Winter Break recap!

Ferie Zimowe recap-

In Poland we got a week and half for Christmas break, and then we got two weeks as the "Winter break" that signifies the end of the semester. So here is a recap of my two weeks. 🤗

Berlin!

Day 1- woke up early and took an Uber to the train station. I had time for McDonald’s breakfast (ranked 4/5 on my list of McDonald's in countries I've been to). Treated myself to first class on the train, so I had a reserved seat by the window! Unfortunately it was a backwards facing seat. (If you know me, you know I’m the queen of getting motion sick) so I took a Dramamine and hoped for the best! And I’ll have you know I was fine! I even was able to read my book!... My head did feel a bit funny a few times but I never got nauseous. That’s a win in my book!... 

 Polish Country Side

 Arriving in Berlin

The train took about 6 hours, and I arrived in Berlin around 4pm and said hello to my 22nd country! My hotel was about a 30min walk from the station, so I decided I’d walk after sitting for 6 hours... It was a beautiful walk! I walked past the Parliament building, some museum’s, the Brandenburg Gate, the memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe and the Großer Tiergarten Park. I checked in to my hotel, and then went to a cute place for dinner! Their specialty was hotdogs and bratwurst! It was delicious! I called it an early night since I had a tour in the morning.

 Parliament Building

 Brandenburg Gate

Me 💛

BBQ Cheddar hotdog & Chile Cheese Fries

My tour started at 10:30, but since I wasn’t sure where I was going I took an Uber and got there about 20min early. I was able to grab Starbucks and wait for the rest of my group. We had a small group of 10 people. The guide was great and very funny! He was an art history major so the tour was more artsy than I would have preferred, but there was enough history to keep me happy. He walked us all around the main sights giving us art and history info as we walked... I’ll put a caption with each picture below!

 Berlin Cathedral

 Don't remember the name, but Hitler use to give his speeches from here

Little tiles like this all over Berlin to remember those taken to Concentration Camps.

 Me with the Brandenburg Gate

 From the middle of the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe

 Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe

 Topography of Terrors museum- part of the Berlin Wall

 Checkpoint Charlie

 Section of the Berlin wall

After the tour I explored around on my own and went back to a museum to learn some more/take some pictures. I ended up back at my hotel- the Berlin Marriott is in a great location, let me tell ya!😉 And had a late lunch at the hotdog place from the previous night. This time I tried the Currywurst per a suggestion from my friend Martha! It was delicious! I decided I should have had it the night before too. Haha. It was still early in the day so I decided to go explore some more. I ended up at the Berlin Aquarium! It was relatively small but still really cool. It had 3 floors- 1st was fish/sea animals, 2nd was reptiles- snakes YUCK!, and then the 3rd was insects- also yuck! I’d say I spent about an hour and half at the aquarium. When I left it was raining, so I called an Uber and went back to my hotel. I decided to treat myself again and booked a last minute massage! And let me say it was sooooo worth it! I was so exhausted from walking 18,000+ steps around Berlin and relaxed from the massage that I fell asleep around 10pm.

 Currywurst! So delicious!

 Jelly fish!

And with that, my Berlin trip was concluded. I woke up the next morning, packed up, checked out and walked back to the train station. I grabbed some McDonald’s and headed back to Warsaw... Yes it was a short trip but I feel I made the most of it. And I will definitely be coming back to Germany again soon!🤗

Lauren in Poland!

Lauren came to visit me for part the of the break. She was here for a full week (Jan 30th to Feb 6th). I met her at the airport when she arrived and we traveled back to my place. We stopped along the way to have lunch at Jeff’s- I see it every Friday on my way to work. It’s supposedly an American style roadhouse. Neither Lauren or I were impressed with the food or the service. We also stopped along the way for snacks/drinks for our tour the following day. We just had a relaxed night at home catching up and chatting about everything.

Jan. 31st-  We took a tour of Auschwitz and Birkenau. The tour company picked us up at 4am😳. It was about a 4.5 hour drive from Warsaw. When we arrived at the memorial we met up with the rest of our tour group (we are assuming they started from other cities, as there was about 4 different drivers).. Our group had tickets to visit the memorial at 9am. Our actual guide wasn’t the greatest (not very personable) but gave us lots of information about the camp. Visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau was a very somber and eye opening experience. I experienced so many emotions during the tour and after the tour once I was home. Below are some pictures of the camps, and out of respect of the millions of people who died there I didn’t take any pictures inside the buildings (where they lived, worked, died, etc).. I visited Auschwitz the day after “ Holocaust Memorial Day” and the whole time I was there a statistic I saw stuck with me- “if we held a moment of silence for every victim, we’d be silent for 11.5 years”...

A lady from another tour, left that picture of her Grandfather.

Feb. 1st- The next day we decided to pamper ourselves a bit, and I booked massage appointments for us! We were able to sleep in and relax before the in-home masseuse came. My massage was fantastic!! (What can I say, I like massages! And yes I did treat myself to two in the same week💁🏻). That afternoon/evening we ventured over to Wilanow to see the Palace and the lights! It was beautiful all lit up! We had a blast wandering around and taking pictures! I can’t wait to go back this summer when the garden is blooming! I’m sure it will be absolutely gorgeous!!

Feb. 2nd to 4th-  Prague, Czech Republic- country #23 for me!!

While Lauren was visiting we took a coach bus to Prague (10hrs on a bus😝). The bus ride wasn’t bad just longggg. We left Warsaw at 7am and arrived in Prague around 5:30pm. We had a short walk from the bus station to our hotel- good planning on my part! We checked in, went to our room and set out to find dinner. We couldnt really decided what we wanted, so we ended up at the restaurant in the hotel. It was very good! I had a steak and mashed potatoes and Lauren had a burger and fries😜. We each got dessert- traditional apple tart for me and piña colada ice cream for Lauren. After dinner it was bed time- traveling takes a lot of energy.

The next morning we woke up to SNOW! It was beautiful. We got ready and headed out to explore. We just walked- no map- and found all the highlights! (Now I realize this makes me sound exactly like my dad (shhhh! Don’t tell him!), but I was pretty proud of myself for exploring without a map or GPS). We saw the Old Town Square, the Astronomical Clock, several churches, Charles Bridge, John Lennon Wall, and the Prague Castle (from a distance lol). We ended up back in the old town square for lunch. I had schnitzel and Lauren had some sort of beef goulash type thing. While the snow was beautiful and made for a fun adventure, by the time we stopped for lunch we were both soaked and frozen- thankfully the restaurant had heaters and blankets! We decided to call it a day and headed back to the hotel to dry out our coats and shoes before we had to head back out for our evening adventure- river dinner cruise!

Me in the middle of a courtyard

In the square

The Astronomical Clock

Don't remember what this was, but it was beautiful

The walk way along the river

I loved the colors of all the buildings

Prague Castle in the background

Just a pretty street

Another view from the town square

The dinner cruise was fun! It was only partly full so there was lots of room on the boat and lots of yummy food! We cruised along the river and got to see most of the famous highlights lit up. The food was very good! We had beef goulash, rice, au gratin potatoes, chicken schnitzel, salami, different cheeses, bread, soup and apple tarts for dessert. They had a 2-man-band that played music as we cruised along. The river cruise was the perfect ending to a short trip to Prague.

 There was a snowman on the dock before we got on the boat.

 The Charles Bridge

The Prague Castle

Perfect ending to our trip.

Monday morning we woke up, checked out and wandered around for a little bit and had lunch before catching our bus back to Warsaw. We got back to Warsaw right around midnight, got an Uber home and went straight to bed.😴

the view from the bus

Feb. 5th- on this day Lauren and I took advantage of not having any plans and slept in since we got back to the apartment so late the night before. Once we got up and started functioning we bundled up and headed to Old Town Warsaw. We were so busy chatting on the tram that we missed our stop and had to take a little detour. When we finally got to Old Town we walked around looking at everything. It’s beautiful and so full of history. We found a cute little cafe place to eat and just enjoyed being in the area. It was the perfect relaxed day. On the way back to my apartment we stopped for groceries and just had a chill night at home watching movies... The next morning Lauren had her flight back to London. I’m so glad that I met Lauren in China and that we’ve had so many adventures together. Can’t wait for our next adventure in April.

The rest of the two weeks I didn't really do anything. I planned my lessons for the week coming up, caught up on some TV shows, and binge watched Grey's Anatomy. I also spent a lot of time researching and planning with my Dad for my parents trip to Europe this summer! Lets just say that my dad has been bitten by the travel bug and if all goes according to plan, I will have 30 countries on my list by September! ✈️🙌🏻

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Upcoming adventures:

London for Easter & Laurens 25th Birthday

Switzerland in May

Mom coming to Poland in June

Travel-bonanza with the parents in July

Home for part of August

France at the end of August

Back to Work in September

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As always I hope you have enjoyed my blog (I know this one is a longggggg one)! 

If you have any tips/suggestions for me on any of my upcoming travel locations please let me know! And feel free to invite yourself to tag along on any adventures! I would love to have you join me! 😊


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Adios for now,

Margaret💛

 

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