The Night I was Born the Moon Turned a Fire Red (Hendrix)

Warsaw.

A brief explanation is required before I start rambling on about Warsaw. I've been here before, last year to be precise.

when me and Harry travelled Eastern europe last year we tried, mostly in vain, to get the website couchsurfing to provide us with hosts. Basically couchsurfing is like facebook etc. but designed for travelers to be hosted by each other for free. You usually get some pretty good hospitality thrown into the bargin. we only managed to make CS work in Berlin and Warsaw, with Warsaw being the far better experience. Last time our host, Ania a bisexual theatre promoter and general arty type, showed us the city with the help of her two friends Karol and Witek. We ended up drinking vodka on Witek's building's roof, great views, and drinking vodka in a massive disused communist open air swimming pool.

Now that the swimming pool has been ripped down and Ania has moved in with her girlfriend in central Warsaw, it made more sense for us to stay with Witek, his mum and his cancerous dog Nelson. The dog is also blind and smelly for good measure. 

Staying with them is a little like being swept up into their world. The day we landed we where shattered but still ended up going drinking on the night in little cafes and Vietnamese resturants. The Vietnamese are strangely everywhere in Poland. The best moment of that night was when Witek quietly unwrapped a gun from a bag to give to his friend Casper. This gun it turned out is similar to an air rifle but it still looked bloody real. 

After a much needed sleep we ended being shown Warsaw by Karol on Sunday morning. This involved a lot of walking, in a kind of a good way. We found the Warsaw Trade Tower to get our travelers cheques sorted with American Express, then we found it to be shut. No trading on Sundays for these guys, that'll hardly drag you out of a recession now will it. 

Anyway, we then went to one of best museums I've ever been to. It was new and free and dedicated to the Warsaw uprising. For the unenlightened this involved local Poles rising up against the Nazis around 1943 and then beating then up thoroughly until the Russians invaded and murdered all those same Poles. The museum was all made from brick and iron and looked as industrial as running a resistance movement probably could. They also had replicas of Warsaw's sewers for you to walk round, a Halifax bomber and an old working 1940's printing press.

After that we walked through a lot of park and around he town centre. karol showed us a Vietnamese place were we could get cheap food, not that everything isn't already cheap here anyway.  We had vietnamese food, a silly ice cream and then wandered back to Witek's apartment. 

End of Part 1...