Reader of the Week: Carrie! In Warsaw!

When you need a friend to move into the apartment down the hall from you (and give you a key so you can go over and play Wii whenever you want), Carrie is there. When you need a friend to look after Mr. B. for weeks on end (even though her boyfriend at the time is really, really allergic to cats), Carrie is there. When you need a friend to house you before your wedding (and diffuse an "I hate the groomsmen's ties!" bride v. groom argument), Carrie is there. And when you need to stuff yourself with pierogies and party down in Warsaw...Carrie is there!

Carrie, in the Old Town of Warsaw.
Pierogies: not pictured (previously consumed).

Though we now live on different sides of the world, Carrie is still the Apartment A to our Apartment D, and we were pleased as punch to visit her in Warsaw this past weekend!

You'll notice that there aren't a lot of pictures with this post, and for good reason: Warsaw is incredibly ugly. This is what happens when 90% of the city, which was once called the Paris of the East, is razed by the Nazis, then rebuilt by the Soviets. Brutalist architecture, indeed. At least the Rylko provided a little hospital-green colour to the concrete landscape.
The history of the city is absolutely devastating, and never far from the surface of day-to-day life, even in the Old Town, which was rebuilt from rubble to look exactly (exactly!) the way it did before the war...

One of the most amazing sites we saw was the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, which somehow managed to survive the destruction of Warsaw. Though a small portion of the cemetery is still active, it is largely overgrown and forested -- an eerie, though beautiful, place.

The tenement houses on ul. Prozna, part of the infamous Warsaw Ghetto, are some of the very, very few to survive the 1943 Uprising. People now live in apartments on either side of this block, and, in some cases, the old apartments themselves.

We also saw the one remaining section of the Warsaw Ghetto wall. After the Uprising, the entire area was levelled, but this wall in the courtyard of ul. Sienna 55 remains.
In the background of that photo, you'll notice a Gotham City-esque building: that's the Palace of Culture and Science, a gift to the Polish people from Stalin. Stalin, as you might imagine, is a very unpopular personage in Poland, but the building has so become part of the landscape that it has now been adopted as a symbol of the city. Inside is one of the most bizarre museums we have ever experienced: a room of telephones, then a room of cars and flying machines, then a room of Lego sculptures, then a room of asteroids, then some typewriters and magic eye puzzles??? Here is a perfect description, reproduced verbatim from "Warsaw in your pocket," our complimentary guide to Warsaw, courtesy of The Westin Warsaw:

A vast collection dedicated the history of everything technological inside the equally enormous Palace of Culture and Science, the only thing missing here is a map. Truly huge, and clearly laid out by someone with a sadistic sense of humour, the scores of rooms scattered willy nilly and organised with what appears to be a contemptuous disregard for reason and logic, highlights include a superbly stylish electric car for children made in France in 1955, a cavalcade of impossible-looking motorbikes and aeroplanes, a room packed with 19th-century musical boxes, a highly amusing 1951 MIG jet flight simulator and a small exhibition celebrating space exploration that could do with some serious updating. Decorated with lace curtains and staffed by an army of sinister-looking old ladies, you won't learn a thing no matter how hard you try, but it's a strangely rewarding experience that has to be seen to be believed.

Carrie, it was a great weekend, and we miss you already! Close friends + strange lands are an excellent combination, and we recommend you jump on the moving-to-Europe bandwagon as quickly as humanly possible!

Bloggership, once gain I give you Carrie, Reader of the Week and Sash-wearing Bridesmaid Extraordinaire.