(Leigh and Philippa at the Opera House)
Dear Continental Travelnurse Friends
January in Poland - brrrr! - minus seven to twelve! and snowing when we arrived...& every day after. But it was absolutely fabulous. We stayed in an apartment in Warsaw & had a good look around. Tried traditional Polish food & of course Vodka -- for medicinal purposes only, as our tee-totaler Methodist Grandfather used to say.
We even went to the Warsaw Opera & saw a famous Polish opera - "The Haunted Manor" - romance & comedy with strong patriotic undertones. It was written in the 19th century & became very popular with the locals - the Russians, in control at the time, even went as far as to ban it at one stage. Thank goodness for subtitles! The costumes, music & dance was superb & it really was a fun thing to do.
The saddest thing we did was a day trip to the Auschwitz-Berkenau extermination camp.We took a train from Warsaw to Krakow. OMG what a heartbreaking visit. Those poor people living in those conditions & so brutally treated & then murdered. An estimated 1.1-1.6 million of them here alone.
All those piles of spectacles, shoes, prostheses, suitcases.... And it was a bleak bleak day, very cold, very windy, grey sky.
Afterwards, we picked up a walking tour of Krakow, the former capital of Poland, & got to see a lot of the town's famous landmarks. I found the Polish people very friendly & the Polish men gorgeous! Obviously this is where I've been going wrong!
Kind Regards
Philippa
