Thanksgiving in Warsaw

Kirk and Sidney joined Kimber in Warsaw for the long holiday weekend. While it may seem a bit crazy to fly a third of the way around the world for five days, it has made a difference to all of us to get to spend a little time together with Kimber's travel schedule being what it is.


The hotel we are in is just down from Kimber's office, as well as just across the street from what is probably one of the most "recognized" buildings in Warsaw, the Palace of Culture and Science. The Palace was a gift to Poland from Josef Stalin and was built in 1955. While it is viewed as a symbol of the Communist era and not a favorite symbol of Warsaw for many people. It is quite lovely lit up and a purplish-blue at night, especially from the 43rd floor swimming pool of our hotel.


Kimber's office is located in the same building as a local mall. The wavy glass roof is the mall, and Kimber's office is located in the tower portion on the front. Marathon occupies part of the 6th floor.

I mention Kimber's office here for a special reason. We have celebrated many holidays in some interesting places over the past few years - Christmas in South Africa, Easter in Croatia and Germany, etc., and Thanksgiving here in Poland at Kimber's office. It was an eclectic mix of people that joined us for the "traditional" dinner, Scots, Brits, Poles, a Spaniard, as well as some other Americans. The menu was turkey, stuffing, gravy, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn on the cob, clam chowder, rolls, cheesecake, pumpkin pie and brownies. The food, prepared as a package by the Warsaw Marriott, was good, but not quite as unique as you would find around a family dinner table in the States. It was a wonderful evening of sharing, and quite interesting to see those that had never celebrated, and in some cases, knew little about Thanksgiving, all gathered together. Some had never eaten roast turkey, and the Spaniard commented that the carrots (actually sweet potatoes) were quite nice. It did remind me a bit of the spirit of the holiday, with a mix of different cultures coming together to share a meal and give thanks for all we have, and we, thankfully, shared it all as a family.


On Friday, we went to the Copernicus Museum of Science, a recent addition on the list of "things to do in Warsaw." Like other science centers, it is full of hands-on experiments and demonstrations for everyone, especially kids, to try. Here you see Sidney truly getting "hands-on", using her hands as a form to blow bubbles. There were lots of things to do, and the place was stuffed to the gills with kids of all ages learning and having a good time. After the museum, we had a nice walk back to the Fenicia Lebanese restaurant, a favorite of Kimber's since arriving in Warsaw.



Saturday was a relaxing day for us. We had a wonderful breakfast in the hotel, then walked down to a local park. Along the walk, we saw statues of Charles de Gaulle and Ronald Reagan. The statue of de Gaulle is positioned to face away from the former communist party headquarters. The statue of Reagan sits across from the U.S. Embassy. Reagan, as you may recall, was president during the time of the Solidarity movement, and was monumental in the change from communism to capitalism in Poland.

The park we visited, Ujazdowski park, had a great playground for Sidney, as well as a nice pond and sculptures. It was first opened in 1896, but has been updated many times since. There are several rare tree specimens, as well as brown-tufted squirrels and ducks.



Sidney played for a while, then we walked down the street past the university botanical gardens and parliament to the Lazienkowski park. The monument to Chopin is here. This is the monument featured on the Warsaw coffee mug from the Starbuck's city collection. A picture of it can be found in Kimber's earlier "Poland Part 1" post.

We made one more stop back at the playground before heading back to the city center. We took a trip up to the top of the Palace of Culture and Science to get a look at the city from a different perspective. While it wasn't as high as the view from the 43rd floor of our hotel, it was clearer because there was no glass between us and the view. The picture of Kimbers office building was taken from up here.


After returning to the hotel for a break, we headed back out to the Old Town to take in the Christmas Market. There were booths set up selling traditional foods, crafts and lots of other stuff. It is located on the square where the "Little Mermaid's Sister" fountain is. Those that have followed the blog for a while may remember a picture of Sidney here about a year and a half ago when Kirk and Sidney did their camping trip. Here is a more up-to-date picture of her with the mermaid.


We shopped a little, then headed for dinner at a restaurant called U Kucharzy. It is located in the kitchen (literally, the restaurant is in the kitchen) of the old Hotel Europejski. We were able to snag a table right beside the stoves and ovens and watched as the cooks prepared the traditional Polish fare around us. The food was fantastic! Kimber had cucumber soup and veal meatballs in a cream dill sauce, I had beef wrapped in cabbage, and Sidney had perogies. And for those in Texas, H.E.B. sells perogies with this picture on front. We, however, dined on much better perogies just a few blocks down from this statue. (The statue is King Sigismund, the man who made Warsaw the capitol of Poland.)



After dinner, we walked off our meal by going back to the hotel. We passed the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier along the way, and want to share it with you as well.

Sidney and Kirk head back to Houston tomorrow, with a six hour layover in Amsterdam. We are planning on trying the art museum at the airport (they have a couple of van Gogh's) and maybe a little duty free shopping. Kimber returns Tuesday, and we will be together again until Kimber heads to London the next week.

Trip to Poland Part 1

Kimber came to Poland after her latest trip to Africa. I am filling in for the HES Manager for two and a half weeks. I will be in Poland over Thanksgiving but Kirk and Sidney are coming over Wednesday through Sunday.

The first picture has nothing to do with Poland or Africa but is of Sidney as "Lady Bug Girl" for Halloween. The kids have to dress up as characters from a book for a Character parade rather than for Halloween. So this is what she looked like going to school. Only about half the costume made it home and by Halloween, she and the cat had worked it over pretty good and nearly all the fuzz was missing.

I arrived last Monday and worked all week. Thursday I went on an adventure by train three hours to Krakow and then three hours south-southeast of there to Debica to perform an audit on a waste disposal sight. It was an interesting adventure. The train was packed to Krakow and then nearly empty after that. We toured the facility and walked through our checklists before getting some late lunch/early dinner. We headed back to the train station only to wait for the train which was late by 85 minutes. It was a long day. We left at 6 am and arrived home at 1 am the next morning. We had first class tickets which I was grateful for but I have inserted a picture of a first class cabin. It seats six. Bathrooms are on the end of each car and they are well below the standard of an airplane bathroom.

I went on two walking tours this weekend though. One other note before I begin the details of the walking tours, is that I ate Sushi (other than California rolls) in Poland for the first time. There is a nice sushi restaurant in the mall. It is reliable with good prices and convenient.

Oh and my other comment is that the Intercontinental Hotel in Warsaw is very nice. I have a small apartment with a little kitchenette and nice view. It will be very comfortable when Kirk and Sidney visit. Second, breakfast is fabulous. There are waffles, pancakes, omelets, potatoes, veggies, sausages, bacon, ham, etc for hot food. Multiple cereals, yogurts, cottage cheeses, and rolls. There is fresh fruit including watermelon and pineapple. Sliced meats and cheeses as well as smoked salmon. It is better than any breakfast I have ever seen. Kirk and Sidney will love it. Plus, there is a harpist after 8 am every morning except Sunday. It is fantastic.

So Saturday, after sleeping late and fattening myself, I set out to walk to Old Town. i walked down several of the main shopping streets, looking at the variety of shops. For those who know me, I didn't venture into them. One is that I am not crazy about shopping and two is the language barrier. But it was nice to see what was out there.

I also didn't take many pictures on Saturday because Kirk and Sidney had been here in the summer, and it was cold and gray now. Pictures would require me to uncover my hands and they were cold. So I walked along the roads here that make up "the Royal Way". This route led me into the Old town where I saw several churches, monuments and museums as well the Mermaid of Warsaw. There are few really old buildings here as most of the town was destroyed in 1944. The most notable thing I walked by was the Warsaw Uprising Monument. The uprising started 1 August 1944 and lasted 63 days. Some 200,000 polish people died in the uprising against the Germans. The monument was built prior to the end of the occupation of Poland by Russia.

My intention Sunday was to get to a large park in the opposite direction of the Old Town. I fattened myself up again on breakfast and started out. I was headed for Park Lazienkowski. However, I got terribly lost trying to get there. I made a complete wrong turn somewhere and ended up in an area of town with some very old communist looking apartments. I was feeling a bit out of league and nearly panicked. But I figured out where I was and moved quickly back in the right direction. I never felt unsafe, only uncomfortable.

Getting to the park was a real reward though. It was lovely even in the dreary winter. I was surprised to see peacocks among the other birds (ones I don't like say pigeons). There were also tufted brown squirrels that were a bit aggressive. I stopped to look at one and it jumped half way up my leg. I had no food and didn't even look like I had food. Here is a picture of the lady peacocks since they always get neglected. They are hanging out in an empty fountain.

I spent about two hours in the park, watching people and kids. Several people were feeding the smaller birds from their hand. It was a pretty nice day, even sunny.

On the walk home, which was much more direct and easy I might add, I saw the Frederic Chopin monument. The pool in front was drained but it was still very nice. Like much else in Warsaw though, it was a rebuild after the war. I also walked by the Botanical Garden, which is closed for the winter, and another smaller park that had a great playground. The walk home was much more pleasant than the walk there and now I know where I am going. I was starved again as I had been walking for over 4 hours. So I got a Kebab, which is like a huge Giro Sandwich and costs approximately $5. It was sooooo good.

We will likely take Sidney to the park to play. We are also going to try to go tot he new science museum, the Kopernik Science Center. We have heard it is very popular and hard to get into.

We also intend to eat a lot and play a lot. The pool is on the 43 floor so you are swimming at the height of the clock on the Palace of Science and Culture. That is a unique experience. There are also some indoor play places to try. And the Marriott delivers Thanksgiving dinner so several people from the office are getting together for dinner on Thursday at the office.

May UK Trip

Ok so like many of our posts these days, this one is well, months behind. But I suppose better late than never.

Kimber went to the UK for just over a week in late April/early May. Now for all purposes, the weather should have been bad. However, remarkably it was incredible. The sun was out every day and it was wonderfully warm. Here is a picture of a street in Aberdeen.

I went over as part of a team to help review preparations for a shutdown offshore. Because of this I had the opportunity to go offshore to the East Brae Platform. What a group pf top notch people. They are committed to safety and success. I was on East Brae for 24 hours. I was fortunate enough on the flight back to land on our other two UK platforms, Brae Alpha and Brae Bravo, as well as a platform that is not ours, Piper Bravo. Piper Bravo sits very close to where Piper Alpha used to sit. Piper Alpha was destroyed in 1988 in a major offshore disaster that killed 167 men. It was quite humbling to remember that incident and recall why it is I do what I do, which is help Marathon manage major accident risk.



Before I get into my touring adventure, I also thought you might like a couple of these unique pictures. The first picture is the Heerema Hermod, one of the largest semi-submersible crane vessels in the world. This vessel can lift 8100 metric tonnes. The second picture shows the Hermod with several service vessels nearby.

After we returned from offshore, we had roughly a half day to tour the Aberdeen country side. One of the people on the team is from the Aberdeen area so he took us on a bit of a tour outside of Aberdeen.

Our first stop was Dunnottar Castle. This is a ruined medieval fortress near Stonehaven on the Scottish east coast. The ruins are on an outcrop of land and are very much exposed. The ruins vary in age and condition but the site is quite lovely. One of the pictures of the ruins shows another photographer actually using an old fashioned camera for some shots on this lovely day.
A landscape of the castle was chosen as one of the desktop wallpaper images for Microsoft for the "United Kingdom" desktop theme for Windows 7. In addition parts of the 1990 film Hamlet were shot here.

After that we ate fish and chips at the Bervie Chipper in Inverbervie.

Once we were full and content, we drove through the Scottish Highlands along the "Slug Road" over to Banchory. We were glad John was driving as the roads were narrow and windy as well as everyone was going the "wrong" way on the street. We walked along a golf course beside the River Dee and I am sure the golfers thought we were nuts. It was very pleasant being that it was spring.

We also saw the Blackhill War Memorial which was built in 1923. It honors those from the First and Second World War.


We stopped in some little town for dinner before heading back to Aberdeen and work the next day. It was a lovely day with a nice guided tour.