he is 90, he is holding up amazingly well. He sang an old Byelorussian song for Georgia, did the swap of goods with Dan, and treated us all to really awesome cheesecake and peaches. Then his daughter-in-law Asya got into the game and in the spirit of last year wanted to keep us for dinner, supper, and anything else that comes later. She came in laden with bags with food for us to take to Warsaw so that we would not have to shop. And she brought some more food to consume during lunch. It was clear that she analyzed their reception last year and determined not to allow any more mercy. I have never seen this amazing level of hospitality. Especially considering we drop in there once in a blue moon.

I went out with Georgia on the playground to escape the Armageddon at Marian’s place. When we came back, I found out that we were given a respite until Sunday when we will pass Bialystok again on the way back from Warsaw. Possibly because her husband Alik is away until the weekend and cannot join in on the fun. So I have something to look forward to in terms of starting the dieting for in preparation. Not like the latter is doable in this country.

Finally, after 3 more hours of driving on the roads that intermixed between a 2 lane highway for a few kilometers, a one lane filled with trucks and tractors, and finally a single lane shared by the vehicles going in the opposite directions.

We are staying in the 1 bedroom apartment right on the old Market square in the heart of town. Turns out that the company we worked with apartmentsapart.com had made a mistake by telling us that there is Internet connection in the apartment. In reality only the apartments that face the square have the connection, and ours faces a quiet backyard. I discussed it a bit with their rep and they promised that tomorrow we will get a 3 story apartment 2x the size, that has some rooms, which face the market square. For the same price. Maybe it was my fragile state that did it, and maybe it was Dan’s mom who came in a bit later and asked in perfect Polish if there is anything she could do, and maybe it was Dan who also strolled in and asked in a very “you better be prepared for the consequences” way if everything was OK. The apartment we have now is luxurious, starting with the location, impeccable entry way, and all the trappings inside. The only minus are the little brown friends who live in the kitchen. But with all the buildings in the square having restaurants in them it is probably an unavoidable evil.

We walked around and settled in something like “In Pana Michala” restaurant. The local non-alcoholic beer is practically identical to the real thing and tastes amazing. Even Georgia was willing to try. The food is nothing to write home about.

The city has a really friendly pleasant feel, similar to Vilnius. We really did not get this vibe in Riga. People are walking around here pretty late with their kids, everyone is casual and comfortable. In Riga, there were too many shaven heads and Bentleys, and ladies primed up as for the job. Here is it just relaxing. Every few meters there is someone playing some instrument resulting in a nice cacophony of sounds. Our coffee shop just lost the electricity and even that did not slow down the lively conversations all around us.