Strolling the Neighborhood

Getting more comfortable with Warsaw, I took a stroll through the neighborhood I am living in. Although I am a man of words, at least most of the time, I do think visuals are quite helpful.

This is a typical string of apartment buildings. As you can see, pastels are still very in here in Warsaw. If you'll notice, in here, and other photographs, sidewalks have a dual purpose here: parking and walking. It is not uncommon for a pedestrian to be compelled out of self-preservation to look out as cars pull up in the sidewalk and park in a gingerly fashion.

I wish I could say you're not looking at what you're looking at. Unfortunately, as with any major city, an individual with a can of spray paint can make their opinions heard without compunction.

This is a picture of the main form of public transit, the Tram. Though a subway and buses exist, within the city center this would seem to be the preferred method of public transport.

One of the more interesting things about living in a growing, recovering city, is perhaps the juxtaposition of old and new guard. In the foreground, a very trendy piece of architecture (perhaps a financial center) and behind it, an older (but it may not even be that old, relatively, for Europe) structure. The division is startling. Think about the old photograph of the Foshay tower in Minneapolis sitting in front of the gargantuan IDS Center after it was built in the early seventies.

No, that's not Hyundai's corporate headquarters in Poland, that's an apartment building. As in the United States, any building or wall is fair game for advertisers. Thinking about it though, that's kind of helpful in a way. When describing where one lives, what better marker could you have than, "I live under a gigantic Hyundai sign?"

And a little slice of home. That's a Victory motorcycle, one of the few American motorcycle companies in the United States now that Excelsior-Henderson and Indian Motorcycles went under (and that leaves Harley-Davidson and Victory, I think). Guess who owns Victory: Polaris. Where's Polaris operated and manufactured: you guessed it, Minnesota. This bike was shipped here. I wanted to touch it, but it's another man's bike.