We were driving in a Warsaw cab about an hour ago. The cabbie spoke no English and none of us speak Polish. The no-meter fair from the Uprising Museum to the Sofitel Hotel was three zlotys a person for a total of twelve zlotys. The Zloty currently trades at about twenty nine American cents so ten Zlotys equals about three bucks, maybe less… maybe more…People
When we arrived at the hotel, one of our party gave the cabbie a ten zloty note and two American dollars, an equivalent total around sixteen zlotys. The cabbie started protesting so I pulled out a twenty zloty note to give him. He gestured that he had no change and proceeded to take my twenty, my friend’s ten and the two American dollars.
I started gesturing at the money and he started to make a gesture indicating that he was going to make change out of the money we had given him. I got our money back and he kept the twenty.
So for the equivalent of six bucks we got ourselves back to our hotel, and we learned that cabbies in Poland’s capitol are the same as many others of their brethren around the world.
Let me tell you sometime about our cab ride to Penn Station in New York City.