Willkommen in Polska: A trip to Warsaw

Stop in Krzyż before Warsaw

Just after the new year, we hopped on a train and headed to Warsaw. Actually, it wasn't that easy. First, we had to buy the tickets. Back in Jakarta, this would have been a fairly simple matter. Although we are nowhere near fluent in Bahasa Indonesia, in the first two months we could communicate well enough to buy tickets at a train station. Yet here in Kostrzyn, buying tickets was truly an event.

At first, I apologized and explained I was American. I then asked if the lady could speak English or German. No. What about Spanish or French? Definitely not. I don't think I can properly put into words how infuriating it is for a couple with four fluent/nearly fluent languages to not be able to communicate.We somehow managed. I knew Piątek, the day we wanted to leave, and dwa, the number of days we wanted to go, and of course Warszawa, our destination. The rest of it was done with the calendar on our cell phone, lots of hand motions, and slow speaking on the end of the ticket office lady. About 15 minutes and 470 Złotych later we had our tickets to and from Warsaw.

I have had so many troubling experiences while travelling by train (getting on the wrong train, arriving late, getting locked in a toilet), that I was certain this trip would have complications. Surprisingly, it was incredibly drama-free. We arrived safely in Warsaw at the correct station, and the trip back was just as painless.

Warsaw is a very cosmopolitan city. Everyone from the hotel concierge to the kebab-shop employee could speak English. It was refreshing. We always started with a polite dzień dobry, but were able to transition to English and be understood. That being said, Warsaw still has some work to do in order to fully join the international order.

Although most of the people spoke English, there were signs in major tourist spots that only sported Polish.

No Foreign languages here!

In many other capital cities, you can find a range of languages. Washington, DC will almost always have Spanish and quite often there is German or French on tourist sites. In Berlin, it is relatively easy to find English and French. However, Warsaw seems to be lagging on the tourist front. Even the map from the tourist office was in Polish.

Part of Warsaw's sluggish inclusion into the international community seems to be its historical relationship with the former Soviet Union and its previous inclusion in the Eastern Bloc. This can be witnessed in the case of older sites, where Russian and German are more likely to be found than English. However, with the fall of the U.S.S.R., Poland seemed more than happy to welcome Capitalism. This should come as no surprise seeing as there was much resistance against the U.S.S.R. in Poland.

Warsaw shows an unnatural juxtaposition of East and West. It highlights the Capitalist dilemma within Communism. You can find a Coca-Cola sign (perhaps one of the most encompassing images of Capitalism)
situated directly on top of a building of obvious Communist architecture. As the saying goes, a picture says a thousand words, and I think this picture describes Warsaw in a way no words fully can.

Just as the country of which it is the capital, Warsaw is up-and-coming. It has a plethora of hot spots to offer and I think it's one of Europe's best kept secrets. Part of the reason the flood gates of tourists haven't opened into this vibrant city is because it is still struggling with assimilation into Western Europe. Half the battle is beating the stigmatization caused by political mouthpieces *cough* David Cameron *cough* Tory party *cough*cough*, but the other half is creating a city that accommodates non-Polish tourists.

I hope in the next decade Warsaw, and Poland, will reach its potential.