Well, we began the day in Canada (although we weren’t supposed to – but the eight hour delay of the LOT airline flight to Poland meant we were after midnight on the 30th leaving), and landed in Poland at about 4:10pm Poland time. One person joked, “LOT means you’re waiting a LOT of time.” I heard later that the reason our plane was so late getting here is because the original plane had been struck by lightning so another had to be sent. The main thing was, we arrived safely!
We were due to hit a third country on that first day (Germany), however, something happened with our Motor Coach driver (that was never fully divulged to us, but we “back of the bussers” speculated that he had gone the wrong way and we had to circle back around or something). By the time we finally hit the German border, we were actually kind of giddy, being so over-tired. Just before we crossed through the border crossing, we learned that it was no longer necessary to stop and show passports and this was a great thing for tourism, etc. Well, we pulled across that border and promptly got stopped by the Polizien! We all had to show our passports, it was kind of spooky a little bit but hey, after the trip we were having, what else could happen? I almost asked if I could get a picture of the police officer but decided against it at the last minute (though it would’ve been great to have had one to go with this post!)
So, to sum it up, the bus ride that was supposed to land us there at 1am ended up getting us there at 5am! It seemed like our trip was 1/2 over before it began – here it was Wednesday already and we’d just arrived at our first hotel. To be honest, I began to wonder what I’d gotten myself into. Granted, we had some fun getting to know each other on the bus and it seemed like I was with a bunch of really nice folks, but I had serious concerns about what we would be able to accomplish with seemingly little time. I would later discover that this was nothing to worry about – these guys can pack a LOT into a little time and it was absolutely amazing, but more on that later.
One thing I wanted to talk about was the drive through the countryside of Poland. It was quite nice while the sun was still up in most parts, and for those who were still coherent at that point, we were rewarded with the most amazing sunset. By the time we arrived at the Berlin Excelsior Hotel, there were some mighty stinky & sleepy people but again, we made it. When you think of the other “transports” we learned about throughout the trip, in particular from Bill, we were traveling in the lap of luxury for sure on the big, air-conditioned bus, each of us with our own seat (and some with a double seat all to themselves!).
Determined not to let neither body odour nor sleep deprivation hold us down, Holly and I decided not to sleep for the four hours we had until our next meeting time, but to shower and get ourselves into some type of order. Now, Holly and I are not world-travellers by any stretch of the imagination, however, I must say I wasn’t expecting a lot to be really different. There were, however, a few things that were a little surprising, which we discovered from the good ol’ Excelsior Hotel:
1. No facecloths. (as you can imagine, after the lengthy travel we did, we were eager to wash the grime off of our faces). “No, you do not get facecloths unless you are in the ‘luxury suites’,” said the nice front desk man when I asked. He looked at me like I was quite nuts when I asked actually. We were allowed extra towels so we improvised using the ends of towels as facecloths. When in Rome and all that… I did also ask how people washed their faces – and not in an ignorant way, I REALLY wanted to know—he didn’t answer me on that one.
2. Apparently people like to watch themselves shower in Germany, if those showers were of any indication – they just have a curtain that goes down one side and the end of the tub is open, facing the mirror. It was…rather odd! Frankly, at that point, I probably would’ve showered in the hotel lobby fountain (had there been one) so it wasn’t a big deal, just different.
3. People like to be cosy in hotel rooms – when Holly and I walked in, I looked at those two tiny twin beds pushed exactly together and said, “Holly, you’re a great girl and all, but we are pulling those suckers apart.” We laughed thinking about how some of the big guys on the trip would react to walking into the small rooms and seeing those two beds pushed together like that.
4. This really has nothing to do with the hotel, other than the fact that this was the place I discovered it: my ankles can swell to the size of baseballs! I’d heard about this type of thing before after sitting for a long time in the plane, how blood can pool down there. I moved around some on the plane, but didn’t figure on a super-long bus ride after the eight hour flight. I must say, the size of my ankles was pretty darn impressive; I know I’ve never seen anything like it, even after having had three children. They did continue to go up and down throughout the trip but it didn’t really hurt (well, didn’t hurt me, I can’t speak for the others who had to actually LOOK at them, though) so no biggie.
We ended up having a great breakfast before heading out for the day…first stop: Wannsee Conference Villa.
