During the beginning of my trip, I found that I was in need of internet access in order to be able to upload and back-up my photos as I was unable to do so, temporarily, in the place I was staying. So I set out my search for an internet café, considering how popular they are all across Europe.
The closest one to me was Green Caffe Nero on Nowy Swiat in Warsaw, so I went there at about 6pm, hoping to find a place that would enable for me to work on my blog, backing up of my photos, and editing of those photos. The hope was that during the month-long stint, I would get a chance to actually work on my real loves: photography, and writing, most importantly sharing with all of you all that Warsaw is, and my love for the city.
A fifteen minute walk later, I found myself at the door of the Cafe. It was already late and getting cold, with a slight drizzle going on, and to my surprise, the cafe was full of people. I knew just by looking at it that it was not a hard-of-hearing friendly place, nor one that is friendly to conversations with others. But, finding no other easily available choices, I went in.
Not only was the restaurant loud, I soon found out that the internet was super-slow and it took me three hours to upload 100 photos to my cloud back up storage. Despite this, I found out that I really loved the fondant cupcakes–they are warmed up in the oven, and the outside of the cake is warm and soft, while the inside has liquid chocolate, and the coffee is like any other drip-coffee I had ever had and didn’t inspire anything from me.
As a result, during my month-long stint in Warsaw, I did not visit the coffee shop more than three times. In addition, I had an entertaining incident that was borderline scary at the time it happened in one of the Green Caffe Nero’s shops.
One night, after a particularly long day at work, my colleague and I went to the Green Caffe Nero right next door to the office, which is located in the Wola district of Warsaw. The cafe was much quieter than the one in Nowy Swiat, which is to be expected considering that this one was further from the “touristy” areas of town. My colleague went to the restroom, and a few minutes later, I get a phone call from her that she’s been locked inside. In a frenzy, I drop everything and rush around trying to find where the restroom is, and to my surprise, I encounter a worker of the caffe running to the restroom to me. At first the worker thought that my colleague had gotten locked in the restroom because the first main door didn’t have a lock; however, when we barged into the space, it turned out that she had gotten locked in the toilet. Mind you, this is a 10 by 5 foot box, and if you’re claustrophobic, it’s not a place you want to be locked in, especially if you’ve got an overly active imagination. While I stayed with my coworker, letting her know that I’m not leaving her alone, and trying to soothe her so that she’s not freaking out, the Cafe worker ran around the cafe trying to get security for the key to the restroom. 5 minutes after my phone call, one of the workers comes in and tries a key, but it doesn’t work. 10 minutes later, the security guy showed up and unlocked the door. We could not thank everyone enough for the way that they handled the situation.
Overall, my experience with this cafe is mixed. In my opinion, it’s not a hard-of-hearing friendly space because they have loud music playing, and also because the whole area echoes a lot, due to the high ceilings and materials used to design the space that makes it very echo-y.
The Girl with The Red Backpack 