Wiebe Wakker
September 14, 2016
Day 182 | Monday September 12
Today I did nothing else but work. I’m very busy with preparing the next stage of this trip: the Middle East. Every country requires a visa, I need Carnet de Passages and injections against diseases. I did not find the solution for all of this yet, or money, which is also a problem.
That’s it for today. Not every day is crazy adventurous.
Day 183 | Tuesday September 13
The last 3 days I have been in Warsaw but didn’t see anything of the city yet. In the morning I had a little bit of time to look around. I parked my car at a EV charger, this was the first time since St. Petersburg, a few 1000 kilometers ago. Parking & charging is free for electric cars in the city. Sadly there are no rules for people parking on the EV spots with normal car, and so the first 2 chargers I found were occupied with ICE-cars, which made it not easy for me.
Warsaw is nice and calm. During WWII the city had rough times, nearly one million people were killed and the biggest part of the city was bombed into ruins. After the war it was rebuild and because there were not much people left they made very wide streets. In and around the city huge shopping malls are placed were most people go shopping so this makes it very comfortable to walk in the city without bumping in to anyone, a luxury for a capital.
Michal’s office is also located in the city and I went to have lunch with him in a restaurant under the former headquarters of the Soviet Union. Next to this building is now a street called “the new era” and there is this Polish saying “If you have the Soviet Union in your back, you look into the new era”.
I interviewed Michal about Bioelektra, which will be online soon.
Than I went to a next host, parked my car right in front of the Palace of Culture and Science and walked a few minutes to his house. The palace was a gift from the Russians to Poland and you can find copies of this building in St. Petersburg and Moscow.
My host was Wouter, a dutchman and son of a friend of my mother from years ago when we lived in Belgium (it’s ok to read this twice). I didn’t remember if I had ever met him but according to him we didn’t.
Wouter has been living here for 10 years with his wife Magdalena. They’re expecting a child within 4 weeks. The bathroom was fully filled with children’s clothes so I expected it was their 2nd child coming but it was their first. They have a lot of friends.
Magdalena and Wouter took me for a sightseeing tour in the old part of Warsaw. We visited a store were the sold amber. I learned that amber is actually fossilized tree resin. When you heat it up to 150 degrees it becomes fluid again and you can reshape it. Here they sold ambers of 40 million years ago. And the special thing: with insects inside of it (remember Jurassic Park?). Some stones were worth more then a million euros.
For dinner we went to a Polish restaurant. Polish food is a lot of meat and potatoes. Very much practical food. Wouter ordered some different things and the main dish I could’t finish, friends of me would know that’s something special.
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