After a late night, I finally crawled into bed around 3:30am only to be woken up four hours later as my roommates were putting their things together to checkout.

Part of me was annoyed at getting woken up at 7:30 in the morning but a bigger part of me was ecstatic at the thought of having the room to myself for a few hours as checkin for new guests wasn’t until the afternoon.

I spent much of the morning in bed with my netbook putting the finishing touches on my 7 day itinerary for Paris.

By noon I got my sorry ass outta bed and went out for lunch.

For me, there was only one place to go – Zapiecek Polskie Pierogarnie.

This restaurant was the main reason I came back to Warsaw to rest up and reset for the rest of the trip.

I had fond memories of eating at this restaurant both here in Warsaw and in another location in Krakow.

They specialize in perogies but have a variety of hearty meals at reasonable prices.

To start I had a mug of the rye soup.   Sooooo good!   Like, addictively good!

For my entree I decided to try something a little different – chicken livers with apples and sauteed onions.

I’ll admit, it was the apples and sauteed onions that sold it for me – it honestly didn’t matter what was on top.

Plus, the picture on the menu looked so enticing…

Naturally, what came didn’t look anything like the menu photo and, in hindsight, what came on top actually did matter as the chicken livers were just a little too rich and heavy for me.

I ate about half the meal and pushed the rest to the side.

Overall, a decent meal, but nothing spectacular and the service was brutal.   I remember thinking if I had had this experience the first time I visited the restaurant a year and a half ago I would never have gone back.

As I finally paid on the portable card machine my waitress was kind enough to utter that “the service is not included”

I kinda chuckled to myself cause what I really felt like saying was “yeah, no shit, the service wasn’t included cause you gave me none.”

But, I refrained and I sat there and debated how much I was going to tip her.

My first instinct was to just leave nothing because her service really did suck but then I thought she might think that I didn’t know I was supposed to tip.

You see, I wanted her to know I knew to tip but I didn’t feel like her service warranted it.   So, I pulled out what little change I had and left that for her.

In the end, on a 54 zloty bill ($18), I left 2 zloty (80 cents) so I think I made my point.

Anyway…

Back to the hostel…

Where I took a big long nap.

Around 6pm I stirred out of my slumber as my new roommate checked in.

No worries though cause I really needed to get my ass outta bed.

I headed out into the night with a mission – buy a scarf and a touque (beenie for you non-Canadians).

I ended up at a 4 storey mall next to the Warsaw Central Rail Station a few blocks away and went from store to store looking for something reasonably priced.

It was actually killing me to spend money on these things when I have perfectly good ones sitting at home in Vancouver but my poor little ears couldn’t take much more of the cold air blowing into my face.

I finally found a scarf and a toque for about $13 each.

For dinner I wanted to try to get as healthy as I could as I was on the tail end of this maddening stomach virus I’ve been harboring for over a week.

I popped into Subway and got a veggie sandwich with guacamole on whole wheat bread – can’t get healthier than that!

By the way, I’m at about 80% right now and I’m feeling pretty good about getting to Paris in 2 days at 100%.

Speaking of Paris…

Here’s my plan for the 7 days I’ll be there…

Tomorrow is my last day here in Warsaw to relax and re-energize before I plant myself firmly into the rest of my trip starting with my flight into Paris the following day.

Here’s to excitement…