Warsaw Pt 1

I'm in Warsaw, and wouldn't you know it I've come down with something. Nothing too bad, but its making me exhausted and stopping me from exploring and enjoying this place. Still, I've managed to have a hot cheap lunch at one of the traditional milk bars. Milk bars are thusly named because the don't serve booze, but they do serve Polish home cooking for super cheap. I had pirogies! They were good. I had hoped to explore the old town this evening, but I just didnt have it in me. There will be time though, we are here until Sunday.

Class wise we have visited the Sejm (the parliament) and the US embassy. The embassy was not so great, they just wanted to talk about the missile defense shield, aka star wars. Tomorrow should be an exciting day. We are visiting the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, the Coalition for Women and Families, and the Young Social Democrats.

I dont have too many first impressions. It is an ugly city since it was destroyed in the second world war and rebuilt by communists. There are huge billboards everywhere. There are huge boulevards dominated by car traffic. I smell car exhaust everywhere, dont know if its because Im more sensitive to it being sick or if the city is that much more polluted. Cars park half on the sidewalks here, so its hard to get away from the automobile domination. Not pedestrian friendly, from the bit Ive seen. But again, I havent gotten to explore too much yet.

Catholicism is fierce here and its tied up in a strange nationalistic thing. There are crucifixes and religious statues everywhere. That milk bar had a cross in it, for example. A church near our hostel had a big sign outside that said it was impossible to understand Poland without Christ. Here is a funny story*: In 1997 a right wing party was in government. Late one night they stealthily installed a crucifix in the front of parliamentary chamber, the Sejm. Since then, no one has dared to take it down.

Here is another fun fact about the Sejm: the final parliament of the second polish republic, in the interwar period, was made up of only 65% ethnic Poles. The remainder were Polish Jews and folks who were ethnicallz Germans, Lithuanians, Ukranians, Belarussians, etc. Today, all but 1 of the 565 members of the Polish Parliament are ethnically Polish.

*This story was not actually funny.