Graveyards and Abandoned Hospitals.
Posted: July 5, 2012 Filed under: Warsaw | Tags: abandoned, afternoon, art, artists, Asia, asian, bombilla, boutique, cabinet, children, chinese, community, Cooking, couchsurfers, couchsurfing, cure, Death Star, drink, evening, Food, grave, graveyard, halt, Home, hospital, itchy, jerozolimskie, jew, jewish, jewish graveyard, lemon, Lifestyle Choices, little rice, lovin hut, Loving Hut, mate, mosquito, omega, oxygen, photo, photography, ping pong, ping pong balls, Poland, prevent, repellent, stop, stop the itch, studios, szpital, Table tennis, tea, teriyaki, thai, thegreateascape, tlen, tomb, toothpaste, travel, vacation, vegan, Veganism, vietnamese, Warsaw 2 Comments
Another roasting hot day was met with gusto as we headed out into the city centre. We had arranged to meet up with two couchsurfers who were visiting Warsaw for a few days and were looking for good, vegan food. I recommended the brilliant Lovin’ Hut on Jana Pawla II, and they kindly invited us to join then for a spot of lunch. The food has never disappointed me there, and it still hasn’t, though I did have to have a second choice because the first was sold out (quick tip, get there early if you want to a chance to sample something from the whole menu). This time I had ‘Teriyaki Island”, and it was very very good as usual, the soy dressing is really well done, and their little rice piles perfect for the size of dish. I would recommend this place to absolutely anyone, no matter what your diet or eating preference, even the strictest carnivore can’t fail to be impressed or satisfied here!
After lunch we went our separate ways and Marta and I headed to the Jewish Graveyard, to see it in the sunlight, and hopefully to cool down. The place was really beautiful in the sunshine and the trees made the light dappled and beautiful, as well as making the temperature bearable. The biggest problem however was the abundance of hungry mosquitos, baying for our blood. But we just about survived, though the next day my legs looked like someone had filled them with pink ping pong balls! (toothpaste and lemon seem to be doing the trick at keeping the itching down a bit though)
We jumped on a tram, intending to head straight home, but stopped off in the city centre and ended up inside the old children’s hospital on Jerozolimskie, ‘Szpital Omega’. This is slowly being turned into artist’s studios and there is access to the building thanks to a tiny boutique that has opened up on the 3rd floor. The whole building is pretty accessible if you don’t mind the piles of rubble lying around and we had a good old snoop throughout the place, which has got some creepy stuff still kicking about. The picture above is of the old oxygen cabinet, and there are some more photos below, which gives you a bit of an idea of how cool it is to explore this place, before it all gets neatened up.
Tired and sleepy we headed back home to enjoy the cool flat and some nice cups of tea. I have, at long last, got myself a bag of normal green Mate, which is very very welcome at all times of the day and a good change from the roasted one that I have been drinking lately. I do wish I had brought my Bombilla from home though, the ones in Warsaw are all rather expensive. That’s exoticism in Poland for you!
A really amazing tombstone, possibly my favorite!
Day 27, Tartu, February 5th 2012
Posted: February 5, 2012 Filed under: Tartu | Tags: apple jam, art, art museum, artist, Ülo Õuna, cafe truffe, church, delicious pancakes, enn tegova, estonia, father and son, frozen, Fruit preserves, helsinki, hospital, KUMU, Leaning Tower of Pisa, mushroom, Northern Europe, nose, photo, photography, prawn, red brick, shrimp, soup, Tallinn, tartu, tea cafe, toothpaste, university, vietnam, vietnamese, warm Leave a comment
Tea 27: Grenadine Tea, Cafe Truffe, Tartu
Today was my first official day in Tartu. After a great breakfast of way too many delicious pancakes with ice-cream, nutella, and homemade apple jam, and a long time trying to prepare my mind to venture out into the cold, my host and I went for it and headed for town. She lives just a short walk away from the ‘city centre’, or the town square. The sun was shining down, but I now know to associate this ominously with the cold, as it means a clear sky, and a clear sky in winter means COLD! Today, initially, felt a bit warmer than yesterday, but after a few minutes walking the inside of my nose began to freeze and I soon came to the conclusion it had all been an illusion. And, yes, your nose freezing is reasonably painful. We escaped into a shopping mall, where we both went simply to warm up a little, and also for me to buy myself some more toothpaste.
That task achieved we headed back out. We walked around, through a little park area, with the most bizarre, and I must say slightly worrying sculpture by artist Ülo Õuna, called ‘Father and Son’. It is kind of bizarre, reading more about it reveals its, fairly obvious intentions, but still, it is a little strange. We continued onwards, past the pretty, pastel coloured buildings, some of which are really old, including the university building, which was built around 1804. But the university itself was established in 1632, making Tartu University one of the oldest in Northern Europe. We went up Toome hill, towards the observatory, beneath ‘Angels Bridge’ (Inglisild), and then up and across the bridge, getting some nice views out across the city. We then circled around the little bit of parkland, outside the old Hospital, past an ancient looking church that is made up of various functioning and ruined parts. The great exposed red-brick built arches reaching high up over our heads, the sun shining and turning them an even richer shade of red. We walked back around and down into the centre again and I got a few ideas of little cafes to pop into. The city is pretty sleepy feeling, whether this is because of the weather, the winter or just because of the fact that today is a Sunday I do not know. Tomorrow should help me find out.
We then decided it was far too cold again, and headed to Heli’s (my host) favourite cafe, Cafe Truffe, right on the main square. This is a nice contemporary cafe, with loads of cushions and a lovely menu, though their cheesey ambient jazz music selection was questionable. I ordered a lovely sweet and sour Grenadine Tea, lemony, bright pink and a good hit of all things citrus. Heli went for a Cinnamon Coffee that looked pretty good. We also both ordered soup, Heli a Creamy Cheese Soup, whilst I had a Vietnamese Style cream soup with mushrooms, shrimp and fish. It was very tasty, the mushrooms are flavoursome and dense, whilst the spices were perfect, and the first proper bit of spice I have had for a while. They don’t tend to do spicy in Estonia, or Helsinki really.
After a nice long time chatting and getting fed and warm we left and more or less immediately went into the Tartu Art Museum. This is in a small building that seems to be contending with the Leaning Tower of Pisa for worlds most falling over building. The work on show was of good quality, much like the work in KUMU, kind of chronologically, but from the 60’s to 2010. There is a lot of interesting and rather amusing stuff in there. It seems as though they must be having a constant battle with the building and gravity, the leaning of the building making some of the works hang one way and on the other side they hang the other. On the ground floor is a solo retrospective show of work by Enn Tegova, some of the paintings here must have been in storage or the dark for a long time, as the colours are still so rich they could have been painted yesterday. Some have even been victim to a little bit of warping too, which is kind of a shame, but also quite nice that they are still being shown. They kind of fit with the involuntary theme of the tilting building.
The sun had begun to set, the nearly full moon was shining brightly in the gently darkening blue sky and we headed home, my nose freezing once more.
A Travel and Tea Diary 