Things We Learned In Warsaw

How to Speak Polish: dzień dobry (hello), dobranoc (good night), proszę (please), dziękuję (thank you), pop corn (pop corn), all other words were too difficult.

Cost of Living: Warsaw is a cheap place to visit. We ate like kings for next to nothing (by Paris standards, anyway). Worst of all, złoty feel and look more like play-money than Euros.

Uprising Karma: When the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising saw hundreds of thousands of Jews engage in uneven warfare to prevent their wholesale extermination, the non-Jews of Warsaw mostly stood by and watched. A year after the Ghetto Uprising had been crushed and almost all the Jews removed from Warsaw, the rest of the citizenry rose up in similarly uneven warfare against the Nazi occupiers, only to see the Red Army and Free Polish forces stand by just across the river, waiting until the fighting ended and until the city was destroyed to chase out the remaining German forces. Harsh.

Warsaw Uprising symbol and Monument

Citizenship: for a new-born girl to qualify for Polish citizenship, her first name must end in the letter A. Acceptable: Maria, Eva, Rebecca, Andrea. Unacceptable: Maglen.

Culinary Culture: Polish specialties include obvious dishes like pierógi, barszcz, and kiełbasa. Unexpected delights include donuts, unpasteurized beer, and coke-flavored chocolates.

Pierógi!

Palace Crazy: There are more former royal residences in and around Warsaw (top: Biały Domek (White House); top left: Zamek Królewski w Warszawie (Royal Palace); top right: Pałac Łazienkowski (Łazienkowski Palace); bottom left: Pałac Belwederski (Belweder Palace); bottom right: Pałac Wilanowski (Wilanów Palace); not pictured: Zamek Ujazdowski (Ujazdów Castle); Pałac Myślewicki (Myślewicki Palace)) than in and around Paris (Palais du Louvre, Chateau de Versailles, Place des Vosges, Palais du Luxembourg, Chateau de Vincennes). To be fair, every single Warsaw palace could probably fit inside the Louvre at the same time and still leave room for the Antiquities collection.

Finally: We learned that Warsaw is beautiful. A mix of old and new, original and reconstructed, noble and popular, rich and poor, it's a city with a fascinating past and a promising future. We'll be back.