Warsaw

We flew into Warsaw fairly late. Our flight was an evening flight,
but was delayed still in Copenhagen. When we finally arrived, we were
tired and everything was dark. We (bravely) took the night bus (as
Andy has already blogged about) from the airport to the main train
station. From there, we had no choice but to finally take a cab. Our
first cab of the trip. It was past midnight and we didn't know what
direction the hotel was in or how far away it was, so mainly for
safety and sanity, we caught our cab. We arrived at our hotel,
checked in and crashed.

When we awoke and were finally able to get out into the city, we
discovered we were in a great location. It was very close to the
completely reconstructed old town area. Most of Warsaw was in ruins
by the end of WWII. The city was painstakingly rebuilt it as it had
been before the war. It was very beautiful. We wondered around most
of the day and just enjoyed being there.

The next day, we went to the Warsaw Uprising museum. It was so
fascinating. I would say, after the Jewish people, the Polish people
are the next in line to have been so totally abused and destroyed. I
learned quite a lot that morning. The most important thing I learned
is that at the beginning of the War, Poland was occupied by both the
Nazi's and the Soviet Union. I didn't realize that they were doubly
occupied. There was so much information and pictures and history that
are hard to summarize in any capacity, so I will not even try here.

Other things we learned while we were in Warsaw was that Chopin is
Polish (well- at least half - his other half is French, but he was
born and raised in Poland). Warsaw has a lot of music, history and
culture there. Perhaps it is not the draw that Vienna is for most
musicians, but they have quite a lot of musicians around and
performing all the time there. We were fortunate to catch a free
concert one of the evenings were were there. It was lovely and it was
outside and the weather was perfect.

Our final full day in Warsaw, we spend at one of the large parks
walking around and sitting and relaxing. In this parks, they have
peacocks, which Andy and I found to be very humorous and beautifully
colored. So, as you go through the pictures, be on the lookout for
the peacocks. Unfortunately, we were not able to see (and therefore
to capture) any peacocks with their tail feathers spread. This left
us to realize that we have both forgotten what makes them spread their
feathers. Our final guess was mating. We also didn't know if they
could fly or what their mode of self-defense is. Any ideas?

Leave a comment if you know why peacocks flair their feathers.