On our hunt for drinkable chocolate, we came across more Christmas fun which of course inspired a picture. Wish I could have had my kids along for this one!
Finally! The hot chocolate shop was located. And it did not disappoint. Among long lists of flavors, there was an intruiging chili orange dark chocolate that called my name. It started as traditional chocolate, melted and steamed with milk, followed by a spoon with a hunk of solid flavored chocolate placed in the cup so that it slowly melted and absorbed as you stirred. Brilliant! Delicious, warm and slightly spicy. Mmmmmm
The other odd thing about this store was that it had a game attached to the wall where you had to guess the scent of chocolate from each perfume bottle. I got 100% of them wrong. They were all obscure types of cocoa from Madagascar and other African locations. European chocolate is so complex that you can never quite tell what you are going to get - some smell like honey and others smell slightly spicy or sweet. Very fun!
Eventually we boarded our plane for Warsaw and arrived in short order - only a 1.5 hour flight. Painless compared to 7 hours over the Atlantic! The people here have been very nice, even though taxi drivers and general people on the street do not speak English. All the professionals working in the airport and the hotel and restaurants do speak English though - thankfully! I've learned a few key Polish phrases which I've been practicing as often as I can:
Thank you - dziękuję (JEN-COO-YA)
Good day - dzień dobry (JEN - DOE - BRAY)
Yes - Tak (TOCK)
A few other interesting facts about Poland before I go on with my story:
Skinny jeans with rolled cuffs are SUPER in..... on both men and women. Yeaaahh. The 80's called and they want their pants back!
Polish money is called złoty (not to be confused with the word "slutty")
We arrived at our hotel named Hotel Intercontinental - a plush and gorgeous 43 story hotel in downtown Warsaw. It has a fantastic view of downtown and lovely accommodations:
Also - a built in glass wall cabinet for glasses in every room (really?)
Bath accommodations in our rooms came all the way from exotic..... San Fransisco! Oooo la la
Also - intriguingly - another chocolate shop attached to the hotel. So what did we do? Go check out the hot chocolate menu yet again to see how Polish chocolate compares to Dutch. With a fabulous list of at least 20 kinds, I finally landed on gingerbread flavor and paired it with a lovely fruit tart. The result - a stomachache!! Chocolate overload that I never knew was possible! Chocolate here is so rich you can have it for an entire meal and eat nothing else. The spoon practically stands up by itself in the glass. Heavenly.
For dinner at 7:30 we decided to try to eat some proper dinner-like food and headed over to the only non-Polish restaurant in town - Hard Rock Cafe. (A special request from my boss who also asked if we could go to Starbucks this morning.... but I overruled him). We enjoyed the quintessential HRC experience and decided to mark the event with some fabulous commercial wear, sported by Sophie and Christopher below. Yes, we are products of society!
Returning to the hotel, I saw a little jewelry store and remarked over the most amber I have ever seen in one place in my life. Look at the size of those rocks! Unreal.
Ok, it's now 11:30pm and I've only slept 2.5 hours since yesterday! Time for bed and another early day starting with breakfast at 7:45am. Have a great night everyone! Dobranoc!
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