Spring Break Part 1 - Bus rides and Warsaw

Last week was finally a time for me to kick back and relax after my marathon of exams and reports. It was Spring Break in Riga! I had my European Union Studies exam two Thursdays ago, and I spent most of the next two days catching up on rest and relaxing with friends. On Saturday night, I left by bus en route to Berlin. On the way, I was able to see how the geography changed from country to country. That is the reason I chose to take a bus, so I could actually see the differences between Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Germany. One huge difference that had nothing to do with the geography was that each country had their own language and their own currency (with Germany using the Euro). This was difficult for me, as I had to learn 4 different ways to convert my money to the dollar. It also made it clear that one of the problems in the EU (as we talked about in class), was that the free flow of goods and services is difficult to achieve where there are as large of obstacles as language and currency. This for me made the bus ride alone worth it, since I was actually able to experience something we learned about in class.

At about 6:30 in the morning I arrived in Warsaw, Poland. I didn't realize the time change was back one hour until I got there (it was 7:30 in Riga), so I had some time to walk around and explore the city before anything opened. I took a taxi to the Central Station, which seemed to be the center of the city. Warsaw provided some interest to me because nearly all of the city was destroyed during WW2 and had to be rebuilt. Because of this, much of the city was modern, but in some places you could still see areas that were once monuments and that were in the process of restoration. Right next to the Central Station was the Palace of Culture and Science, a huge building consisting of galleries, concert halls, theaters, and a congress hall. The Palace stands in stark contrast with the rest of Warsaw's skyline, as it was built by Soviet influences soon after the war. Until the end of the USSR's influences in Eastern Europe, it was named for Stalin.




As the day went on, I had seen some churches around Warsaw and a few buildings that were never restored but held pictures of Jewish victims of the 3rd Reich. I wanted to find the old Warsaw Ghetto or the large concentration camp (one of the main ones in Europe), but I learned that both were too far away for a short visit. By mid-morning the city had become very alive, and everywhere I went I saw people holding a short stick with a variety of flowers. I realized that this celebration was taking place because of Palm Sunday, and as I made my way closer to the Old Town, I started to see churches pouring out onto the streets with people. The Old Town was about a 30 minute walk away from the Central Station, but once I got there it was definitely worth visiting. In the Old Town especially, you could see where the city had made attempts to restore what once was a very historical and cultural part of town. It's not that it wasn't that way now, but there were obvious distinctions between what was new and what had been preserved since before the war. The Old Town covered a huge area, and once again there were people all over holding the makeshift palms. There also seemed to be a lot of tourists, something I didn't expect in Warsaw.






For lunch, I had a national Polish dish, which was some sort of filled wafer and beet soup, and a regional beer. The beet soup was surprisingly a lot different from borscht, but the meal was very good. Something I learned as I got closer and closer to Germany was that the beer became cheaper with meals and any other drink became much more expensive. For example, by the time I got to Berlin, having .2 L (8 oz.) of coke with a meal costs between 3-4 Euro, while having a .5 L (nearly a pint) of beer cost 2.50-3.50 Euro. This seemed to occur throughout Poland as well, and given that the beer in both countries was very good, it seemed like I didn't have much of another choice for meals. Also, ordering tap water in most places in Europe will get you a very quizzical look, as if you are the first to have ever done it. I did this a few times, and the restaurant still found a way to charge me 1.60 for the ice. I learned from my lunch in Warsaw that this was something I would have to keep in mind all week.

After my lunch, I explored more of Warsaw and saw most of the Old Town (I saw the rest on my bus ride back to Riga), and managed to take a quick tour of the University of Warsaw. I made my way back to the bus station by 2:30, where I got on my next bus to Berlin.