Snow in Zakopane, and Parties in Manila

I've been back in Manila for more than a few weeks now, but hey, better something than nothing.



Here are some pics from our trip to Zakopane

Zakopane is a nice, small town up in the mountains in the southern part of Poland, near the Slovakian border. We stayed at a really nice hostel called Stara Polana. And we made a snow man!

The place is really beautiful. The ten-hour train trip was worth it. =)

I came home just in time to join our off-site team building trip to Anilao, and two company Christmas parties. The trip to Anilao was awesome; my teammates are always fun to be with. The first Christmas party was for our bundle, the HP AMG-DME group. It was a costume party, as usual, and our team came as characters from Robin Hood. It was a pretty good party (I got a 10-cup coffee maker as a door prize!) I'll post pics on my multiply site later.

The second party was for the whole company, and to be blunt about it, it sucked ass. Logistics was awful and the food wasn't all that great. I can't wait to fill out that post-party survey.

Merry Christmas everybody (who celebrates it)! Happy Holidays (to those who will get to spend one)! and have a Happy New Year (if you get by the next eight days without dying)!



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Gdansk!

I just realized that I haven't written about my Gdansk trip yet.

So, in a few word: Gdansk is such a beautiful city. It is right up there in Northern Poland by the Baltic Coast, and is just a few kilometers from the cities of Sopot and Gdynia. Like Warsaw, Gdansk was badly damaged during WWII, and also like Warsaw, fortunately, it's historical Main Town was rebuilt to its former glory. In my opinion, Gdansk's Old/Main Town is the most beautiful one I've seen among those I've blogged about.

Here are my pics from the trip:

The weather didn't cooperate too much with us though... There were scattered rain showers the two days we were there. It was still fun though, just wasn't the best weather for taking pictures :p



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And you were the places that I wanted to go

I've been away from home for 8 weeks now, so I figure right about now would be the perfect time for me to wax poetic about how much I miss home, how homesick I am etc etc... But I can't, because I'm not. I've just been having such a great time here enjoying every second of this experience that I have no time to be homesick. Of course, there are some things in the Philippines that I'm dying to see again. But I figure, I'll only be here for 3 months... Why waste those three months on thinking about how much I miss what I'll be going back to for the rest of my life? You know what I mean?

Anyway having said that, I do miss my family and friends. That's a given. Even though I've met a lot of friendly people here in Poland, those people back home can't be replaced. (Naks!)

And I do miss Filipino food. Luckily, we met the Filipino Community here in Poland (yes, all 9 of them) who invited us to a gathering last All Saints' Day holiday, and where there's a Filipino community, there's sure to be Filipino food :D There was adobo, lechon manok, lumpia, Pinoy-style spaghetti, and my favorite, caldereta! So that really helped ease out the "I miss Filipino food" part (and anyway, if you see me now, you probably won't believe I'm missing any kind of food whatsoever, haha. I think I've gained more than 10 pounds since I got here. waaaah...)

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Right now, it's 0 degrees outside. And tomorrow (at least according to Yahoo weather), it will be snowing in Warsaw! That's gonna be a first for me (experiencing snow, I mean) and as much as that may seem exciting, I really really really was hoping it won't snow until we leave. Because snow would only mean it's gotten colder. And it's already too coooold for my tropical ass!

I saw some pictures of my Boracay trip from last year and from earlier this year, and it really really made me wish for the sun and the heat and the general tropical weather of the Philippines. The sun barely shines here, and if it does shine, it doesn't even sting the skin like it does in Manila at 12 in the afternoon. I wouldn't have thought I'd miss that, but there you go.

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Last weekend, we made our way to the town of Malbork and the city of Gdansk way up north by the Baltic coast. We went to Malbork to visit its castle, which is the largest Gothic castle in Europe, and the largest brick castle in the world. It was the seat of the Teutonic Order in the medieval times, and walking through its grounds and halls, you could really feel the grandness of it all. Gdansk is a port city on the Baltic Sea and has one of the most beautiful city squares in Poland, in my opinion. I'll post pictures and talk more about them on my next entry :D

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On a side note: The latest season of The Amazing Race is now on! WOOOOOHOOOOO!

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Krakow is the shits!

Last weekend, we went to Krakow, another city here in Poland. And it's an awesome city! I've always been raving about how nice and beautiful Warsaw is on my previous posts, but seriously... Krakow just amazed me. No offense to loyal Varsovians out there, but Krakow is just made of pure AWESOME. =D

Maybe it's just the recency effect talking, but Krakow is now my favorite city in the world. What can I say, I have a soft spot for non-asphalt paved streets on old towns filled with crazy and/or drunk people during the day and night

On a side note: I think I may have just tasted the best cake I've ever tasted in my life last night. We had after-dinner coffee and desserts at Cava, a coffee shop in Nowy Swiat here in Warsaw. I ordered the Tort Czekoladowe, and it tasted so good I can't even describe it. That's one point for Warsaw, I guess. :D


With the Wawel Cathedral in the background. The dome on the right is made of pure gold, and inside the cathedral are tombs of Polish kings and queens, and relics of two Polish saints. It's one of the most beautiful cathedrals I have ever seen.







The leaning Town Hall Tower in Krakow's Rynek Glowny (Grand Square). On the right side of the pic is the Sukiennice, the Cloth Hall where the textile trade used to go on. It was built in 1300. It's now being used as a market for tourist goods, with cafes springing up all around it.

The Cloth Hall, from the foot of the town hall tower, and the town hall tower from inside the Cloth Hall.

The streets and buildings of Krakow's Old Town:

Saint Mary's Church on the right, horse-drawn carriages for rent on the left

One of Krakow's crazy (and pretty) girls. I gave her 30 groszy, despite the abuse being done to the teddy bear by the dude behind her.

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Lazienki Krolewskie and Ogrod Saski. They look nicer than they sound.

It's been a month since I arrived and I'm just really loving this city.

Last week, we went to the £azienki Królewskie, the royal summer residence of Poland's Last King.
Lazienki is an 80-hectare park that houses the Palace on the Water, and the Chopin Monument (yes, he's Polish ;D ), among others. Lazienki (wa-szhen-ki) is just a breathtakingly beautiful place. The park is huge and is filled with trees and plants. It has a really cool, romantic ambiance. It sort of reminded me a lot of Camp John Hay, except this was only a 10-minute bus ride from my apartment, and not an 8-hour drive up the mountains of Luzon. It also had a lot of friendly squirrels (sometimes too friendly), peacocks, ducks, and swans (or was it a stork?), so the Polish kids really love the place.





We also went to Ogrod Saski (Saxon Garden) where we found the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Saxon Garden is another park in the middle of Warsaw, and with autumn in full swing, the foliage is just turning everything to an artful picture. This place is so picturesque. It's a cam whore, I tell you. All you have to do is click.

We also got there in time to see the changing of the Honor Guards. I took a short video because their soldiers have a pretty cool walk, but I can't transfer it out of my SD card, because it looks like there's something wrong with the file. Damn it.

Anyway, travelling around Warsaw really makes me think so much about Manila. Manila and Warsaw really has many similarities. But with the rate I'm going, I might come back home in two months knowing more about the city that's adopting me than the city I actually live on.

I have a feeling I'm not alone when I say I know so little of Manila. That's gotta change when I come back.







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Week 1 in Warsaw

It's been a week since we arrived in Warsaw. Everything's going great :D

The place I'm staying at is awesome! We've been taking the public transport to get around, and it's a lot, lot better than the public transport in Manila. It's way more organized which makes going around the city really easy for a newbie. No jeepneys here, and buses actually follow loading and unloading zones. :p We bought a card which allows us to use the bus, tram, and subway around Warsaw anytime we want, as much as we want, for the next 3 months we'll be staying here. Walking a few kilometers a day has been commonplace for us too, but it isn't bad at all, since the cool weather allows us to not break a sweat even if we walk around the city for 5 hours.

Since I've mention the cool weather, let me tell you more about it. It's freaking cold!!!1!1!! And to think that our officemates have been telling us that we should wait a few more months when winter kicks in because it's actually still warm! It's 12*C outside! And it's supposed to be warm! I might come back to Manila with three fingers lost from frostbite, seriously. (On a warmer note, because of the cool temparatures I've already bought two more jackets hehe.) Of course, the fact that its waaay colder here than it ever is, was and will be in Manila didn't stop us from buying ice cream. There's a bunch of ice cream stores over here. One thing I've discovered though, kebab and shawarma eateries are as ubiquitous here as Starbucks is in Makati. Who would've thought that? :p

So far, we've walked around the Palace of Culture and Science, which is just a street away from our apartment, been to Wilanow Palace, visited the Monument of the Warsaw Uprising, strolled around Old Town and New Town (Stare Miasto and Nowe Miasto, respectively) (a very, very beautiful place :-) ), and some parks in Muranow (and three malls in and around Central Warsaw.)

The Palace of Culture and Science

Wilanow Palace

Church at Wilanow Palace

Mausoleum of Stanislaw Kostka Potocki in Winalow National Library in Muranow
Memorial to the Heroes of the Warsaw UprisingView of the Warsaw Barbakan from New TownView of the Warsaw Barbakan from Old TownThe Old Town Market Place (Rynek Starego Miasta)The Old Town Market Place (Rynek Starego Miasta)
A picture of a statue of a Syrenka in the Old Town square
(aka the point when my camera's battery died)

I'm having a great time so far!

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The passport goes back to Manila

After about a month, my passport is finally back from Thailand!

Ok... so the reason why it was in Thailand was because I was applying for a visa to Poland. I'll be there for about 3 months to have extensive training for a new role. We were actually supposed to leave sometime mid-August, but our visa got delayed for various reasons... But now that it's here, we're almost sure to leave on Saturday. =D

We didn't get the Schengen Visa that I mentioned in one of my previous posts though, so we might not be able to jet around other European countries like we hoped to. (The 15 Schengen countries are: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.)

Just a bit of story here: when I first told my friends that I'll be going on a trip to Warsaw, they initially thought I said war zone, which made them mildly confused.



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