I spent some time in Poland. I loved it. As someone who grew up in Northern Ohio, I’ve had Polish food for most of my life with my favorite being the Pierogi. I am very happy to say that I had pierogis in 3 different Polish cities! It was great to have authentic pierogis in Poland. I was talking to my dad my first night there (and the first of many pierogis) and I took about one bite before I decided that I should move there – my dad jokingly said that I should probably see more than my hostel and the restaurant before I made that decision. But it was so good – and honestly they just got better!

Warsaw

Warsaw was great! It was a lot of fun to explore around the city and see everything. A lot of the city had to be rebuilt after WW2, and the areas that didn’t have to be mostly were torn down and rebuilt anyway – so there was a lot of new buildings, roads, etc. They did a good job at keeping it authentic to their history though so if you didn’t know that, you may just think that it’s restored or very well taken care of.

On my second night there, I took a look at the different events happening at hostels around the city and ended up heading over to one of the nearby hostels for a game night. It was a lot of fun. I ended up meeting a lot of different travelers and after 2 rounds of us all staring blankly at each other when the questions in Trival Pursuit Master Class was asked, we switched to Heads Up and we all ended up laughing as we tried to mime our hints during the action pack. What made it even more hilarious was that for some of the people playing, English was a second language and they would know what it was but would describe it as best they could. It ended up causing some hilarious guesses that we counted.

Łódź

During my time in Warsaw, I decided to take a day trip out to Łódź (which is not at all pronounced how you may think in English. It’s pronounced “WOOTCH”). It was really good to see another city that was not only a bit smaller, but also not really a tourist area. I wandered around a huge amount of the city – completely by accident. I had set out to go to this mom and pop pierogi shop that I found, but when I got there I found that they were closed even though their hours showed opened. Not sure if it was just closed for the day or not, but it meant that I had to pivot. So I walked to the next place. It ended up being near downtown and they had their menu online so I was able to get it translated into English – but most of the staff didn’t speak English. It was great! Had the best pierogis of my trip there!

I did run into some worries getting back to Warsaw though thankfully it was more just my peace of mind than anything serious. I got a notice that my bus was going to be 30 minutes late, not a huge deal but it brought back memories of a 30 minute delay turning into 2 hours so I decided to start to look at alternate routes as a precaution. While looking at them, I found that there was only 2 more trains to Warsaw that day. One was leaving the exact new time as my bus and the other was at 9pm. I really wanted to avoid the 9pm one or I wouldn’t get back to Warsaw until midnight and would still need to make my way to the hostel. So started the time of trying to figure out if I wanted to buy the ticket for the train and lose out of the bus money but have a guaranteed earlier arrival back or wait out the bus. I ended up waiting out the bus, knowing that I did have one more option for a train after that. Thankfully it all worked out though and the bus arrived at the new time!

Kraków

After Warsaw and Łódź, I headed south to Kraków for two nights. I didn’t do much while there. Just explored downtown and some of the parks. I did – surprise surprise – eat my way around there too. My favorite (besides pierogi) was called a Zapiekanki. It’s basically a pizza but on halved baguette with the base being cheese and mushroom rather than marinara sauce. One of the workers at the hostel suggested a great place for them, and I headed there on my full day. It was amazing. Mine had salami, peppers, jalapeno, and hot sauce. I definitely suggest it!

Overall, it was a great trip to Poland and I would definitely return and spend even more time exploring the country! I may not decide to move there based on the food alone, but honestly there are worst reasons to move somewhere, and I’ll definitely be back.