Exciting bus trip from Lithuania to Warsaw, Poland

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(the article below accompanies this video)

Today was a big day for us — leaving one country and entering another. Not only were we going from Kaunas, Lithuania to Warsaw, Poland, but we were leaving the Baltics, which we had loved. Now we would be in true Eastern Europe, as seen in historical movies and 1940s newsreels.

My blood sugar at 10:00 am was 143, a good start to the day. Masayo and I went to a place near our guesthouse in Old Town Kaunas called Vero Cafe for breakfast — I had two little eclairs and some coffee (another large fully-filled cup; our coffee luck has improved). We then checked out and took off through Old Town, walking with our big bags.

In New Town we caught a trolleybus back to the main bus station and found a little office where we could leave our big bags for a fee. Our bus to Poland wasn’t until 3:30 pm, and we had to kill a few hours here in Kaunas. And no plan whatsoever.

We decided to spend some time riding a trolleybus around town. They go in loops, so why not? Plus they’re cheap and local and rickety – my favorite way to see a town. We took trolleybus #5 and saw some of the nondescript outskirts of town that I always find interesting. Not the tourist part, but the regular part where nothing is remarkable and where people live. Real Kaunas, for better or worse.

We got back to New Town and decided to jump off and walk around. We saw the Cathedral (again, this time not in the rain), and then settled on a cafe called 101 Kepyklėlė for lunch. Nice name for me as a diabetic eater; maybe it would inspire my OneTouch to give me a great reading. In fact, before eating I was 154 — not bad at all. I ordered a big omelette with a croissant and sparkling water, and took my shot.

We meandered through a nice park on the way back, with some artful crosses in one section that I didn’t understand. (My usual mode of travel is to see some site or building completely without context or research, and then learn later what it was.) Then we went to a Maxima supermarket to buy something for dinner, which we would have to eat on the long bus to Warsaw: sandwiches and chips.

We went to the Ecolines bus office to get our tickets printed out (we’d purchased them online). Then we walked up to the train station at the end of the road. I’d really wanted to get a train instead of a bus today, but the service was too infrequent and I couldn’t work it out online. It was nice to see the train station anyway, though. There was also a cool flea market-type place nearby we walked through, though we had almost no Lithuanian money left so buying anything was out of the question.

Finally we boarded the bus, a big nice double-decker. Our seats were on the top level, and we asked to move to the very front seats where nobody was sitting. So the whole time, we got a nice view out the front from high over the road. Or, we would have, if the window wasn’t fogging up so much. We kept wiping it, but to little avail.

When we crossed into Poland around 5:00 pm, it was already dark and I couldn’t get any good photos of the crossing point. (There is a big unstaffed complex on the border, with bus and car lanes.) Also the time moved back an hour in Poland — dark at 4:00 pm!

At 5:00 I checked and was, to my surprise, 230. I went ahead and took a shot and ate my sandwich and chips. The packaging indicated that there were quite a few carbs in the food so I took a rather large Humalog shot, being high already Would I end up between 70 and 130 afterwards? I hoped so.

We stopped at the bus station in the town of Białystok, which we had originally considered as our first stop in Poland before deciding on Warsaw. Through the rainy bus window I admired the “Ł” on the sign, then realized we were going to need Polish cash.

I ran inside to find an ATM but it wouldn’t give me any money. It may have been because I’d just used the same card at an ATM in Lithuania and my bank was suspicious. Whatever the reason, we were in Poland late at night with no cash. I climbed back on the bus.

We arrived in Warsaw (Warszawa, in the local spelling) in my least favorite way — late at night, in the dark, on a Saturday. As brand-new arrivals with big bags who don’t know anything, I always think Masayo and I stand out too much and I like to arrive when things are calm and family-oriented. Not late on a Saturday. At least I knew where we wanted to go and how to get to the apartment I booked on booking.com last night.

Masayo went to an ATM (successfully) and since the info office was closed we asked a guy working at a kiosk for help. He was really friendly, spoke English, and explained where the buses were into town.

We struggled down to the bus stop and our ride came. We got on but I didn’t know where to pay. There was a machine, but it seemed to take some kind of cards and not money. Nobody came around to collect money either, as they had in, say, Latvia. When our stop came we just got off. Free bus ride, for some reason. Nobody seemed to care. We were willing to pay but weren’t told how. Your loss, Warsaw.

We found our room after walking around confused a little bit. It’s an actual residential apartment building, and one apartment is used as a guest room. So we had a nice little place with our own bathroom and a kitchen! I stuck my insulin in the refrigerator.

It was 10:30 pm Poland time (Central European time, actually) and I checked my blood sugar, but it wasn’t any better than it had been before dinner on the bus. The sandwich and general bus stress had made me 269. Then I realized it was 11:30 old time and I was a half hour late for my Lantus shot. That wasn’t helping either.

I took the Lantus shot, and a couple units of Humalog, and we went to sleep, rather tired here in our new temporary home — Warszawa, Poland!

Have you ever forgotten your basal insulin shot?

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