Kids can only go so fast for so long and then they break down. Yesterday, L broke down. Today, therefore, became an unplanned rest day. The Girls headed off to find a doctor to clear up a thing or two about L’s cough; the Boys headed back to the Old Town to wander about a bit.

We walked along the river before cutting back into the main Old Town area when we discovered this contraption.

“Is that the real engine, Daddy?”

We were able to see the changing of the guard.

“Are they practicing for war when there’s not even a war, Daddy?”

We got to see the monument to the victims of the Smolensk crash, which has evolved into the Polish equivalent of the grassy knoll among conspiracy-minded Poles.

We got to go into a church that had the the host on display for adoration without a soul in sight actually adoring it.

It was a nice morning for the Boys. The Girls? Well, probably better not to ask: looking for a doctor while on vacation can’t possibly be pleasant at all, even in a city like Warsaw.

Afternoon — lunch with a friend I haven’t seen in twenty years. He’s been in Poland since 1994, I think, and in Warsaw since 1996, I think. Give or take a year. He’s got his own company, a wife and two kids, a house — the American dream has come to Poland. But was it ever really just the American dream?

Late afternoon, we head to the Palace of Culture and Science, a gift from Stalin in the fifties. The story goes that Stalin offered Warsaw either the Palace or a subway. Varsovians chose the subway; Stalin gave them this.

That’s the story I’ve heard. I don’t think it’s true, but it’s a good story, and knowing the little bit I know about the Stalinist Soviet Union, it still has the ring of authenticity. What I do know is that it was begun at a time, in the early 1950’s, when most of Warsaw was still in ruins. It seems the height of arrogance to build such a colossus when the rest of Warsaw was in the state it was in, but Stalinism was never really about subtlety.

The views from the observation deck on the thirtieth floor are great. Varsovians have an old joke: the best place to view Warsaw is from the Palace, because that’s the only place you can’t see the Palace, but the truth it, it’s so centrally located that it just makes for great viewing whether or not it itself is visible.

And finally, I got to relive a scene from my favorite Polish movie of all time, Mis.

“A teraz, Pan ma relaks…”