Pretty picture in Warsaw, Poland

The Poles are proud of this building. I think it is super cool, and
looks a bit like the university of moscow building.

http://www.arl.wustl.edu/~gorinsky/anna/2005-08-04_MGU.jpg

Warsaw

We flew into Warsaw fairly late. Our flight was an evening flight,
but was delayed still in Copenhagen. When we finally arrived, we were
tired and everything was dark. We (bravely) took the night bus (as
Andy has already blogged about) from the airport to the main train
station. From there, we had no choice but to finally take a cab. Our
first cab of the trip. It was past midnight and we didn't know what
direction the hotel was in or how far away it was, so mainly for
safety and sanity, we caught our cab. We arrived at our hotel,
checked in and crashed.

When we awoke and were finally able to get out into the city, we
discovered we were in a great location. It was very close to the
completely reconstructed old town area. Most of Warsaw was in ruins
by the end of WWII. The city was painstakingly rebuilt it as it had
been before the war. It was very beautiful. We wondered around most
of the day and just enjoyed being there.

The next day, we went to the Warsaw Uprising museum. It was so
fascinating. I would say, after the Jewish people, the Polish people
are the next in line to have been so totally abused and destroyed. I
learned quite a lot that morning. The most important thing I learned
is that at the beginning of the War, Poland was occupied by both the
Nazi's and the Soviet Union. I didn't realize that they were doubly
occupied. There was so much information and pictures and history that
are hard to summarize in any capacity, so I will not even try here.

Other things we learned while we were in Warsaw was that Chopin is
Polish (well- at least half - his other half is French, but he was
born and raised in Poland). Warsaw has a lot of music, history and
culture there. Perhaps it is not the draw that Vienna is for most
musicians, but they have quite a lot of musicians around and
performing all the time there. We were fortunate to catch a free
concert one of the evenings were were there. It was lovely and it was
outside and the weather was perfect.

Our final full day in Warsaw, we spend at one of the large parks
walking around and sitting and relaxing. In this parks, they have
peacocks, which Andy and I found to be very humorous and beautifully
colored. So, as you go through the pictures, be on the lookout for
the peacocks. Unfortunately, we were not able to see (and therefore
to capture) any peacocks with their tail feathers spread. This left
us to realize that we have both forgotten what makes them spread their
feathers. Our final guess was mating. We also didn't know if they
could fly or what their mode of self-defense is. Any ideas?

Leave a comment if you know why peacocks flair their feathers.

we are near here. on the right side of the picture

Great weather in Poland.

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.