Firstly, we are not the only Aussies loose in this town... Apparently, in January of this year, two kangaroos escaped from Warsaw zoo and - one of them is still hopping around Warsaw!! Sadly the other one got hit by a truck :(
The actual escaped kangaroo
The names of the two escaped Kangas are... Steffi and Stefan. Can you believe it?? I am seriously not kidding - the same names as Phil's cousin and his new bride - these names are haunting us; check out this previous post. Coincidence or more? I'd say more.
It is now one of my goals of this visit to capture Stefan and make the press back home. When I posed this to Phil, he asked me how I'd catch him - I said I'd lasso him, wrestle him (gently) to the ground and sit on him until help arrived... naturally.
Phil is convinced that the best approach is to leap into his back and "turtle him" (his words) which apparently means wrestle him to the ground whilst on his back... and hold him there. If anyone has a better suggestion, please let me know because if I can use my 15 minutes of fame on capturing an escaped kanga in Poland, my life's work will be complete.
Exploring the culture
Okay, full disclosure, this part is about Polish TV.
Our first day in Warsaw was a public holiday AND the wifi was not working (virtually crippling this 21st century traveller) so we spent the day in the apartment waiting for our host to drop by and fix it. We both read a bit and I cooked up an eggplant ragu Joelle taught me how to make in Prague (delish - thanks Jo!!), but we also tried to watch some TV. Now we do have cable, but it's mostly Polish channels.
While flicking through, we noticed a strange phenomenon - aka the worst dubbing ever. When English language programs are dubbed into Polish, the Polish dialogue is just added over the English dialogue. So you hear the first couple of words of a sentence in English and then the Polish voice comes in over the top of it and tries, unsuccessfully, to drown out the English.
It's like counting to fifty and someone saying "twelve, sixty-seven, thirty-three" into your ear. I don't know how anyone could watch this without going completely insane!! Fortunately, the only movie on was the Deuce Bigalow, Male Gigalo sequel, so I think Polish dubbing did us a favour.
*Just so you don't totally give up on our cultural sensibilities, we did visit the Museum of Modern Art today.
We made it out of the house!!
Yesterday we headed out on an aimless wandering mission and found ourselves... smack bang in the middle of the Old town.
Pretty, huh?
It was very busy (it's a long weekend here) but felt really festive with decorative Polish flags, street performers, outdoor cafes and balloon sellers plus gorgeous buildings and majestic squares - here is hello kitty selling hello kitty balloons - talk about commitment!
Lazy Sunday in Warsaw
This morning, we dropped by a farmers market down the road from our apartment - the place was packed with people enjoying lunch from vendors.
The smell of BBQ pulled pork was excruciatingly tantalising
But we had a mission - lunch at a Polish milk bar!!
I'd never heard of the Polish milk bar tradition before coming here - but apparently, they sprung up during the Communist era and served as a meeting place as much as a place to get an affordable traditional Polish meal.
We walked into one on Saturday and it boded well - pierogi, borscht (which has a Polish spelling I won't attempt) - but it was late, they were largely sold out and we had no idea what anything else on the menu was so we decided to come back another day.
We looked up translations of the menu that evening and one of the dishes was "dove meat in tomato sauce", so I think lucky dip ordering is not the way to go!!
Today we gave it another shot and were blessed with a cashier with excellent English...
Here's the haul for a total of about AUD$10:
That's tomato soup, veggie frittata, cabbage and pickles and a Greek salad
Plus veggie pierogi - good thing we were hungry
What's next?
We're here in Warsaw until Thursday with a day trip planned to a small town called Chelm, to see where my grandparents were born.
Not sure what else we'll get up to here, but I'll keep you posted!
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