Warsaw and Jacob

One of Fritz's Warsaw accomplishments was meeting Jacob (you pronounce it Yah-cobe since it's Polish), a 6-foot-5 Polish guy who recently finished his master's in English Philology.  He's an expert on Steven King novels, which was the topic of his master's thesis.  In addition to being extremely well-read when it comes to classic American literature (and Steven King thrillers), he hopes to publish the Polish translation of Nathanial Hawthorn's last untranslated novel.  

We met Jacob for dinner and found him to be one of the most earnest and focused people imaginable.  While Fritz and I were trying to small talk him at the start of dinner, he wanted to jump right into the meat and potatoes of Fritz's project.  Fritz and Jacob were connected because Fritz needed a Polish speaker to help him search through Polish financial archives and then translate them to support his research on communist debt during the Cold War.  Not quite as exciting as The Shinning but Jacob seemed totally motivated to go right to work on the project.  

Fritz and Jacob spent 3 hours together on Thursday morning searching for resources that might be relevant to Fritz's topic.  

I joined the two of them for a morning coffee, but skipped out for more walking and exploring while the weather was nice.  

The Palace of Culture and Science is pictured on the left.  

I made my way back to Old Town since the rain kinda put a damper on my sightseeing experience the day before. 

Can you see me?  I'm over on the right side of the picture. 

You can tell this area is meant just for tourists based on the average "uniform".  When they think no one is looking, the Polish royals take calls on their smartphones. 

No city is complete without its very own Pigeon Man!

Pictured above is the famous mermaid statue.  It's in the central square of Old Town.  When we asked Jacob what kind of traditional Polish gifts we should bring back for our families, he suggested a miniature of the mermaid statue.  Sadly, we never made it back to the souvenir shop to pick one up.  Sorry family, we did not get any of you a Warsaw mermaid paperweight. 

I took this picture because as Fritz pointed out, "the average car driven on the streets of Warsaw, is far nicer than the city itself."  Though I have to say, I think many of the pictures I took capture some rather lovely parts of the city.