Shopping and shlepping

This morning I got up somewhat early. I wanted to do some quick shopping and then drop off my stuff. Then go back out again and hit the hop on/off (since I pad for it) and hit the Old Town to walk around.

Cool street art on the way to the galleria.

I was looking for a number of things. A pair of socks (I had just enough clothes to wear until I left - except socks), a briefcase to put souvenirs in as a second carry on, a bar of nice smelling soap, and a bottle of milk. I ended up paying about 80 bucks (US) for a hard case from an electronics store (a bit much but it was mainly fragile things I was carrying). I found a Body Shop (chain) for some grapefruit soap (they had nothing more manly like mint or musk). No milk though. I was hard pressed to find milk so I decided to had back with my goods. On the way to hostel, there was what I though was a news stand across the street. It was instead a mini-market that just looked like a news stand - so milk problem solved.

I dropped off my stuff and headed out again. In front of the hop on/off bus stop was a small news stand. So I got my three day bus/tram pass from there and headed out on the hop on/off bus to Old Town.

I have no idea what a gofry is, but it sure looks tasty on a waffle.

Old City was the rebuilt city that had stood there with iconic buildings until Hitler decided he had an issue with Poland. Apparently, after he conquered Poland, he just wanted to be an asshole so he told his troops to destroy Old Town and the castle that stood there. 

See if I invite him to MY birthday party.

Anyway, there was a massive restoration of the Old Town to get it back to the state it was in prior to WWII. They did a pretty good job and it was cool just wandering around and admiring the various buildings. I started off admiring the inside of a restaurant so that my insides could admire some pirogis. After a fine meal of mixed pirogis, weak borsch with ravioli soup, mint tea, and a latte - headed back out.

One cool thing is that there is a legend in Old Town. One of the buildings supposedly housed a basilisk in its basement. The basilisk would lure rich traders into the trading house and then into the basement. When the traders seen the basilisk, its gaze would turn them into stone. One day a smart tailor went into the basement and tricked the basilisk into seeing its own reflection. Since then one of the buildings in Old Town has a basilisk motiff to show where the tale took place.

"Hey look! Its a basilisk! Oh wait... doh!"

The entire Old City is filled with interesting nooks and crannies, trinket vendors and galleries, restaurants and bars, and all manner of neat little shops.

The Black Night also made a brief appearance, before King Arthur cut his legs off.

The battlements and moat were cool, so I also spent a bit of time walking around the perimeter of Old Town.

"Josep! The Scots haf tried to invade town in middle of night!"
"Tak Piotr, maybe we should put water in moat?"

I made my way through the town back to my starting point. The castle was there and I wanted to check out the royal palace. I paid my 22 zlotys and headed in.

The palace was pretty cool. It was done mainly in a Baroque style and you could tell the rarely parts of the interior that was original. A lot of the palace was stolen by the Germans prior to them leveling it and then was returned after a decades of negotiations. They also used old photographs and the rare pieces of leftover wall to figure how to restore the rooms tho their former glory.

While the palace was amazing, I maybe shouldn't have seen Peterhof in St. Petersburg. Because after seeing that, the palaces in Riga and Poland just seem like smaller copies of a really amazing pace. I got that way after seeing St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican City. After seeing that monstrous and incredible work of art, the church I seen afterwards during my travels just seemed like lesser copies of a greater masterpiece.

Ok, from now on - I'll hit the smaller ones first and work my way up to the really cool stuff. That way I'm increasingly amazed rather than increasingly "meh" about things.

So I wandered out of Old Town and headed up north a ways until it started turning more residential, then headed towards the river and looped back around. There was a cool park along the river with a great view, interesting statues,

"Pardon me sir, but do you have an Grey Poupon?"

and also some pretty cool street art.

Fish!! Ok... I have no idea what's going on here...

I got back to my starting point a second time and wandered down to the bus stop. Figuring out which bus to take was pretty easy as all I have to do if find the one that goes to Centrum. So a quick bus trip and I get to hit the gallery and pick up the socks I forgot to get this morning. By this time its past five and I figure I can relax a bit at the hostel and then wander out for some munchies. 

I hit the main street to the other side of my block area and head up that figuring to cut across and head towards the giant Merriot hotel. Generally this works well in finding good places to eat as they always congregate around the high end large hotels. This was no exception as I found an entire couple of streets with some very tasty looking eating spots. I end up hitting a Japanese/sushi joint and getting kim chi, wonton soup, fried rice, pork slices with cabbage and chili, aloe juice, and an Ashai beer. I left happy with a nice full belly and headed back to the hostel to curl up with a book and drift off to sleep.