We Have Arrived!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008 (I think!)
The day is finally here. After months of discussions, “ifs, ands, and maybes” we are finally here in Warsaw, Poland. How does it feel? I don’t know. I’ll tell you in a few days. Right now, I’m basking in the joy of having maneuvered a foreign airport and found our hotel on my own and finishing the day with a beautiful dinner at the hotel restaurant. Most of the airport issues are just your average, day-to-day airport issues spiced up with a language I don’t know. Yes, there were translations into English but I still feel some pride in negotiating Elizabeth and me through the passport check, luggage pick up, and locating our hotel—not the simplest task of the day even though it is almost attached to the airport! Once I found it, I was able to get through the check-in process and get the two of us up to our room with all our bags in short order. We then just relaxed a bit—showers were at the top of our list of things to do—and waited for Easel who was on a later flight. When we were reunited and he had a chance to clean up, we went to the hotel restaurant for dinner.
In my experience, after an extremely long flight, I’m not usually ready for a big, heavy meal. Easel and Elizabeth agreed with me so we had a light supper with a Polish accent. Easel ordered pierogies (pronounced: “pee-rosh-kees,” with the “o” sounding like the “o” in “rose”), Elizabeth ordered a light chicken broth with vegetables, and I ordered borscht. We had eaten pierogies before—we learned about them when we lived in Chicago—and chicken soup is pretty much chicken soup wherever you have it but the borscht was something totally new to me. When the waiter brought it, I thought it was the most beautiful bowl of soup I had ever seen! It was a lovely fuchsia color with darker purple bits floating in it. I wanted to dive into it! I took my spoon, dipped it in and took the first sip. It was cold and absolutely delicious! I wasn’t expecting it to be cold but after a long day of travel, it was the perfect choice. It is hard to describe all the different flavors in that one bowl of soup. They all blended together and yet they were also distinct. The surprising flavor and ingredient was pickle. The soup also contained large pieces of boiled egg, pieces of turkey and cabbage (the darker purple bits). I will definitely be ordering that soup again and looking for a recipe. It is a beautiful, cool, and delicious summer soup. We accompanied our dinner with the wonderful bread basket the waiter brought shortly after we sat down. After we had eaten and enjoyed our soups and pierogies, we decided we would have dessert. Easel ordered Tiramisu, Elizabeth ordered a “butter cake” with vanilla mousse and fruit, I ordered “coconut fantasia” with fruit. Again, we were not disappointed. We all enjoyed our desserts but Elizabeth and I were surprised with ours. From the descriptions and/or names of our desserts we were each expecting something cake-like. Wrong on both counts! Elizabeth’s was two lovely almond crusted cookies sandwiching the vanilla mousse and berries. Mine was like a cream cheese mixed with coconut and some sweetening agent molded into a dome with berries in the center as well as around it on the plate.
This blog will not usually center on food but as I explore Poland, I will explore foods that are new to me and I will write about my reactions to my exploration. If my first meal in Poland is an indication, I may be writing about food quite a bit!