Do Expectations Shape Experience?

It’s hard to know how much expectations shape experience. To begin with, we did not expect to go to Poland, so I didn’t have any sense of what the country might be like from the reading I could have done in guide books, etc. When we arrived in Warsaw the only background I had was from high school history and the WW2 documentaries on the “Military Channel”, which means I had a vague memory of Poland being the country that was Germany’s test run in 1939, I had seen before & after 1945 pictures of Warsaw and I figured that Auschwitz Concentration Camp was around here somewhere. As a result, I’m not sure if life in Poland is still influenced by the WW2 experience, or if that’s what I was most aware of. Regardless, our time in Poland was a experience of the energy and fun of the present with the tragedies of the past.

On our first day in Warsaw we went to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, it’s an interactive, multi-sensory experience that tells the story of the people of the city resisting the German occupation forces. We learned through films, diaries, photos, artifacts, and even a model sewer to crawl through, just the way the resistance fighters did. (Not quite the real thing, though, ‘twas dry and there was no smell!). John’s favorite display was a full size airplane, a replica of the ones that were used by the Allies to drop supplies to the city. Most of the pilots were Polish men who had escaped and enlisted in the RAF. We could use an interactive computer screen to isolate and view 3D pictures of parts of the plane, then go back to the real thing and identify them. It was really interesting. One new fact we learned was that the Polish suspicion of Russians is well founded. The uprising was timed to coordinate with the Russian army advance into the city, but -- while the resisters in the city fought to the last one standing the Russians camped just a kilometer or two away on the other side of the river and watched the city burn. They did not enter and take it over from the Germans until it was completely flattened.

The next day we went to the re-built old town. Using photos, plans and old drawings the city was rebuilt just as it was before the war. It’s a bit like a movie set - and very beautiful. The day we were there was a “walk for peace”…or was it the environment? Anyway, there were thousands of folks walking through the main pedestrian areas of the city carrying matching bags and flags. There were serious race-walkers right down to groups of families with children in strollers. We walked through the park where it the start/finish was organized and saw the bands playing, etc. That was the modern side of Warsaw. (So was the American book store, where we found the next book in the dragon series John is reading!)

Another experience of modern Poland was our room mate in the 4 bed dorm at our hostel. He’s a neuro-scientist from the university in Gdansk, and was in town for a conference. He spoke perfect English, in fact he told us that the research in his field is all in English and anyone, anywhere in the world, who wants to work in neuroscience has to learn English to do it. He told us some interesting stories about the changes since Soviet times - he’s in his early 30s, he said remembers things like the stores being empty and learning Russian in school, but as a child he didn’t really understand why. He was really interested to know why Canadian tourists would come to Warsaw, and curious to know what we thought of Polish people. Since he was the only one we had met, other than the staff at the hostel, it was hard to generalize, but based on our experience with him, I’d say Polish people are kind, friendly, and happy to help a stranger.