today was the first non-jetlag day finally. so we got up early-ish and hit as many museums as we could get to. first on the list was the pharmacy museum and it didn't disappoint. everything we talked about in our first book and the forthcoming book is there and lots more too: bahnkes, feldshers, herbs galore, Paracelsus, to name a few highlights. I took too many pictures to put them all in so here are just a couple highlights. Poppy:
special glass bottles. i took this one for Jiemei because she collects this kind of glass that glows:
Calamus root, probably a tincture:
while we were in the cozy pharmacy museum it began to snow, not in flakes but large blobs. eventually we got to an old fashioned bakery cafe called Blikl that is famous for its rose jam filled donuts. I ate it too quickly to take a pic but here is a view of some snow
today was another perfect day for a cup of "winter tea" that is served everywhere and a lot like an ancient eastern european drink called "sbiten" that we wrote about in our new book. Every restaurant and cafe has their own herbal variation but they all serve it with raspberry syrup, a medicinal that was extremely popular in the shtetls - below my cup is a bottle of this cold and flu remedy sporting its latin name Rubus idaeus in the pharmacy museum:
we had other lunch dishes at Blikl as well but by the time i remembered to take pictures of them they were half eaten. i had a smoked salmon salad with grapefruit and tomato and A had some kind of matyes herring that included potatoes, mushrooms and a mustard dressing. we were the only americans in there, just us amongst lots of gossiping retirees.
i have to stop here. we kind of had a rude awakening that we have to leave Warsaw tomorrow not saturday and so had to rearrange our travel plans and mental preparations... it's going to be snowing here and in lithuania and very cold. we're taking a bus first thing for eight hours to vilne... i'll try to finish up today's whirlwind post while en route so stay tuned!
some clues about part 2:
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