Jeg elsker polsk mad og tage tog...

Obviously I’ve gotten behind again…

For the last two weeks of my winter travel break I found myself traveling with my boyfriend throughout Germany and Poland via the lovely railway system.

We met up in Munich which meant our first introduction to German culture would be at a bierhaus for some New Years Eve dinner. With this first night came a long strain of very cold days in Europe. Besides the cold, Munich was fun and it was the first time either of has been in Germany. We also visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site which has been my second concentration camp visit but was still just as chilling and overwhelming.

In Germany, it the first time that I actually saw real snow this winter. Denmark had had on and off flurries but nothing that remained permanently like what was in Munich. Our next stop was in Dresden, which was in the midst of receiving record amounts of snow and resulted us exploring the city mid storm. However, in the end the snow made everything that much more breathtaking and photogenic. Although the majority of the city was completely destroyed in WWII it still manages to maintain historical value and a lot of charm.

From Dresden we progressed to Warsaw, Poland. Unfortunately, this was when the railway system decided to hate us. On our way to Poland, we had a stopover in Berlin which would leave us in the train station from about 11:30pm until 4:30am. While that meant sleeping in the station, it also meant sleeping on our train and arriving nice and early to Warsaw. Or so we thought. Instead our train came 4 hours late. FOUR HOURS LATE. Incase you are unsure of the implications of this let me explain. We sat in a train station for 9 hrs. We did not and could not sleep. It is very cold in train stations. You have to pay 2€ to use the bathroom. Food places closed and the 24hr McDonalds was under repair for the night. So then, our train finally arrived and we thought well this was still the earliest possible train and now we can sleep! How wrong we were…turns out the train was late because it was SO very cold that it wasn’t working properly. To help fix this (or something, I don’t know really), 3 train cars had to be left behind. Guess where our seats were? You guessed it, in those cars. This meant after settling down and waiting to leave we had to repack our stuff and move up a bunch of cars to seats that didn’t recline with a ton of grouchy Poles. Not my idea of fun.

BUT, we made it eventually. Only to be greeted with record low temperatures in Poland (we managed to hit a lot of weather records, sadly none for warm temperatures). As much as I wanted to give Warsaw a fair chance and see the nations capital, I was unable to go outside with out freezing. I believe there came a time when I stepped outside and immediately my teeth started chattering. Even though it was bitter cold, we did make it to the Old Town and saw what we could or the rest of the city. Of course we also used food as an excuse to go into warm buildings and ate tons of pierogis which I believe are possibly the best Polish food ever. Also Warsaw has a guardian statue of a mermaid in its old town square which reminded me of Denmark. Then I remembered that Poland is landlocked on 3 sides and Warsaw is not on a body of water. Go figure.

After surviving the cold in Warsaw, we progressed to Poznan which is a smaller town in Poland closer to Germany. This town was cute and possibly would have been even more fun if once again I didn’t have to put on 18 layers before stepping outside. My boyfriend and I choose to celebrate our 6-month anniversary here since it was cheaper than Germany and meant we could have a rather fancy meal. It was definitely one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. And of course we ate more pierogis the rest of the time. In the town itself we visited the older churches as well as the town hall. Also all of the buildings around the square are painted a different bright color which is amazing to see. We also visited the Ostow Tumski (cathedral island) and the former German Emperor’s castle.

Since Polish is nothing like any language I speak and English is not as popular as in Germany, by the time our week in Poland was coming to a close, I think both of us longed to be back in Germany where we could read at least half of a menu and could pronounce more street signs. Haha. But I definitely enjoyed Poland just as much as I had when I visited Krakow and loved how I could actually afford things.

Our last city in this two-week adventure was to Berlin and which became my favorite city of all those we visited in our travels together. I liked how lively the city was and the abundance of things that we could see and do. Plus, in contrast to Copenhagen, stores stayed open past 5pm! Amazing! We managed to see so many things so I shall try and recap. Day 1 of productivity: Kaiser Wilhelm Gedachtniskirche (bombed out church left from WWII), the East Side Gallery Wall (so interesting), Check-Point Charlie, the Topography of Terror exhibit, and the Jewish Museum. Day 2: Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Bebel Platz (where book burnings took place in 1933), the Gendarmenmarkt, Alexanderplatz (had a giant TV tower we went up and saw the city from above) and the Berliner Dom which has the crypt containing the kings of the Prussian/Germany Imperial Family. On day 3 we headed out to Potsdam, which is a sort of suburb of Berlin to see and tour the Schloss Sanssousi which was Fredrick the Great’s summer palace. We wandered around its grounds to the Chinese Tea House, the Orangerie and the Neue Palais as well. Back in Berlin we visited the Victory Statue and the Erotik Museum. After all these things, I still feel like there were so many other things to see and do that would have been fun. I’m also sure it must be even better to be in the city during warmer weather.

Soon after our Berlin time was over, we had to part ways in Munich so that I could fly back to Copenhagen and recuperate before classes started and my boyfriend could go back to work in the US. I think both Germany and Poland were a lot of fun and have a lot of history that made all the cities we went to really interesting to explore. However, I would suggest to all fellow travelers that the winter is probably not the best time to go to Poland (maybe not even Germany). Yes, nothing was packed with tourists and things were still accessible even though it was January. But the constant cold made enjoying things a bit more difficult, especially when a lot of activities involved walking around outside. This in turn leads to pit stops in coffee shops in order to warm up but results in spending extra money. Oh well. Gotta stave off the frostbite somehow.

Now that I’ve finally caught up with winter break (it was such a daunting task), I should be more on top of regularly blogging for the time being but I can’t promise anything…

Vi ses! Hej hej!