The longest ride and one mad Polish man!

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One mad Polish man

Another early morning as we had the longest bus ride of the trip today; 269 miles. The wakeup call was supposed to be at 6am but instead was at 5:45am. It may not seem like that big of a deal but I like that extra 15 minutes. lol We quickly used the free internet at the hotel and had just as quick a breakfast with the bus leaving at 7am. The beginning of the drive wasn't too scenic with it looking like the PA turnpike back home. Most of the scenery was flat and at times with lots of trees.
As we got closer to the Poland border, we noticed many tractor trailers lined up along the right side of the road for what seemed to be a hundred of them. That was their line for the border crossing! At 9am we reached the border for what we thought would be about half an hour. Little did we know...After watching many cars going through quickly, one car was stopped in the lane next to us. They made the bald driver and his passenger get out and made him unload his entire car! This included a trunk full of endless groceries and Pepsi. The mad man gave the soldiers a dirty look as he took ALL of the lids off of the drinks and threw them in the garbage! He stormed off and his car was then confiscated. We sat on the bus and watched the events unfold and laughed at him. When we finally got off the bus, I was a little nervous as we saw him in the area where money can be exchanged and walking around where everyone else was. Our guide said that he was known to the border control and had either drugs or a stolen car. She said he was Polish and the car was from Germany. 2 hours later we were back on the highway. The roads became more narrow and had only 2 lanes and this was the main road.

We arrived in Poznan about 1:25pm and only had enough time for lunch. Suzi and I went to a bar/restaurant in the Old Square. One thing was that everything was paid for separately like bread and butter. I'm so used to bread & butter coming with the meal. Suzi ordered this and when she got it, she offered me some and I took one slice as that would be it because there were a few slices with MOLD on them! Thank goodness I opted for the smoked salmon salad that had black olives and pearl onions. The square had a pretty, colored, long building in red, pink, yellow, blue and green on one side and other colored buildings on the other.

Back on the bus at 2:30, our bus kept stalling out after several unsucessful attempts by Franko. How could this be happening to a 4 day old bus? At least it was a nice little town. Finally after 20 minutes we were on our way again without knowing why it kept stalling. Tunde came around with the optional excursions in which there were 16 of them. Yes the answer to question #5 (at entry 1) is we decidied to do ALL 16 of them. After another rest stop, we arrived in Warsaw at 7:30pm and stayed at the Novatel Hotel. Our dinner consisted of mushroom soup, boiled potatoes with chicken and some type of gingerbread cake with chocolate icing. Not bad.

Bathroom fee for the day- 150 zloty

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Photos

Germany/Poland border
where the excitement happened

Poznan
Town Hall

closer view
Town Hall

Poznan
Old Square

Poznan
Old Square

Poznan
Old Square

statue
Old Square- not sure what it represents