SUNDAY-Up at 6:30 to drive to the airport which is about 40 miles out of town. Flew to Copenhagen for an hour and a half lay-over and met Erna and Evy of the Danish group for a chat and to lay plans for my later return. Then off to Warsaw in an old Russian Tubolev 104 which was a turbo-prop about the size of an Electra. The seats were crowded and the plane small but we made it. I arrived in Warsaw about 1 p.m. a little disturbed because I was behind the iron curtain on my own and the rest of the tour wouldn't arrive till about 11 p.m. that night. But I was met by the agent, escorted to a nice hotel, told how to spend my afternoon and did so, all very comfortably.
I "did" the Old Town which has been rebuilt from the foundations up as it was in the old days. They had to use pictures painted by famous artists and hanging in various galleries around the world to see what to do. Warsaw had been leveled almost to there being no two bricks stuck together. Yet you wouldn't know it today. They even found ways of antiquing the cement and stucco so that the buildings look "old" as they would have been prior to the war. There was great pride on the part of the Polish people for their country and their culture and what they had restored with their own hands. It is now a modern city with lots of large hi-rise apartments for the workers in what used to be the Jewish ghetto. Lest they forget, there are many reminders purposely left unrepaired or unremoved. Although the East Germans are also socialistic and therefore so-called "good" Germans, to the Poles they are all Germans and all alike.
I had a most interesting experience that afternoon. I was standing on a corner checking my map against the street signs and being kind of confused. A man of about 65 came up and asked if he could help. I told him my trouble, he straightened me out and we talked for some- time. He then asked if I would have a cup of tea with him, and thinking we'd sit in a little restaurant somewhere and because the conversation was interesting I agreed. He took my arm and we walked about a block when he turned into a doorway and said "right here". I thought it was a restaurant and inside, finding only a stairway, I thought maybe they had it on the second floor but we kept right on up to the fourth floor which turned out to be his room. I kind of wondered what I'd gotten myself into but decided I could handle the situation. We had tea and a most interesting conversation. After a time he had asked my name and as we were sitting on his little couch he began to be friendly and would touch my arm and address me as "Darling Virginia”. I turned sideways and put my knee up on the couch and my purse between us. After a bit he wanted to give me a present some Polish folk designs pasted on
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