Tuesday 24/6 Travelling to Poland

We got up and packed, then checked out of the hostel, leaving our bags there for a few hours. We made straight for the post office so we could send all those bulky and weighty souvenirs and presents that we had picked up along the way. Somehow, we managed to have the same lady serve us as last time. I swear I could see her eyes role as we approached the counter. She was probably thinking oh no, not these two again.

We got the stuff sent but I somehow managed to forget to put my Ipod in (the plan was to send it back to London where Dani could connect it to my mac and reload all my songs onto it and then send it back). Looking back, that wasn´t a bad thing. The shot glasses that I had sent last time hadn't all made it back in one piece and I had apparently worried for good reason at the time we sent it off. I wouldn't have wanted the Ipod to suffer any physical damage like that.

We grabbed some pastries at Everest, a chain by the looks of it, and sat eating for a while.

Then we went next door into Public, a big electronics/books store, and browsed for a long while till we almost were running late for getting back to the hostel to pick up our bags. We did make it back in time (well, in time according to our planned schedule) and then made our way to the Syntagma Square metro station.

We caught the train to the airport, making a brief stop along the way to change trains (when the first one we were on seemed to terminal halfway and turn their lights off). At the airport we got checked in through to Warsaw and our bags through to Krakow.

The flight to Warsaw wasn´t bad. Lot was a pretty good airline and the service was quite good. The only problem with the food seemed to be the mystery meet which we kind of assumed was bacon or ham or whatnot. I spent part of the flight reading their magazine, part listening to music and part exchanging smiling glances with a reasonably cute flight attendant.

Arriving in Warsaw we realised what we were in for: a few hour transit layover. Our first problem was finding the way to the transit desk. We walked around for a short time, finally figuring we had to go through a security checkpoint into a departures lounge. We found the transit desk which was, rather unhelpfully, unmanned the entire time we were there. We finally made our way out the wrong way through a security point, to the check-in area, past Polish soldiers (with their permission of course). When we thought about it, we completely skipped any form of passport control and could have gone and disappeared into the city without hassle.

We picked up our next set of boarding passes and made our way back through security. We browsed some shops for a while and I picked up a copy of Harry Potter 6 which I hadn't quite finished reading when I first picked it up a year or more ago. We got some sandwiches then went to the gate and waited for the flight to board.

The gate led us onto a bus that took us across the tarmac, to our plane. It wasn´t much longer after we had actually boarded the plane that we began to taxi (quite a long way) and then took off, heading for Krakow. I slept the entire way there, waking up I think by the main gear touching down on our arrival.

We grabbed a cab and got into the city where we found our hotel, checked in, and crashed.

Comfiest. Beds. Ever.