Erasmus in Warsaw

  Yesterday was bad. Like really bad. I got sick the day before yesterday, so I had to spend most of my day in the bed. While Sári and the others were wondering around in the city I was tied to the bed. They’ve been to so many great places I was, and I’m actually still genuinely jealous! Although Sári promised me she will take me to those locations in the near future. So, I was here, alone, waiting for my dudes to show up and for my class to begin. Dudes only showed up around 2100, so the most exciting thing that happened to me was my class. And you know what?! It was actually interesting. The lecture was about urban farming, and about the impacts of green lands in the city. First, I would like to talk about the advantages of having lots of green in the cities. Probably the most basic knowledge of green areas is the fact the trees and everything that’s living, and green absorbs carbon (CO 2 ) and produces fresh O 2 . And this is very important, especially nowadays, in the wint...

Yesterday we started our day around 1400. It was a late start for me and Sári, but overall, an acceptable start for the team. After a little morning – and early afternoon – coma we headed downtown. Yesterday was culture’s day. First, we started with Polish culture, especially concentrating on the local cuisine. In order to introduce the Polish kitchen at its peakish performance we decided on going to Gosciniec. Again. Ha-ha. As you could tell every time someone come to visit us, we take them to that place. The reason for this is pretty simple: they have amazing cooks, acceptable prices, and pretty waitresses. Every time we go there, we are trying to try something new. This time I had Hunters’ stew Polish style – or it was called something similar. It came in a rye bread staffed with pork, cabbage, loads of cabbage, mushrooms, and being a Polish food buncha paper. I gotta tell you it was amazing! The best stew I’ve ever had. Simple as that. Anna had the same as I had – she also loved ...

  Yesterday we chilled a bit in the morning. And afternoon, but then we went sightseeing! It was after four o’clock when we eventually left the apartment. Since the sunset was at 1528 it was already dark when we’ve started our walk. However, before our little sightseeing trip we weren’t doing completely nothing! We cooked some lunch, had some long conversations, had some fun – you know how it is to reconnect with your friends after not seeing them for a while – and the girls did their hair and had chosen the perfect outfit for the night – it almost worked. So, as I was saying by the time, we got out of the apartment the streets were completely dark, which meant we were going to have a nice evening walk thru the city. First, we got on a tram that took as to the oldtown. Then we walked around, started at the main square, where we’ve found a huge Christmas Tree, however it was a bit disappointing for two reasons. Reason a) was it was fake! It had huge metal poles in the inside an...

  Yesterday started with ending the day before yesterday – if that makes any sense haha. It was around 0000 when we finally got back to Warsaw from Poznan, and it was almost 0100 by the time we got to the apartment. We rolled out some yoga mattress for our guests and went to sleep. We woke up in the morning, kinda early how every everyone else was asleep, so there was no other option then going back to sleep. We got up around 1000 again, had some nice breakfast, and started getting ready. Sári and our guests were planning to do a shopping day, so it needed a buncha preparation, I guess. I’m not really an expert in shopping, I thought you just go to a shop when you really need something, then you buy it and that’s all. But what do I know?! We got ready by 1200ish and headed to the closest mall to our apartment called Tarassy. I think I must’ve told you about that place, it’s a bigass shopping mall, and the only interesting part of it is the roof. It’s made out of different sha...

  So, now I’m picking up the story line from the day before yesterday. When we got off the train, we had a nice almost half an hour walk to the apartment we booked. The place turned out to be pretty good, clean and confutable, unfortunately there were no surprise condoms anywhere. After we got rid of our heavy backpacks, we headed to the oldtown, walked around for an hour or so just to get the vibe of the city. I gotta tell you Poznan is a really nice city million times nicer than Warsaw however it is still not as beautiful as Gdansk is. After a little walk between the nice cozy buildings of the oldtown we headed back to our bed, because the most important part of our trip to Poznan was to come the upcoming day; Sári’s friends were arriving! The next day we got up pretty early – actually only I got up early, Sári slept like a baby till 0830ish. After we got ready, we headed to a coffee to get Sári something to eat. The lady at the café didn’t speak any English, but that was no pr...

  Yesterday was a sadish day. My only in-person class came to an end. Yesterday’s class was the last one! It made me a bit sad… from now on I’m only having online classes. I’ve started my day with blog writing. I was a bit late with my blogs on Gdansk but buy now that series is out you can read them here, here, here, and here. After I finished writing I had to vacuum clean the whole apartment again and gather all my crap I need for two days, because yesterday was also the day when we went to Poznan! Oh, yess baby, we were about to explore yet another city! Sári’s friends are arriving today to Poznan, we will meet them there, have a nice meal at the local Pyra Bar and head home to Warsaw in the evening, where they will spend some time with us. They haven’t bought a ticket back home, hence the opened end of their stay haha. (I can picture a scenario of us going back to Hungary together, so we can get the 3 rd dose of our vaccination. But this really depends on them, and the heal...

  Yesterday we started the preparations for the arrival of our guests by cleaning the apartment and going grocery shopping. Sounds life fun, right? First things first, we cleaned the apartment, I was vacuum cleaning, Sári was doing the bathroom – oh, and before you would start wondering whether this was the first time, we cleaned the answer is no! Just because I haven’t written about all of our cleanings, we do clean the apartment every week. Stop judging! After I finished with the vacuuming, I had to sort out our mold situation. I could tell right from the start that this would be a problem. Basically, we cook every day, that means we are boiling water every day, that means evaporation all the time, and when the hot air that contains buncha water hits a colder surface it condensates. Condensation results wet walls which results mold. If we lived in this apartment for a longer period of time, I would definitely buy a dehumidifier, so the whole place wouldn’t rot completely – I th...

  Yesterday I was all over the place. I probably got used to only traveling on the weekends, because the day before yesterday I felt like it was Monday not Sunday, and it just made me completely lose the sense of time. So, surprisingly, I had a class on whichever day I though it was. The class was good, but the timelessness was terrible. Is it only me or you guys also fell in time traps? When I was a kid, I used to hate it when Mondays or Tuesdays were holidays, because when we had to go back to school the first day of school that week wasn’t Monday which it usually is, but it was Tuesday, or Wednesday which drove me completely crazy! Honestly, I though I was over this feeling, but seems like I learn everyday some new/old, but new things about myself. After my class we went for a little walk. My Fitness app gives me challenges every month and this month the challenge is to walk 157.1 km which I though is a round number in miles, but as it turns out it is exactly 97.617414 miles...

So, we are picking up the story at the train station of Sopot. Previously we got our tickets online (to Gdansk and back to Warsaw), then we used a machine at the train station of Gdansk, however now we had to go old school. The machine at the station of Sopot didn’t work so we had to talk with a lady to buy tickets. Unfortunately, she didn’t speak English. So, we had to improvise. I think I must’ve used all my knowledge of Slavic languages, I used some Polish words, some Croatian words, and of course some good old Bosnian ones as well. I gave her all I got. And surprisingly it worked! Back at home I always go to talk with cashiers to get some tickets, I hate buying tickets online… what was wrong with talking to people?! Although I have these online tickets, I do see the advantages of using them too. So, we got our tickets and went to the platform where we spent almost half an hour waiting for the train. But eventually the train has arrived. We got on the train, and so did the half o...

When we got up yesterday it was a bit weird. Like really weird. It felt like we were home . Till now I think I always thought about home as Pécs, but now, after living in Warsaw for two months – ha-ha I gotta be honest I thought more time has passed – it does feel like home. Although we had been on several trips before – such as our trip to the Baltics I still owe you those blogs – getting back to the apartment in Warsaw just felt like getting to another accommodation somewhere through our travels. However, this time it was different. It didn't feel like just another random accommodation. It just felt like we were home! Strange, isn’t it? Anyways after we got up, well we kinda didn’t got up. We walked 37.5 km in the last two days! Our legs were destroyed and upset with our recklessness. I think I haven’t mentioned it before but, on the first day in Gdansk we walked 20.5 km, according to my Fitness app I’ve burned 1,028 KCAL, I’ve exercised 140 minutes – I have no idea how it came...

  Now, we are picking up the story the next morning in Gdansk. Our first morning in Gdansk! We were extremely glad when we got up and realized we were nowhere near the used condom, so we probably didn’t touch it. Actually, I’m 100% sure we didn’t touch it! The previous day at one of our coffee breaks we had the chance to talk to a guy, who was actually the owner of the coffee. He was a super nice dude, he told us he’s been to Budapest around 1988, when people in Hungary already heard of the Solidarity movement, and the anticommunist thoughts of Polish people – and Hungarian people loved the idea of getting rid of the commies. So, our man went to a bar, it turned out he was Polish, and Hungarians kept buying him glasses of wine, he told us he got so drunk he couldn’t walk the next day! There is Polish-Hungarian friendship for you! Anyways, why I’ve started talking about our new friend is because, he told us, that windy weather was the perfect time to visit Sopot, where you could w...

So, we are picking up the story from yesterday, it was around 1600 when we entered the rented apartment. Well, let’s make it straight, we went for the cheapest possible option, with the most acceptable ratings. The advertisement said it’s next to a nice white house. Yeah, the house next to us was really nice, however ours looked like some sorta favella in South America. We entered the building thru a door which was hardly possible to close properly – that was the point when I started to worry – we went upstairs, thru corridors what would be considered small even in the medieval times up to basically the attic. There was one door ahead of us and one behind us. The door behind us was unlocked, slightly opened, and strange sounds came from behind it. I knew I wasn’t ready for whatever was behind that door. The message we received from the manager said we have to get our keys outta metal box and the 3 rd room was ours. We entered the room, and it was really nice for the first glimpse. But...

Yesterday’s wakeup call was at 0445. We had a quick breakfast, jumped on a tram to Warsaw Central Railway Station, and waited 30miuntes of our train to Gdansk! Yes, looking back that 30minutes would’ve been perfect for sleeping, but let’s not get bogged down on the past, okay? So, we got on the train at 0615, and spent the next almost 3 hours on it. The whole idea of getting on this early train was to see the sunrise from the train, over the majestic Polish landscape, everything was perfect for the perfect sunrise, we even got seated on the Eastern side of the train! So, everything was great until we got outta Warsaw and realized it’s incredibly foggy! We watched the minutes pass on my phone, and we hardly saw any changes outside, when finally, the sun has risen it was the same gray shit as for the 30ish minutes before! Damn, that’s pure unluckiness for you. Oh, and one more unlucky thing… we were facing backwards on the rain which was as pleasant as anything – I can’t come up with a...

  Yesterday was cooking day. I think it would be smart to have one day a week when we cook all our food for the upcoming week and toss them in the freezer till the day, we need them. But I’m not that smart, besides I have a lot of time, so saving time by this method is not a priority. Maybe later when I grow up… or if I grow up haha. Anyways, yesterday wasn’t a cooking day because we did all our cooking for the week, it was rather called cooking day because that was the only thing we did thru all day. I really enjoy preparing the veggies; cutting them, steaming them just make me feel good. I have no idea what that dish is called I cooked yesterday, but it was delicious. It had zucchini, red pepper, yellow pepper(?) buncha onion mixed with bulgur. (Sára told me it’s called kaszotto or something similar… or something completely different who knows) I think some beans and/or maybe some minced meat would have been a good additional ingredient, I might try that someday. Oh, and be...

  Yesterday was a good day, ain’t no body gotta cry that day save the drama for another day blah blah it kinda worked, right? Haha… anyways it a truly great day. When I woke up, I checked what the tasks are for my class, luckily it was just one podcast to listen to about Taking a Vacation from Carbon Emissions . It was a quite interesting conversations between the presenter and the guest Dr. Michel Hall. One of the shocking information was that there are no taxes for plane fuels! What?! Why? Half the price of the fuel we buy at a gas station is just taxes! So why are we the only ones who are paying taxes? The other thing was about water battles. When you travel somewhere, you are basically surrounded by plastic water bottles. They are everywhere! They are at the gas stations, they are offered on the planes, they are on the table of every hotel room, they are just everywhere! And why? Because it much easier for us to just sit down next to the table and open that bottle instead of ...