My first full day in Poland

I'll start with my first night here.  I turned the tv on and realized there are two or three English channels.  One is BBC news, the other is BBC sports and I think there's another one.  I do like that there's an equestrian program on BBC news.  And when I see the weather I get the weather for the whole world.  It's kinda crazy.

Tony, the other UOP guy, and I went to dinner at some random restaurant.  It turned out to be an Indian twist on meat.  I got some sort of chicken dish that had indian spices and was served a side of cabbage.  Mmmm mmm.  It was an interesting combination.

I downloaded one of the free podcasts on iTunes call One Minute Polish.  There are several one minute classes where they teach you how to say the basics in Polish.  So now I know how to say hello, yes, no, please (which is kind of tough to say), goodbye, and thank you.  I feel like I should try to speak the language.

I started my first full day off by sleeping until around noon.  So in reality is hasn't been a full day - but I was so tired!!  I woke up to find out that the Polish president died in an airplane crash over Russia.  Not only was it him, but lots of other important Polish government officials.  BBC news has all sorts of coverage regarding the mourning in Warsaw.  I decided to walk through the town to see if there was anything similar going on.  At the cathedral, which is like a one minute walk from my hotel, there were mourners laying flowers and candles at the base of a Pope John Paul II statue.


Plock is an interesting mix of old and new.  There are several new buildings going up, which are attached to buildings that seem to be fairly old.  It is a pedestrian town.  There is a river walk that many people use.   It actually goes right underneath my hotel window/door.  There are several streets that are for pedestrian traffic only. And no one here j-walks.  No one.  They all go to a crossing, and no one crosses the street until the light is green.  Even if the street is clear.  You wait for the signal.


I went into one of the grocery stores and got a half liter of powerade and some bananas.  The produce section was pretty much non existent - except for the potatoes and onions.  Go figure.  The meat counter took up the most area of the store.  It was huge.  They had all sorts of sausages.  I'm not sure what kind - I guess I need to learn more Polish.  I think I'm going to go to the hotel restaurant for dinner, or maybe to one of the Kebab shops I passed...  Decisions, decisions!