Day 12 - Almost Palais

Tonight we go to Paris, but I decided to spend the afternoon in one of the park-palace complexes in Warsaw. (Cz was busy getting his first English-language bookstore fix since leaving the states) The Palace wasn't Willanow- that's the main one a little way outside of the city - this one was closer to the city center, and therefore ran less risk of causing the missing of plane to Paris. Unfortunately the camera that we use for the blog was in Cz's pocket in the bookstore, so you have trust me when I say this park and palace rival anything France or Germany has to offer. The main palace was built across a lake. Literally, the palace sat in the water with arched bridges connecting it to either shore. Every now and the then something would disturb the surface of the water - perhaps Poland's answer to the Loch Ness? No, the biggest Koi I have ever seen. Even the ducks gave them wide berth. On land, the park was mix of formal gardens and carfully planned wooded areas. Each garden was bordered by wonderful smelling yellow roses. The best part though were the peacocks. All over the grounds were peacocks roaming free. If one came prepared with bread or crackers, one could even feed them! (Not me, every peacock I've ever met bit, so I'm a little afraid of them, but one could) A little boy was eating some crackers, and being a little boy, was leaving a trail of crumbs. Behind him, in perfect procession according to size, were a Peacock, a peahen, a magpie, two ducks, and flock of pidgeons. It was likie something out of Grimm.

Even with going to the closer park I had to dash...or rather fume in traffic...in order to catch the bus to catch the plane.

We needn't have worried. Even with mad traffic, and the longest, slowest-moving line imaginable, we made it to our gate with time to spare. And that was before finding out that our plane was delayed almost 2 hours. On the plane we met a lovely Post-doc in robotic engineering. We decided to share a cab, which was a total help for us. Not only did the fare get split, but he spoke French, which was a huge help, as our hotel was on a little side street that required some explaining. We did finally make it to Paris at around 1AM, and check into our lovely little hotel, where we promptly collapsed in a snoring heap!