Today we spent all day travelling from Budapest to Warsaw.
We booked a shuttle for 8am to take us from the hotel to airport. This was quick and easy.
Once at the airport we needed to wait around 90 minutes until we would check our luggage in for our flight. This is about as exciting as watching paint dry. It is a nice terminal but very disorganised and confusing.
We were on a Business Class flight which meant no queue for checking in our suitcases, a priority queue through security, and a lounge that was quite small with limited offerings, but at least we could have an early lunch with a table and free WiFi.
Eventually I had to go toilet, which was out across the terminal, and while doing so there were urgently calling last passengers for our flight. I doubled back to the lounge to get Helen and we hurried to our gate. There were no passengers there, just us! I heard one of the staff say Helen's name as we arrived. Instead of walking over the finger, it was downstairs into a shuttle bus that was full of people waiting for us. Or so we thought, there was one last passenger. even behind us! We waited about 10 minutes before they arrived. Then it was a rush to board the plane and the safety announcements were happening while the plane taxied to takeoff.
With Polish Airlines, Business Class gives you a free seat next to you (for more elbow room) and a meal and drinks provided. It was only a 1 hour flight so it was over with quickly. We had a nice view above the clouds.
The we arrived at Warsaw, the airport was notably LOT (Polish Airline) planes as a majority. Their home base I suppose.
Our bags were the only ones on the conveyor belt, almost all other passengers must have had carry on only.
We had a short walk to the nearby train terminal where we purchased a 72 hours pass for Warsaw, and jumped on a train that would take us to our hotel. There are two terminals near our hotel, once closer and nicer than the other, we caught the wrong train so ended up lugging our suitcases up two flights of stairs and walking further than expected. It was cold and dark by this stage.
Once checked in to the hotel, Helen went straight to bed while I wandered out to find a supermarket and get some drinks for the bridge in our room.
Our hotel is right in central Warsaw with a major shopping mall literally straight across the street. There is a supermarket in the mall, but the mall is so big it takes me over an hour to find it. The mall has several zones with elevators spread across them, very confusing. It also has a Christmas DeLorean!
Although it is Sunday night here, the mall is pumping, full of people. It turns out a celebrity is appearing, her name is Doda. She is a Polish pop star and although I've never heard of her, apparently everyone else in the mall is there to see her. She seemed to be promoting some health products under her name and meeting fans to sign posters. The crowd was thick and also a huge line snaked around the mall of people wanting to meet her face to face. I managed to get some photos, so there's our meeting of a famous person for the tip?!?!?.
I eventually found the supermarket on Level -1 (underground). I stocked up but then had trouble finding my way back to the hotel. I eventually made it out the front entrance. Adjacent to our hotel and the mall is the famous Palace of Culture and Science which is a good landmark to get our bearing from. It looked great with the full moon.
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