We left Berlin from the Hauptbahnhof station which is absolutely incredible, like an enormous machine with trains on different levels and a central kind of hub of shops, escalators and lifts criss-crossing above and below you. It was all really well organised as well, you could pretty much guarantee the train was going to arrive exactly the minute it was timetabled to.

The train itself was pretty cool, quite old school. We were in a carriage with two other people, one of which kept trying to talk to me despite the fact I clearly had absolutely no idea what she was saying. Going to have to get used to that I suppose. It was funny, I think crossing over into Poland was the first place I’ve been that really seems very different. An announcement would go off sounding like someone shouting something very important, but you would have no idea what.
And every half hour or so a guard would come round to check you tickets, again shouting something completely incomprehensible. We saw this great sign by the emergency stop devise. Loving the translation.

Before we left we’d joined couch-surfing and Warsaw was to be our first go at it, so we were a little nervous. Couch-surfing is a great way of traveling. Basically you sign up to the website and create yourself a profile with some information about yourself and if you have a place that people can come and stay, either just a couch, or maybe their own room, or you can just offer to meet up with travelers for a drink or to help them out.

You can search through other people’s profiles and arrange to go stay or meet up with people from practically anywhere you might be going to. People leave references for people they’ve stayed with or had to stay, but really I suppose it’s all based on trust and joining a community of like minded people.

It seems to work really well. We’d arranged to go stay with Tomek and Julka in Warsaw, and really I think we couldn’t have picked better first hosts. They were amazing, they had a beautiful house, a lovely dog and a cat and when we arrived they picked us up from the station, gave us a quick tour of the city and then Julka cooked us a great meal of pasta and some of her Mum’s Pierogi, which are a traditional Polish dumpling, they can have various filling, but these were a mix of potato, onion and some kind of cheese, I think, and very very tasty.

Hookah pipe in a bar in Warsaw.

Outside Tomek and Julka’s house

We ate several different versions of pierogi over the next few days. They are pretty addictive. We went to a lovely place in the old town where we had then in the traditional way – served with borscht, the beetroot soup. Mmmm.

Borscht seems to be made in a slightly different way by each person or place, but generally it seems to have been thin, almost just water consistency, but amazingly tasty and a little sweet. One place we went it was served with beans in, another just plain in a cup, and we’ve since had it once more, served with pieces of grated beetroot in and a dollop of sour cream. All are lovely. But I think my favorite was the one we had with beans which we’d got in a Milk Bar.

The Milk Bars in Warsaw are fantastic. One of the surviving reminders of the communist times in Poland they are really just very cheap places to get basic food. Julka told us that years ago it was very difficult to get hold of even basic items such as plates and forks, so in many of the milk bars the plates would literally be screwed to the table and you would be served straight onto your plate, and the forks were attached to the table on chains. Crazy. It’s hard to imagine this was only a relatively short time ago.

Here’s a link she sent me to a clip from a filmshowing a milk bar very similar to the one we were in.

http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=g4GpuOeKNBU

The milk Bar we went to became known as Kraluch, which translates as Cockroach, Tomek said we could imagine ourselves why, so I really wasn’t expecting the most amazing lunch. However despite the cheapness (our lunch for 4 people including soups, drinks and pierogi cot us the equivalent of around £8) the meals are really very tasty, and normally prepared in the traditional way, meaning they are really simple, but healthy ingredients. I think they are probably the best place to try some real Polish specialities. It helps if you have a guide to help you navigate the menu and order though, as it’s quite uncommon to find English speakers working in Milk Bar. Thanks again to Tomek and Julka for taking us there!

Warsaw was a fascinating place. It’s history just seemed so much more in people’s consciousness than you normally are aware of. Besides the milk bar Tomek and Julka also took us to the Uprising Museum which was really harrowing. They’d already told us that around 80% of the city had been completely flattened during the war, but the museum really puts across the terror and devastation of the time. It’s very sad. Julka told us her Grandmother had been in one of the death camps so I can only imagine how that must feel for her.

We also visited the Fotoplastikon, which had photos by Chisa Niedenthala of “Stan Wojenny” or the time of martial law in Poland which ran from 1981 until 1983. There was severe food shortages and rationing, thousands of people arrested without charge, many killed, censorship was high and several independent organisations, universities and schools were outlawed. I imagine this period is still strong in the minds of a lot of people living there it really makes you realise how lucky we are not to have had to live through anything like that, but also to be aware that this kind of thing could easily happen again and also that similar and worse things are going on right now in many places all around the world.