Nov. 30, 2018: Warsaw at Night

Lonely Planet and multiple other travel guides often describe Warsaw as a misshapen patchwork of the old and the new, of the dull communist concrete and modern western steel, or another combination of this and that which don't seem entirely synergistic or complementary.   But, looking out our hotel window at the Warsaw Spire (second tallest building in Poland), I see something that must have been unimaginable in 1945 -- a thriving, rebuilt, and free Warsaw. 

Oh, and on top of that, the Spire is architecturally stunning. Built by a Belgian real-estate developer, the Warsaw Spire won an award in 2017 for best office and business development in the world.  That's quite a long ways from the dull, depressing, and homogeneously unadorned concrete that dominated the city during the days of Soviet communism. 

Nov. 29, 2018: Flying Lufthansa

If the term "Economy Light" doesn't scare you, it should.   I failed to read the fine print when buying our tickets to Poland and learned the hard way what Economy Light means.  All in all, Lufthansa employees were very polite about enforcing rigid 8 kg weight restrictions on our carry-on bags (as in how much of your clothing are you willing to wear in layers so they actually let you board the plane?), reminding us of the stiff $60 per checked bag fee, keeping us hydrated while we had a close encounter with our knees for ten straight hours in an ever-shrinking coach seat, and stealing all including our jackets when we were seated in exit rows (to create a clear path for even the Jolly Green Giant to exit the plane in an emergency).   I especially appreciated the 360 degree images of the plane on our seat back monitors as it flew over snow-covered countries en route to Europe. Watching the ground below me spin round and round to show off someone's idea of great in-flight graphics made my stomach turn over not once, not twice, but thrice per rotation. 

Nov. 29, 2018: Leaving Seattle

Navigating SeaTac airport for a 2:15 p.m. international flight was almost pleasant, something I never say about my home airport which seems to thrive on pushing the lesser beings on the planet like myself into one mind boggling, super size line at a single checkpoint that winds its way through the airport like a bowl of increasingly frustrated spaghetti.  All while the special people in the world (who pay their monthly fees to be special people) move quickly through one of the four remaining and largely empty security checkpoints. 

But, I digress.   Seattle from the air looks beautiful today, but the photo looks like it has been edited.  If you look closely, there is no traffic jam on I-90 -- a clear indication that someone has tampered with this photo.