Wednesday – Recovering
At 6:45, I buzzed my boss' room to get some drugs to relieve the achy pain I still had. 15 minutes later, he was at my door with a pill. I felt like hell, so I went back to bed where I stayed until 11:00.

I logged on to my work, got ready and was at the meetings at 1:00 or so.

The meetings went well. I was surprisingly awake and felt like I was getting a lot out of the session and had some things to contribute. The meetings ended around 3:45.

Janusz, the boss, had planned a nice afternoon for us. We were to go to the Palace of Science and Culture Panaroma deck and stroll through the exhibit they had on the mind. We left at 4:15 or so and headed to "Stalin," the affectionate name of this building.

Later, we met our group in front of the tomb of the unknown soldier, where a very loud man in his 60s walked us around, offering history, etc.

The man was a nice guy, a bit selective in his history. (For example, he talked about Russia as being "the Evil Empire," but really brushed over the "whole Nazi thing."

My guess is that it was about 20F outside. Really freaking cold. Some people in the group did not have hats & gloves. I had forgotten my scarf, but I was wearing my trusted Old Navy wool jacket that had served me all through my winter Eastern Europe trip in January. While I had worn decent walking shoes, they soon got wet and, without my wool socks, my toes froze.

The tour went on and on. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it; it's just it could have been a bit shorter. The guy was a tad senile and repeated himself a lot—one factor for the half hour tour becoming 1 hour 15 minutes.


Warsaw Old Town square at night. Does it look like it's 20F outside?

Finally, we arrived at the old town square. It was really nice, but I was ready to get inside. Although the group had solid food, I just had some bread and two different types of soups. I was still not feeling well and I didn't want to push things too much.

I was sitting at the end and I could not hear much and my head was a bit woozy. I decided it would be best to leave. I quietly bid my farewell to my boss, not wanting to break up the party.

One person in my group really gets on my nerves. The person constantly complains about Poland and she doesn't realize people may take offense to what she says. Tonight it was cold and she was complaining about it like it was the next ice age. I finally told her that "she probably wouldn't complain if she were out in the cold, in Beijing." I think she got the picture and shut her mouth. There are a couple of reasons why she is so successful at pressing my nerves, but I'll not go into it.

I got back to the hotel, blogged and immediately hit the sack. I couldn’t sleep right away, though. I called Kevin then laid in bed unable to sleep.
- posted by Matt @ 4:30 AM