Warsaw: Rewired

One of the downsides of living abroad is missing out on important events back home. For example, weddings. Since I've moved to Galicia, a lot of my peers seem to be getting married. But unfortunately it's not plausible to just hop on a plane home for the weekend. So last year when a friend from home was set to get married in Poland, I was thrilled. Finally, my side of the pond! Not to mention Poland had been on my list for a while. The old country! Home to some of my favorite comfort foods which I couldn't find in Galicia-- pierogis and paçzek. I vowed to eat them everyday on our trip.

View from above:
Old Town Market Square

The first stop on our whirlwind tour was Warsaw. Only 11% of the city's housing dates back to before 1944. The rest was destroyed during World War II. Some of it was rebuilt respecting the older architectural styles. That is the case in the Old Town Market Square, one of the Old Town's main plazas. To my untrained eye, the pastel-hued buildings tightly squeezed together could have been centuries old. They sure fooled me! One such house of the Old Town Market Square is home to the Warsaw Museum. Here we learned all about the city's history, as well as enjoyed a rooftop view of the plaza. On top of that, it was free because it was a Thursday. 

Other top historic sites of Warsaw include a Castle (more like a palace) and the Barbican. We didn't go in either, but observed them from outside. The Barbican is a 16th-century wall fortress. With origins in the early 14th century, the Royal Castle was home to Polish rulers for centuries. Later it was pillaged by Russians and most recently by Nazi Germans. On the side of the Royal Castle facing the river are some gardens we wandered through. The other side of the palace is part of an open, spacious plaza in the Old Town. Again, like the vast majority of Warsaw's historic sites, both the Royal Castle and Barbican were mostly rebuilt after WWII. The Castle along with the Old Town are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. 

Plaza with the Royal Palace on the right

Barbican in the background, to the left

  Wooden Synagogue in POLIN   

While we spent most of our sightseeing time within the Old Town, another highlight of Warsaw in the ¨new town¨ was the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. The place was enormous. And rather than just focus on the tragedies of the Holocaust (which were also included, of course), it went through Jewish history in Poland throughout the ages. Interactive with lots of maps and information, it also includes a beautifully-painted reconstruction of a wooden synagogue.  

Mmm! Pierogies everyday!

Our hostel in Warsaw was a 30-minute walk (or speedy subway ride) from the city center, in a very industrial part of town. Perfect location for two evenings out, feeling like real Poles. The bars/restaurants in the area felt very hip, and not at all touristy. One such bar had an open lot, sheltered from the wind by big brick buildings on all sides. It actually reminded me a lot of my ¨industrial¨ hometown. Except it was full of groups of people lounging on beach chairs. Here we were treated to a concert by a fun band with a ukulele. Another cool, candlelit bar used antique sewing machines as tables. And for dinner, a small, casual restaurant for locals and foreigners alike: Pyzy Flaki Gorace, a Polish diner with delicious, delicious food for cheap! I knew this trip would be a treat for my tastebuds! Don't get me wrong, Galician cuisine is great, but variety is the spice of life. And using spices other than paprika and oregano also helps. I'm not even sure what I had at this diner exactly-- it was potatoes, bacon, sauce, and dough inside a Mason jar. Now that's comfort food! Plus my new favorite soup: zurek (sour rye). Seriously, so good! I had it several times throughout the trip and even bought a packet to make it at home. Obviously it won't be the same though-- no kielbasa here. :( 

The mermaid of Old Town Market Square

The morning of the wedding, we had a train to Krakow, where the ceremony was held. Risky? Nah! Except, while riding the subway to get to the train station, we had a typical travel incident.¨Where's the suitcase? I have the backpack, and you're supposed to have the suitcase.¨ I imagined our poor, lonely suitcase forgotten on the platform as our subway car sped further and further away. Luckily, though, we had left it while checking out of the hostel. At least it wasn't lost. We had to go back three subway stops and then someone had to run to the hostel and back to the subway stop. That somebody was not me. Despite the hiccup, we made it to the train station in time to board with dozens of other travelers. This is why I always leave early! Next stop, KRAKOW! 

Going to Market

A bouquet of garlic

How I adore the market! I really have to start going regularly. Two mornings a week, people come from the nearby countryside with their produce, cheese, and eggs. While the Plaza de Abastos contains numerous shops (butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers, etc) open Monday through Saturday, the biweekly farmer's market takes place in the hall below the permanent market. The vast majority of sellers are women over 70 years old. But every rule has an exception; in this case, a guy my age. 

I realize farmer's markets exist in the USA, but I never had the habit of going. Also when I think 'organic,' I associate it with a bigger price tag. Here that is definitely not the case. Although in general the insanely cheap prices in Galicia-- specifically in Lugo-- are normal to me, every once in a while I remember how inexpensive everything here really is. Case in point: at the market today I got seven garlic heads for 3€. Garlic is usually the most expensive food per kilo that you can buy at a produce store. I was thrilled to find some homegrown at the farmer's market. Next on the list: onions. As the lady was tossing them in, filling my bag, I thought to myself that was way too many onions for just me. But she wanted to get it to a full kilo (about two pounds) to charge me the euro. One euro for a month's --or two's-- supply of onions! Lastly for seven peppers (light green, smaller than our green peppers, these are from Ourense) because it was half a kilo (one pound) it was only 60 cents. SIXTY CENTS! Can you buy anything in the USA for 60 cents?!

I honestly wonder if the money they make even pays for gas or the bus fare into town. How can it be worth it? They must break even, at least, or I doubt they'd go back week after week. The only people that I imagine go home with more money in hand are those who sell eggs. A dozen free-range eggs goes for about 3.50€. But as I've been learning from personal experience, gathering a dozen eggs is no easy task. The ¨extra money¨ for fresh eggs is well earned. 

The farmer's market: what's not to love?!

• Supporting local families, who in turn spend their money around here. Economics, my dear Watson
• Hardly any emissions from the transportation, unlike when you just have to have bananas imported from the Canary islands, or quinoa imported from South America
• Very few pesticides, if any. Most likely some compost or similar natural products
• The price tag! 

World Heritage Sites Visited in Spain

As I've been trying to be ¨productive¨ this summer for once, I've been tidying up old blog entries. Not the content so much as correcting spelling mistakes (apparently I wasn't a fan of spellcheck), fixing confusing (or just plain bad) grammar, and the like. I've also been improving and increasing the tags for posts. One of the things I've noticed reading through old entries-- aside from the fact that I use the word ¨STROLL¨ entirely too much...maybe because it's the Spanish way-- is that throughout my travels I've seen a lot of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. So I've decided to compile those I've seen in person. Not all received an entry the first time around. That's due to my own laziness, not their lack of ¨blogworthiness.¨ So now's the time to briefly summarize those places that didn't make the cut. And if I wrote about it before, the title is a link to the original post about each place.

Since there are a ton of World Heritage Sites throughout Europe, I thought I'd start off with those visited closest to home, in Spain. It's no surprise that Spain is high on the Eurocentric (four of the top five are in Europe) list of countries with the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites. As of 2019, Spain is ranked number 2 or 3, since first place is a tie between China and Italy. Again, this is only a collection of places I've personally visited. The full list of sites is available here. And because I'm not one to make a countdown list (one might say that I've picked up the Galician traits of diplomacy and indecisiveness in my years living here), they are in no particular order.

 Get ready, this is gonna get long!