The sweet night bus of Poland - The Buho Harry Potter Style

So, we blew into Warsaw today, via Norwegian Air from Copenhagen.

We had really great (read hot) weather in Kopenhagen. We wandered
around a bit, rented some bikes for a fortune, and had plenty of time
at the airport.

Quick segway (sic). The Kopfenhagen airport has one of those malls in
it, that all the cool airports have these days. They are so "pijo".
The duty free shop has now expanded to an entire floor, and basically
all space that is not an actual boarding area is now a selling floor.

We managed to escape their clutches but still dropped about 45 bucks
on two sandwiches, a coke, a muffin and a bag of chips.

We are glad to be out of that country. Pricey!

Well, back to Harry Potter.

Our flight was delayed, meaning (importantly) that we landed in Warsaw
after the magic 11:00 (23:00) hour. At that hour, normal buses stop
running. I tried to plan ahead, and bought some zloty's in
Køpfenhagen. I got some 20 bills (worth about 10 bucks) and was raring
to go.

So, we land, the busses are stopped, and I ask the info guy what to
do. He says "Night Bus". I say sweet, and am glad to avoid a 50 zloty
cab ride.

We head outside, and find the stop, and wait. Sweet. The bus comes in
5 minutes.

Let's talk about the bus first. Yellow, big, old. Not like a school
bus, but like one of those cars that's gotten dinged up enough, that
the owner goes to the junkyard and buys a whole new door, 'cept the
door is a different color than the rest of the car. Apply that to this
bus. It is mostly yellow, but there is some red, and probably some
brown too.

The driver. Older man, gray party hair (sticking out in cool ways).
Gruffly getting us on the door. Not pleased to see the crumpled 20
zloty bill I hand him. Shakes his head, and just waves me off. I show
him my map from www.hotels.com and hope that this guy shows me some
sign that we are going near our hotel, the Sofitel Victoria Warsaw.
Not so much. He turns the map around, fishes out his glasses, and
takes another gander.

Eventually he just ignores me, I tell Nicci to sit down, and we stuff
ourselves into the front seat.

This guy takes off. Everything is in Polish (duh). We (and actually
another dude got on, same sitch, same response, but still on the bus).

At 11:30 the streets are dead. Did you know there is a Jeff's Steak
House in Poland? On the road to the airport? In full neon (red and
green?) Hmmm.

So there are a bunch of stops, and this guys stops for a total of
about 9 seconds at each one. I didn't even notice the dinger button or
pull cord to indicate "Driver, I'd like to stop at the next stop,
please".

He just seemed to discern when to stop, or caught a clue from the
little old ladies working their way to the door.

We finally get into the central area, after about 30 minutes, and
start seeing large buildings, more neon, and city-ness.
We hope we are not in the wrong place, but relax when we see the
central train/bus/mall/casino that they have in the center of town.

A taxi queue. Yay.

So, we managed to get to Warsaw downtown for free, and had a cab
waiting for us.

Nice. I'm glad to be back on the mainland. Things have gotta be
cheaper here.

Best y'all.