Warsaw

We have had just this one evening in Warsaw, and we leaving tomorrow morning to fly back to the States. But I'm so glad we had at least this short visit. Coming out of the main train station we were greeted by a VERY IMPOSING building, Stalin's "Palace of Culture and Science," which was quite a sight and introduction to Warsaw.

But our Airbnb was on the edge of the "Old Town" of the city, so we spent the rest of our time there. I put Old Town in quotes because it (along with 80% of the city in general--unlike Krakow, which came through relatively unscathed in terms of buildings and infrastructure) was totally obliterated by the Germans during WWII, most of it in the last year of the war (1944) when there was a local uprising against the Nazi occupation...which was temporarily successful (for a couple of months) until Hitler sent reinforcements. Which demolished most of the city in retaliation for the uprising. So pretty much everything you see in these pictures has been reconstructed to look like it did pre-war. (Look for my adorable mom in this picture.)

The Old Town Main Square, with a mermaid statue that legend says is a sister mermaid to the Little Mermaid you can see in Copenhagen.

Then there's the Castle Square, where there was a flaming baton troupe doing its thing.

And then my mom and I had our last dinner of the trip, delicious crepes. Not very Polish (or were they?...I mean, there WERE pickles on the plate...), but dang they were good.

As this whole trip has been, from beginning to end. Now that all that's left is to get an Uber to the airport in the morning, it's also safe now to say it out loud: We have had basically perfect weather. It was pouring rain when we arrived in Budapest 2+ weeks ago, we got to our Airbnb and laid down to take a nap after our overnight on the plane, and when we woke up, the rain has stopped and it hasn't rained since. We've had an unblemished streak of beautiful, sunny days, which doubtless made this trip even more lovely than it already was with great company in some really special cities.

I'm sad to see it end!

But I will be back here almost without break. Next week I'll already be on a new adventure, via southern Chile back to Antarctica. So bye just for now, and see you very soon....