Whereas Krakow, largely untouched by war, is beautiful in a fairytale way, Warsaw was almost completely leveled and has grown up into a gritty, lovely, metropolitan city with a spirit to match its history.
I'm not much of one for describing bars and clubs well because I've little experience in them, but this NYT article actually mentions a couple of the places we went to (that club and bookstore) and gives a great rundown of the Praga district where Agnieszka's friends took us out.
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/travel/22next.html
The study trip portion itinerary went:
Gazeta Wyborcza Meeting with journalists from the foreign affairs, national and economic section.
Meeting with
Tour Warsaw
The two meetings were interesting, definitely fun to pick the brains of the Polish foreign affairs journalists. Gazeta in general has a fascinating history, they were the first independent newspaper in Poland and worked underground for many years. The teenagers and twenty-somethings that began the newspaper working without pay to distribute tens of thousands of copies of the real uncensored news everyday are now the editors.
The European Commission meeting was worthwhile because for the first while we were with the commission's public affairs guy who went over how they try to drum up support for the EU in Poland. After my job this summer it was interesting to compare. They're surprisingly low tech and unfortunately a lot of the PR events they do are kid-oriented and gimmicky. I know it gets the parents there as well, and they may hand out brochures, but somehow I doubt it gets the brochures read.
Wilanow Palace was a palace. Eh, palaces are nice, and I enjoyed the royal portraits which featured figures in traditional Polish noble dress which is always interesting to me from a fashion history standpoint, but eventually I stop caring about seeing one more old shiny building stuffed with school children and grouchy blue-haired curators.
The Warsaw Uprising Museum was definitely one of the best museums I've ever been to. The walking tour of reconstructed old Warsaw though, well NYT comes it to an epcot version of Warsaw and I agree.
The Praga district was cool. We poked our heads into the club featured in the picture in the article, but it was too full and we went across the street. Later on we went to some tiny two room club on the forth floor of what looked like an abandoned building before further examination. Our guides to social Warsaw were Agnieszka's (a PhD student on the staff) native friends, really fun. Finding clubs and bars would have been difficult without them.
All over Warsaw are little concrete buildings (shaped like pods used at school)covered in graffiti, bars on the window, and windows papered over in old posters and newspaper. They're the remnants of the old communist shops, about 10 of them in each block, about 10 ft by 10 ft each. They look deserted, but the doors creak open to reveal tiny bars, smoke visible in the red light, stuffed with low couches, tiny tables, wall to wall people, and tiny crooked wooden steps leading down into bomb-shelter basements, walls covered in art, posters, or maybe just more peeling wall paper. Fabulous, unpretentious, and good Polish beer and vodka.
Hmm, I should work on some homework.
Unfortunately my batteries died as soon as we arrived, but hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to steal some good photos from friends.
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