The City of Ruins short film is a 3D spectacle which can be viewed in a 24-seater cinema in the Warsaw Uprising Museum in Warsaw.  In a previous blog post you can find out more about the museum itself but for now let's just concentrate on the film.  Firstly, you have to buy an extra ticket at the cash desk on top of the museum entrance to enable you to see the film, but it's cheap-costing only 2 zloty extra per person.
     After entering the museum, you have to join the queue for the film in the Liberator Hall (or there is a 2D showing in the Liberator replica plane).  The queue is quite long and you will probably be standing there for about 30 minutes, so allow about 45 minutes extra if you want to see the film.
  The film itself is very short but powerful, shocking and memorable.  You fly over the city at the end of the war seeing nothing but ruins and rubble.  You fly up the river and only one bridge is intact.  Then you fly to presumably the old town, which lies one hundred percent in ruins.  The animation is excellent, although you never really get a sense that it is animation because it is hyper realistic.  The music is also quite fitting, giving a haunting quality.  The only sign of life in the film are a few birds flying low around the rubble.  The statistics at the end of the film tell the grim tale of Warsaw's demise.  Before the war Warsaw had a population of 1.3 million, after the war there were 900,00 (who fled and then came back) but there were 1,000 people living in the ruins themselves immediately after the devastation.

If you are in Warsaw, make the effort to go to the museum and see this film.

The Warsaw Run for 2012 has been and gone.  This is not the Warsaw Marathon, as many people think, but it's over a distance of 10km (6 miles). Just like every year it was well represented, well-organised (although there was a little confusion from some stewards as to where the start line actually was) and ultimately a lot of fun.  It was shown live on the internet via a Polish TV channel streaming it and you could see the remote controlled helicam buzzing overhead , taking some shots.  There were over 10,000 participants and it was  some kind of Polish record.

I got my personal best and I'm looking forward to 2013.  Here's the website for signing up and info https://www.biegnijwarszawo.pl/

Due to the fact we live in Mokotow it's not surprising that this is our local shopping centre.  If luxury is what you want then it's all here.  In fact how some of these shops survive is beyond me.
With mostly Italian designer brands its target audience is people who like to spend, spend, spend.

If you shop around there are some handy retail establishments there.  Kuchnia Swiat has world brands and you can buy marmite and Pop Tarts in one go.  With, of course, free wifi, a Carrefour supermarket, cinema and a host of other features it does, for us, make for a pleasant local shopping experience.  Now undergoing a facelift in the food court area and with super hi-tech touchscreens for the shopper, it seems it is still going places.

website: www.galeriamokotow.pl