Travel and First Day in Łódź

Dear New Reader,

I arrived in Poland just over 24 hours ago. Actually, the story gets interesting a little before then.

At the MSP airport I found Nathan and Thomas. They were in a pickle because their flight to Chicago was delayed, meaning that they would miss their flight to Frankfurt. Then the flight to Frankfurt was delayed, meaning that they would have a decreased layover there before heading to Warsaw. Then the flight to Chicago was delayed another hour. Hopefully, they will arrive tomorrow.

My flight to Chicago was also delayed. It was not clear how late we were arriving until the pilot announced that we had cut west almost into SD to get around some nasty storms. I deplaned at Chicago at 9:20pm with a 10 minute hike, a tram ride, and international security between me and my 9:55 flight to Warsaw.

I had never before had to literally run for a plane. I made it as one of the final three passengers to board. My bags, I later found out, were not so quick on their feet.

Philip and I arrived in Warsaw Sunday afternoon local time. We were told to catch the Polski Express to Łódź (it's pronounced wootch), but made the mistake of asking a taxi driver where to catch it. He brought us to the bus station. The bus left the bus station, stopped at the airport, then proceeded to Łódź.

We were shown to our dorm room where we dropped off our things, then had pizza. The evening was very loud due to the Poland vs. Germany football match. We slept, woke up without jet lag, and proceeded to Monday.

This morning we went for a walk with Kasza, one of the professors here. She showed us several placed to eat and where our office (!!!) is located. After lunch we met up with Rafael and Magda, two Polish Ph.D. students who spent the day with us. We found several more places to eat, got some supplies for the room, and got an introduction to Polish mass transit. Conveniently, it's pretty similar to that in Budapest (although I don't know if there is an underground). We went to lunch (eaten with beer). Later we had "dinner" at a bar, along with beer. On the way back to the dorm after dinner, we stopped at a beer garden to chat with some other math people who were there. Over beer. If I don't start liking beer I will be drinking a lot of water; it turns out that the Polish don't even make wine. Only beer and several harder drinks.

I have pictures from the zoo. I'll put them up as soon as my luggage arrives, hopefully tomorrow. Until then I do not have the necessary connectors to move my photos between machines.