Poland and Prague: Day 16 - Wolf's Lair to Warsaw

Off to Warsaw

We aren't in any hurry to hit the road and plan our morning to be out of the hostel by noon.

We were hoping for a lighter breakfast this morning and basically had the same thing as yesterday except that the two hot dogs were replaced by scrambled eggs as a side. A much better idea for us but we still didn't eat everything that was served.

Before leaving we must first make a stop back in the compound. Melodie is a good sport to go along with some of my hair-brained ideas and I want to go to the shooting range and fire a MP 40 Schmeisser submachine gun. Besides, there's a cute Pole to show me what to do.

But first I need to pose with a German machine gun!

Bought two German hand grenades for my boys as a souvenir and the young man assured me I would have no problem getting them through the scanner at the airport. I'll check my bag!

After a stressful entry into Warsaw, we finally found our hostel. The GPS wanted to direct us down a street which was now closed for train track installation and we had to find our way with alternate routes. Finally, we called the hostel, got directions of "you're very close" and an unintelligible address to put into our GPS. The GPS offered street/area names that were close and we went with it and stumbled upon our loction: Rynek Nowego Miasta 4. Having left our car across the street, the "direktor" was very adamant that we move it to a legal parking location at once. She waved down the street and said we could park anywhere there. Well, they are one-way streets we couldn't go down so we wandered and found a spot in front of St. Francis church. The picture is so we wouldn't forget where we parked. Seems parking is free from Friday 6p to Monday 8a and it was 5:45p. So we put some coins in the machine and got a ticket to put on the dash...just in case.

Checking in, she explained that they were booked with a large group and our room would be on the 3rd floor. The 3rd floor in the US starts with 1 on the ground. Not in Europe! The ground floor is the ground floor and one flight up is the 1st floor. After 73 steps and landing in the attic, we found our room. We had decided in advance to take our bags up with us to re-arrange and pack before heading back to Krakow. Bad mistake to carry 35 lb bags up all those stairs. We had help from a nice teenager that the woman pressed into service. He carried one bag and Melodie and shared the other by flight of stairs.

I'm NOT impressed with the location of our room and the fact that we made early reservations and ended up in the attic. AND we share a shower area. And by share, I mean there is a room with 2 shower stalls, 6 sinks, and no locks or designation for women or men. Everyone is all together in this big room! I'll be taking a sponge bath tonight and getting in early in the afternoon to take a quick shower before the rest of the house returns.