The breakfast area was filled to overflowing into another room this morning. There was nobody checking for room Verification before anybody was entering.

I got my usual eggs and Cocoa Puffs cereal. Later on I tried some toast with blackberry jam and honey. I preferred the honey better as the blackberry jam is a little bit too tart.

The Rick Steves had raved about the Copernicus Science Museum so I decided to give it a try. I found that it was easy to get to from my hotel just by riding a subway stop away. I got there and found that there was already a line forming. It was a Saturday and many people had Brought their families along.

I tried to get tickets to the Planetarium but they said the next available adult show is at 3 p.m. and I did not want to stay that long at the Museum. The museum has mostly all Hands-On activities for participants. I entered in what appeared to be an area designed for teenagers and older. There’s a card that you use to activate the experience. I saw where you could control music, help identify song lyrics, identify sayings in other languages, take personality tests, and so on. Since this area was not designed for children it was the least crowded. After trying all the experiences that I wanted to try in that area, I moved on to other areas. There were different areas devoted to motion which included showing waves in water, building pyramids, holding one’s breath, being on a sinking ship when it was going down and many other things. The area devoted to the human body showed how long once digestive system was, and also having a plastic body where you would put the plastic organs back in it. The darkroom included examples of lasers hand static electricity.

I can’t say that I got too much out of the museum but I was glad that I did have a chance to look at it but I would probably not go back given the chance if I was in Warsaw again.

Next I decided to have lunch. I took the subway and ate at Burger King. The server actually gave me three ketchup packets rather than the usual one or two. I was grateful for this but still ungrateful that the bathroom door remained locked even though I entered in the code that I was given.

It was then I decided to visit the Palace of culture. This is right by the Burger King and is very much a landmark Within Warsaw. It’s not the tallest building around but it’s definitely the most recognizable.

Right about when I was to get in line to buy my tickets a tour group got in front of me and I had to wait for them to buy their tickets. Thankfully a representative of theirs was buying the tickets for them so I did not have to wait entire time for each individual to buy their tickets. I did have to wait for them to get into the elevators though.

It’s a nice view from the city at the top. I was able to get some good pictures although I was unable to see the Old Town in great detail as it was too far away.

I bought some souvenirs and asked the souvenir sales person which should I do next…either the Warsaw National Museum or Lazeinki Park. Both were in the same direction at the last minute I decided to go to the Warsaw National Museum since it look like it was about ready to rain.

The Warsaw National Museum was full of old paintings and Cathedral artwork. There was a new section which had more contemporary art which I kind of enjoyed. There was also a section devoted to Hungarian photography. There was one particular photo that struck me as interesting. It was a photo of a cathedral in the background with debris around it. The debris was from the Jewish Warsaw Ghetto which the Germans had completely leveled but left the church standing. I asked one of the muzeum associates if the church was still standing and she said that she did not speak English.

I then decided maybe I could go to the Lazienki Park. I walked up to the bus stop and got in line. I did not have very many coins but I thought I would try to buy a ticket from the driver. Or I was even able to buy my ticket the driver had already started therefore I just decided to buy it at the next stop. The driver did not understand English but held up the ticket that he thought I wanted and I told him yes that’s what I needed.

Lazeinki Park is a nice Urban Park which probably would have been better had it not it been overcast. There’s a big statue of Chopin at one of the entrances which I took a few pictures of. There’s also a house on an island in a lake which you can use Bridges to get to. There were statues and peacock around.

After I’d grown tired of the park I decided to try and head on back. The only problem was I had no Wi-Fi and could not access the internet to establish a route back. For the first time I was looking at a bus stop schedule and decided to try and ride it to where I thought I should get off at. Phone’s battery was running low and I know I did not get a decent charge from my battery backup the night before so I was stressed a little bit. I rode the bus up to a stop which I thought would be good to try to walk back to my hotel. As it turns out this was the stop for a good photo opportunity. That is Warszawa Powisle, a communist era train ticket booth which is been turned into a hipster Cafe with neon lights. It looked really needs and probably would have looked even better had it been at night rather than on a cloudy day. I took several pictures and then headed back. That area was somewhat of a shady area of town as there were some skateboarders and other people around who I wasn’t sure what actions they were doing. But I managed to get myself up away from the area under the overpass. 

It was sprinkling rain enough to wet my glasses whereas before it had only been misting. I’ll probably have some trouble tomorrow as rain is still in the forecast and I may need to buy an umbrella. For what it’s worth I made it to pizza tonight for supper. I bought the refill option for my drinks but I still had to tell the waitress to be sure to refill it. This time I did leave a tip. I had read that you should leave at least a 10% tip for waiters and waitresses in restaurants.

Tomorrow I have a big day. I’m going to try to see the Warsaw Uprising Museum, the royal castle, the Museum of neon, and the communist era PRL musuem and still get back in time to catch my train at 6 p.m.