Heat Exhaustion in Warsaw
Place: Warsaw, Poland
Now I know how hot it can turn out in Central Europe.
When I traveled in the Baltics, the weather was nice. The weather in Tallinn was especially cool. Though I did hear the heat wave in Western and Central Europe, I did not feel much about it. Until I reached Warsaw, Poland.
I stayed in a youth hostel called "Oki Doki" (http://www.okidoki.pl), which is a quite cool hostel (though the staff tends to act a little aloof). However, the room was feeling hotter and hotter and it got closer to the dusk.
The second day in Warsaw, I just did not feel well at all. I think the temperature was maybe 35 (Celsius) degree or higher that day. Whichever bus or tram I jumped on, there was no air-condition. What worse was, most of those buses have the windows sealed off or make them very difficult to open. That makes those buses like toasting ovens! After walking under the scorching sun and sitting in some "ovens" for two hours. I decided to head somewhere cooler. Why not a nice museum? At least from my experience in Taipei and New York, big museums usually have quite powerful air-condition. And it is nice to have these artworks around.
Not at the Poland's largest museum. The Polish National Museum (www.mnw.art.pl) mostly is not an air-conditioned place. It is enormously huge but again, with most windows sealed off. Only two special exhibition rooms have air-condition, so I came back again and again (one is the Chinese bronze vessels exhibition, which is quite nothing compared to the collection in Taipei). After seeing the museums for 1 hours, I felt more exhausted.
Originally, I planned to stay in Warsaw for 2 nights. Because the exhaustion in the second day, I had to take it slow and prolonged my stay for another night. Not that Warsaw is that beautiful or interesting that I wanted to stay longer, I told the people I met in the youth hostel. I was just tired.
Warsaw is actually an interesting city to visit. It is definitely not very beautiful (the most beautiful city in Poland will always be Krakow). Its old town is small and looks fake (all the old town was destroyed in world war II, so the current "old town" was rebuilt after the War and merely 50 something old). But there are some interesting museums to visit. The third day I was there. I went to the relatively new (opened in 2004) Warsaw Uprising Museum (www.1944.pl). The whole museum is dedicated to the heroic and tragic (they failed eventually) uprising against Nazi regime in 1944. The exhibition is quite inspiring and part of it, touching. Of course, one of the great things about the museum is: it is air-conditioned.
The most famous building in Warsaw is actually built after the WWII - the Stalinist style "wedding cake" Palace of Culture and Science. It is an enormous building right in the center of Warsaw's central business. I can see it from the windows of Oki Doki Hostel actually. After the communism fell in Poland, this building still serves its purposes for cultural activities. However, its kinoteca (cinema) now features movies from Hollywood. I saw the huge banner of the upcoming attraction "Garfield: The Tales of Two Kittes" hanging high up at the entrance. Poland has definitely long left its communism past behind.
If they can put air-condition in their national museum....
Downloadable "In Your Pocket: Warsaw" Guide
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