We got up at 11 am (though Jess woke up a few minutes earlier) and got ready to join the other guests for a post-wedding brunch at noon. Happily, neither of us had particularly suffered from the previous evening's revelry.
Clean and packed, we headed to the Palace’s basement restaurant. Although the buildings had been occupied by the Germans in the war, the basement and its original frescoes survived. Breakfast was cheesy eggs and leftovers from the previous evening. Although the lovely cheese had gone the way of all things, there was a little wedding cake left. We were very good and didn't eat all of it, but we did eat a fair amount of poppyseed cake. We noted that not all of our fellow guests were bright of eye or bushy of tail. In all fairness, most of them had made it to 5 am, when the reception ended.
We said our goodbyes and caught a ride back to Warsaw’s Old Town with Margo's aunt and uncle. Szandor and Jess chatted in slightly halting German on the way.
We wandered around a bit, but the heat, sun and weight of our bags became oppressive, so we stopped at the outdoor cafe of the Metal Bar in the Old Town's main square. Jer got black currant juice, and Jess got a "San Francisco" soft cocktail, consisting of orange, pineapple, grapefruit and lemon juice with grenadine and seltzer. Both were tasty. After relaxing a bit, Jer ordered zurek (traditional fermented rye soup), served with wheat bread - it was delicious! Jess had a small cup of ice cream (vanilla and strawberry), topped with a mound of whipped cream and drizzled with strawberry sauce. Mmm!
We wandered up to the royal route and missed a 175 bus to the airport. Fortunately, they were running every 10 minutes and we caught the next one. Jess managed "Two tickets to airport please" in Polish, which made us cooler than the German couple and Chinese(?) man who we picked up on the way, who managed "Airport?" in English. To be fair, they had bus tickets already. On the other hand, they had the wrong kind of tickets. There was no raid by the bus ticket cops, though, so it didn't matter.
We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, and once we found the right line, breezed through ticketing and passport control. We wandered around the terminal, which had only 12 gates and a limited number of refreshment options. We ended up at the restaurant, which was over-priced but not ridiculous. After realizing that we'd miscounted our remaining zloty, we split a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich and a soda, before blowing our few remaining zloty at the duty free. We then went through security to our gate.
This flight on LOT was far more pleasant than the last one. The plane was a new, small jet with comfortable seats and good lighting. The snack was quiche and pâté with bread and butter, with a Prince Polo candy bar for dessert. Jer took Jess's pâté and gave her some of his quiche, and we both enjoyed the Prince Polo.
As the plane descended over Sweden, we were amazed at how heavily forested the country remains, even though 85% of the population lives in the southern half of the country. After breezing through Customs, we stopped by the tourist information booth to buy Stockholm Cards before getting tickets on the Arlanda Express train to the city center. The train was very clean and comfy, even boasting English TV news and a bathroom. Once outside, we were surprised to discover that it was dusk at 10:30 pm! There was a little LED sigh above us that gave the outside temperature, time, next station, and current speed. At one point, the train was going 205 km/m (over 127 mph)!
Once we arrived in central Stockholm there was a bit of drama, as we tried to contact our hostess to make sure we'd be able to get into our rented apartment. Jer was starving, so we stopped into Max Burger (a local McDonald's knockoff) for a couple quick cheeseburgers, before catching the subway to Kungsholmen. Happily, our hostess was outside waiting for us, worried because we were late. She let us in, showed us around and took our payment in advance. Once she left us, we headed right to bed.