rawa mazowiecka or my observations so far

i am fully sentimental when it comes to poland so when the time came to go and visit my grandma’s grave i knew it was going to be an emotional couple of days. the town, called rawa mazowiecka is an hour and a half away from warsaw. after spending a night on the train, we got off the west train station in THE CAPITAL and took a bus without even sneaking a peak at the upcoming attractions. we walked around the town, which has grown to a fair size over the past years, it is super clean and everyone is so helpful and pleasant it is impossible to not to fall in love with small town poland (it’s a world of difference from the big cities where everyone looks at you funny if you dare to even smile). time slows right down in rawa. i can’t imagine anything is ever rushed here. everyone also seems to care about what they wear (+), it maybe doesn’t go as far as having unique personal style the way we refer to it today (even though you could argue this), everyone always looks put together and well dressed (there are no lazy sweat pant days here, that’s for sure). more people than ever use bikes as a means of transportation, and in a small place like rawa everyone is in on it, including the elderly (+), which is both heart warming and actually physically good for them (insert applause for the polish folk). i have a soft spot for older polish people, i think they all look so sweet, they also all coincidentally look like both of my grandma’s, falling into either/or category, i would adopt them all if i could. the saddest part is that in poland they have a very hard life (-), the government does not help as much as they should and many older people scramble to live off what they get. it gets so bad you can sometimes spot them searching through garbage for whatever they can find. it’s a sad reality here and i hope it doesn’t continue for much longer. additionally to a poor standard of living these people often have to deal with the declining manners of the younger generations (in their desperate, and may i add completely uncenessary feat to become westernized?). i have not seen once on my trip so far someone my age offer their seat on the tram (-), something that used to happen without saying, everyone just knew that’s what is expected. they seem to have forgotten how to be compassionate towards one another. maybe when everyone is trying to make ends meet, there is little room left for that (?) shame. that said there are also many positive changes, none of which i am able to name right now, but there are many i promise you (refer to my upcoming warsaw post for examples). one un-airconditioned or ventilated sardine can ride later we were back in warsaw and ready to explore… 

p.s. respect your elders, you will be in their place soon and karma’s a bitch