I just spent a couple of days in Warsaw for the first time in a few years (not counting some less than full days I’ve spent going to or coming from somewhere else). I’ll have a few more posts on the trip but the main thing I noticed was just how much more like every other goddamned place around it’s become.
What I think of now when I think of Warsaw…
I mostly avoided the main tourist trails but it was still tourists everywhere and tourists from everywhere. As usual tons of Americans and Israelis but also lots of French and Italians and Spanish speakers and Chinese, lots of Chinese. Even the antique flea market in Koło had lots more non-Poles than I ever remember seeing or hearing there (not just tourists but also obvious residents although I have no earthly idea where some of them were from…). The height of this probably came at an old indoor market which formerly sold food and household items has been re-outfitted into a hipster food court.
This is all normal and expected but I hadn’t quite realized it had gotten so far in the years since I was a frequent visitor…
Also… the group that surprised me was Georgians…. Georgian bakeries and restaurants have started to show up where I live but nothing like in Warsaw where there were probably over half a dozen within easy walking distance from my hotel. Now I’m wondering if they’re really Georgian or from other places using a better known ethnonym (at one point “Chinese” restaurants were invariably run by Vietnamese and Sushi places were run by Koreans).
The Worked Shoot 