Not So Bad After All

After several days of acclamation, I must admit that my impression of Poland has mercifully improved.  After deciphering the mystery that is the route back to our hotel from the campus, discovering the 24-hour Tesco (a Super-Wal-Mart in disguise) and finishing an entire bag of Cinnamon Toast Crunch by myself, I was ready to give the city another chance.  The hotel still eerily resembles its former function (that of an oncology research center), and it has snowed almost every day since I arrived, but overall, things are looking good.  The icing on the cake to what has turned out to be am extremely enjoyable week was sushi and drinks on Tuesday night.  After class, Alexandra, Amelie and I headed to downtown Warsaw - a lovely city, by the way; I hear Chopin is a local celebrity - to find a sushi restaurant we had seen whilst wandering on Sunday.  We were practically the only ones in the place and we had a long, leisurely dinner that did not cost us a fortune.  Thank you Polish currency!  For about a half a second we considered returning to the hotel to do some homework.  Then we spotted the Intercontinental Hotel on the horizon (okay, it was just a short walk across the park).  So we headed over to complete our night of much-deserved luxury in the hotel bar.  I had my first (and second) margarita in over 6 months and more peanuts than an elephant could naturally consume in an hour.  Needless to say, all three of us were quite pleased to be cradled in the giant green leather chairs and listening to the man on the piano behind us.   The night was complete when we left the comfort of the hotel only to discover that the metro and buses had stopped running.  To our surprise, it was not "around 10:30," try 1:00 a.m.  Woops.  We briefly considered sleeping in the bus stop or returning to the Intercontinental for the night.  Luckily, though, we found a taxi to whisk us back to the hotel for under 5 Euros apiece.
So Warsaw has proven itself a fun, dynamic, delightful city.  This weekend we head to Krakow for a quick getaway before the intense negotiation game starts on Monday (I am a Spanish official).  I will also be visiting Auschwitz this weekend, a place I have always wanted to see.  Classes this week have been nothing short of painful so I am looking forward to a bit more fun over the weekend and with the simulation game next week.  Look for a couple more posts coming up this week.  I will do my best to keep up, but I will be rather busy as Spain has the EU Presidency at the moment.
Have a great weekend everyone!

Peace, Love, and Waffles.