I am in Poland on a short business trip. I got here on Saturday and return to the US Tuesday. This is my first visit to country in Eastern Europe. I have captured below some of my observations and experiences.

The flight from Newark to Warsaw was uneventful. LOT, the Polish airline does mot have a reputation as a very good airline and they lived up to it. The plane, food, service were all terrible.

Looking at all the hoardings on the way to hotel, it is quite clear that the Koreans are here in a big way. Saw several large hoardings of Samsung and Hyundai.

I am staying at the Sofitel hotel in Warsaw. The hotel is right in the heart of Warsaw. The ride from the airport was about 15-20 min. The cab driver spoke good English. I have discovered over the last two days that most people understand English and converse as well. I have not had much trouble with language. The currency here is Zloty. ( 3 zloty = 1 US dollar). I was under the impression that Poland had adopted the Euro currency. They opted out of the Euro, though they are an integral member of the European Union.

Right opposite to my hotel is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. (see picture). This is, I was told, one of several such memorials for several soldiers who have died fighting for Poland. It is located within the arcade that links  two wings of the Saxon Palace. The central tablet is surrounded by 5 eternal flames and 4 stone tablets bearing the names and dates of battles in which Polish soldiers had fought during World War I and the Polish-Soviet War. There is a huge park / garden adjacent to the memorial.

Some history on Warsaw…

During World War 2, Warsaw came under the rule of the Germans. The Germans moved all the jews, almost 30% of the population into the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1994, when the Red Army was making huge progress into Poland, the Germans, moved several of the POWs into other camps. Aucshwitz is one of these very well known camp. As the Red Army made it closer to Warsaw, the Germans destroyed most of Warsaw. They demolished most of what is now called “old city”. They ruthlessly massacred about 200,000 people. In 1945, the Red Army eventually took over Warsaw. The Russians under their rule helped rebuild

My hotel is very close to the Old City. Last night we went to the Old City area for dinner. It was an awesome experience. The place looks amazing, all the buildings that were destroyed have been reconstructed. The area is vibrant with lots of activity. Street musicians, locals enjoying a Sunday evening in the area. There are several restaurants, bars, pubs and shops lining the streets (including an Indian store called India Market). My hotel is very close to the Old City. We went into a traditional Polish restaurant. They served traditional polish food and traditional polish booze, Vodka. I
never realized that there were so many different kinds of Vodka. They had Rye Vodka, Wheat Vodka and Potato Vodka. We, of course, tried all of them. It was quite an interesting experience. The traditional food included Pierogi, dumplings which included veg and non veg options. Other items on the menu included Flaki ( soup), Bigos, Żurek and Kotlety. The veggie Pierogi were quite tasty. Pierogi are “dumplings” which are stuffed with vegetables and meat. Quite an interesting evening with Pierogi and vodka.

Yesterday, at end of our meetings our company had organized an evening reception. The hotel arranged a performance by a dance group from the Warsaw University. A group of 20 boys and girls performed the traditional folk dance called Mazur or Mazurek. The outfits are very colorful, the music is rhythmic and the dance very energetic. They performed 2-3 dances and then pulled in people from the audience to join them. We have seen some of these in Hollywood movies, but always fun to see them live. I thought there was a significant German influence in the music and the dance. After they finished, the music changed from Polish to Indian and the dance to freestyle bollywood.

Warsaw in general is considered quite expensive. Sofitel, the hotel we are staying in is considered a good hotel and the rooms here are in the USD 125-175/night. The prices at restaurants are quite varied like in all cities, but generally lower than other European cities like London and Paris. The Zloty to USD conversion also helps. Dinner for two in a decent Italian restaurant in the Old City area cost about 60 Zloty or 20 dollars. 20 bucks is not expensive at all. On Sunday evening we went to a traditional Polish restaurant. Here a meal for two would cost about 150 Zloty.

Today evening we will be going out on a short tour of Warsaw after we finish our session. I will share some more details after this sight seeing trip.

Warsaw is on the banks of the Vistula River. There are several beautiful spots along the river including the new National Stadium. Our  first stop on the tour was the Lazienki Krolewskie, a Palace Garden complex. This is apparently one of the largest in Europe. It is right in the heart of the city. This garden is now a museum. This Garden Palace is very closely associated with Stanislaw Poniatowski, the last king of Poland. The palace survived World war 2, but was badly damaged. It has been fully restored now and is stunning. Unfortunately, we had bad weather and could not see all of the museum. It was raining all through our visit. The tour guide had fascinating war stories. You could almost imagine being in one of those war movies we used watch when we were in school. The palace came under attack during the war and as the Germans were fleeing they did not have time to
destroy the palace structurally, but managed to destroy the interiors of all the palaces.

One of the most famous monuments in Warsaw is the Chopin statue. Fredrick Chopin is famous composer and the pride of the Polish. The airport is also named after him. We drove by the Chopin Museum, as it is under renovation.

The next stop was the Jewish Ghetto. This part of the visit was quite gut wrenching. During the German occupation, the Nazis rounded up all the Jews in Warsaw, almost 300,000 of them and put them in these camps in what was called the Jewish Ghetto. They started
systematically killing them in this camp. The Nazis then felt that they were not able to kill the jews fast enough and decided to move them to Auschwitz which was about 400 km away so that they could “eliminate” them faster. The Jews were told that they were being moved to a ” better place”. Over the next few months, they moved 3000 people a
day by train to this camp. Auschwitz is described as “living hell” and all of us have read about the treatment meted out Jews in the various camps here. Jews in the Ghetto pulled together a resistance movement in what is called the Jewish Uprising or the Warsaw
Uprising. They, of course, had no chance against the Germans, but “at least they had an honorable death”.At the end of the war, about 3000 Jews survived in and around Warsaw    (out of 300,000) All the others died in the uprising, in the camps and while being transported. There is now a memorial at the site of the ghetto and a museum that has stories of the survivors. The stories are horrific and shocking. We have all heard some of these stories before or seen them depicted in Hollywood movies. But being there, at the site, was bone chilling.

After this, we drove to the Old City. Here we did a street tour of the city, with the guide giving us a great look back into the history of the whole area. Quite fascinating. We drove by the Copernicus Museum, the Royal Castle and the Warsaw art gallery.

After the tour, we went to an Indian restaurant, Buddha, for dinner. The place was quite upscale and the food was quite good. As we were enjoying our dinner, suddenly the lights dimmed, some middle eastern music came on and a belly dancer appeared. Indian restaurant , that too called Buddha and a belly dancer !! Just did not seem to make sense, but nobody complained. The dancer performed for 5 min and disappeared. The same scene replayed 2-3 times through the rest of the evening.

There was an England-Poland soccer game at the new National Stadium in Warsaw. The Polish fans were all of over town, wearing their very distinctive red and white scarves. As we got closer to game time, you could not only see them, but also hear them. They were all
pouring out of bars and restaurants heading for the stadium. I was told that there were several English fans as well,who had flown in for the game. I could see several in our hotel. We had considered going for the game, but could not get tickets. I found out later in the night that the game was cancelled as the field was water logged due to rain.
Overall, a very interesting 3days in Warsaw. I learnt a lot about Warsaw, Poland, the people and their culture. The people are generally very nice, very proud and very hardworking. After all that they have gone through as a nation, i could not sense any visible anger / hatred towards the Germans. May be this was too short a visit to get a good read on this. The tour guide and a couple of others that i interacted with, were making a lot of jokes about the Russians. They are not very well liked.

I am now on my way back to the US. We had some excitement at the airport. We had the wrong departure time (1.55 pm instead of the actual dep time of 1.10 pm) for our flight and the counter was closed when we got there. We almost did not make the flight. Thankfully, they let us get on the plane. With all of this, I could not do the shopping that I was planning to do.

I travel again tomorrow morning to LAX.  I am looking forward to the weekend.