Author: Kevin McCartney

This is the Polish White House.  Nearby is a monument to the late President Kaczynski, killed in an airplane accident (apparently, truly an accident, but much in the way of assassination conspiracy talk in Poland).

This is from inside a famous and beautiful church in Warsawa.  In that column is the pianist Chopin’s heart.  Chopin himself spent most of his life as an exile in Paris, and his body remains there, and placed in the column (and taken out for safe-keeping during the wall, this beautiful church has been rebuilt from nothing – the Nazis DESTROYED EVERYTHING.  The second picture is a little scene taken just ot the left of the column; I did not even try to take pictures of the main church alter area, as no picture of mine would do justice.

These are some downtown Warsawa scenes.  The first is more-or-less the typical downtown storefront in the old city (stare miasto).  You must understand that the Nazis DESTROYED EVERYTHING.  All this is rebuilt from scratch.  The second picture, taken from the grounds of the old castle, shows in the foreground an old column taken from the ruins – note the bullet holes.

The next 15 days worth of pictures at from a visit to Warsawa (locally pronounced Va-shava).  I tried to have a mix of general and specific interest.  This is the first I saw after getting off the train in Warsawa – starving – and stopping at a MacDonalds for some lunch.  At the trash bin you separate the paper from plastics.  Why can’t we do this in the US?

This is a picture for Ray Rice – a Shakespeare illustration at a train stop in downtown Szczecin.  I am not sure what is being advertised, but perhaps there is a Shakespeare play in the city (if this is still going on after I return from a trip to Warsaw, I will take this in).

I am having dinner and drinking beer (pevo) with three Chinese graduate students.  From left to right, not counting mysef, are Shing Lee, Jin Peng and “Kevin” (jes, one of the Chinese students has taken mine as a nickname).

A couple of pictures of the City Building and old castle; I am sure that I will have close-in pictures of this at a later time.

Szczecin was a major shipbuilding center though much of this is now inactive.  The shipbuilding cranes and other equipment are amazing to see – huge!  Szczecin was part of the U-boat building campaign during the war, and was consequently heavily bombed.  What I learned in conversation with someone on the boat is that the U-boat hulls were built in a city in southern German, and then floated down the river to Szczecin, with construction proceeding while being moved along the river.  A lot of the interior outfitting was done in Szczecin.  From here the crews would be trained in the Baltic and then on to the Battle of the North Atlantic.

During the weekend my upstairs neighbors took me on a boat tour up the Oder River.  This is an old concrete barge that has run aground, and is quite the local tourist draw; you can see the reinforced concrete in the second picture.

Collecting chestnuts is a popular Polish tradition.  We of course do not see much in the way of chestnuts any more since the great dying of the a century ago, but here is what they look like, in the original spiny fruit, and once the fruit is opened.  Very pretty things.