Polish Hospitality

June 25th—We had arranged with Michael to leave the apartment about 9:00 a.m. to head off to Warsaw, but when we arrived at his apartment, he wasn’t ready due to a bad headache. So, we took the kids to the small playground at the apartment complex while waiting on Michael to get ready. We left the apartment about 10:30 to head to into Warsaw. While we were only about 20Km or so from Warsaw, it was a long drive due to heavy traffic. The small towns outside of Warsaw are connected by small roads with many stop lights. It makes you appreciate our highway and interstate system. We arrived into the Old Town area about noon. We found a place to park the car and walked toward the Castle Square. Before entering the square, we stopped in St. Anne’s church. Warsaw’s Castle Square is absolutely beautiful with the amazing architecture and bright colored buildings. The Old Town area was all rebuilt after World War II. In 1945, not a building remained standing in the Old Town. It’s a little ironic that it’s considered Old Town yet all the buildings are new, but they are rebuilt in the same manner as the original Old Town. Anyway, we walked into the Castle Square and decided to eat lunch. Michael recommended a restaurant that he had eaten at before so we sat outside and enjoyed the food. After lunch, the kids climbed on part of the defensive wall surrounding Old Town and we walked into the courtyard of the Royal Castle. The Royal Castle pretty much dominates the Castle Square with its size and color, pink. We decided against touring it so we continued walking around the area seeing Cathedral of St. John the Baptist and the Old Town Market Square. In 1944, the church was drove into by a Nazi tank during an uprising. We saw a part of that tank’s tread hanging on the outside of the wall. That was pretty neat to see. The market square has a mermaid fountain in the middle of it. The mermaid is an important symbol in Warsaw—legend has it that a mermaid lived in the Vistula River and protected the townspeople. The mermaid is mild in comparison to the other statues we’ve seen in the center of squares. From here, we all got ice cream, a postcard, and headed back to the car. Michael was so nice to drive us to the Hard Rock Café where we bought a pin. By this time it was almost 4:00 and we were in the crazy, Warsaw rush hour traffic. So, we decided to start our drive back to Grodzisk. The ride was pretty much stop and go traffic most of the way. The good thing about being in the car so long with Michael is that we had more time to visit with him and get to know him better. By the time we were about 10 minutes from the apartment, we got stopped by a road block where a police officer informed us that the road was closed so we had to turn around and go a different direction. Once we arrived back into Grodzisk, Michael took us by the church that he and Dominika got married in. Unfortunately, it was closed so we were only able to view it from the outside. From the church, we went back to the apartment for a little rest. Unfortunately, Dominika wasn’t feeling good after a long and stressful day at work. It was really storming outsides so Michael offered to drive us to a restaurant to eat dinner. He took us to a wonderful pizza place, Dominium. The pizza ranked close up there with the pizza’s we had in Italy. We arrived back at the apartment around 9:00 and everybody was tired from a busy day.

Welcome to Warsaw!

June 24th—Today was a travel day to Warsaw, Poland. We were so excited to be going here to see our friends, Dominika and Michael, whom we met in Croatia. Poland probably would not have been on our list of places to visit had we not met these wonderful people. Anyway, we left Krakow at 12:00 and arrived safely in Warsaw at 2:55. We were greeted by Michael at the train station. He drove us back to their apartment in Grodzisk which is about an hour (in traffic) west of the city. The apartment complex is very nice inside and outside. It sits above a super market and is across the street from their family work, Metal Market. Upon arriving at the apartment, we were then greeted by Dominika. We actually didn’t stay in their apartment, but a neighbors of theirs who actually lived in the US for 14 years. Their neighbor owns 2 apartments in the complex and one was vacant so the lady was so nice to let us stay in it for 2 nights. Dominika had put some essentials in our apartment like milk, juice, and bread. It was just unbelievable how hospitable they were from the minute we arrived. We were invited to Dominika and Michael’s apartment for dinner around 5:30. When we walked in, they had the dining room table set up and ready for us. We first started off with a vegetable soup and then had chicken, potatoes and summer beans. These beans were very similar to green beans. We had ice cream with a strawberry sauce for dessert. It was all so good. We spent the evening talking about our lives and our countries. Dominika grew up in the town and it was interesting to listen to her stories of growing up during communist times. She even took us on their balcony and showed us a rock with a plaque on it that sits in what is now the parking lot. She said that used to be a large wall where people were executed by the Nazi's. It was so much fun to share stories. They even pulled out their wedding video and we watched it during our dinner. It was after 10:00 before we left their apartment to put the kids to bed. Dominika and Michael followed us back to the apartment to make sure that we had everything we needed. We said our “good nights” to them and all fell into bed.

Krakow’s Royal Way Walk

June 23rd—The route we walked today is known as the “Royal Way” because the king used to follow this same path when he returned to Krakow after a journey. The only difference is we did the walk backwards because it was more convenient for us to start at Wawel Castle. But, before starting our walk, we stopped off at the bakery for some breakfast and hot chocolate. After eating, we decided that it was just as close to walk to the Castle grounds than to get on a tram. Let me point out that it was raining again today and we looked so funny with 2 broken umbrellas. There was one in the apartment, but it didn’t open up all the way. However, it still worked enough to cover Austin. So, we walked pretty quickly to the Wawel Hill. This is the most important piece of ground in all of Poland. We walked up the ramp to the castle entry and continued up towards the Wawel Cathedral. This Cathedral houses the tomb of the Great One, Kazimierz. Kazimierz the Great encouraged Jews to come to Poland by granting them special privileges. This is how the Jewish Quarter got its name Kazimierz. Also, one of Krakow’s archbishops was Karol Wojtyla who served at this cathedral for 14 years before becoming pope. From the cathedral, we walked around the castle grounds and the inner courtyard, but were more excited about making our way down to the riverbank to see the fire-belching monument to the dragon that was instrumental in the founding of Krakow. It was pretty cool to see the dragon in action and of course, the kids got a real kick out of it. We left the coolness of the castle and its dragon to walk the streets of Krakow. Along the way, we saw many churches and the house Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II) once lived. We also decided on a milk bar for lunch. We enjoyed the “Hunter’s Delight”, potato pancake with sausage, beef, melted cheese, and spicy sauce. It was good and filling. After lunch, we saw the Archbishop’s Palace which is where Pope John Paul II lived when he was archbishop of Krakow. Across the street from the palace is St. Francis’ Basilica which was Pope John Paul II’s home church while he was archbishop of Krakow. After leaving the church, we continued our walk, but first had to detour to find a bathroom. We finally found a McDonald’s. Who would have thought that McD’s would become our favorite spot to use the bathroom? Anyway, after our short detour, we saw the Town Hall Tower and St. Mary’s Church which are both located within the main market square. After our walk was complete, we made our way to the Cloth Hall where we did a little shopping before enjoying a nice ice cream snack in the square. While sitting in the square, we saw a bunch of guys singing and making a lot of noise. Apparently, one of the guys just returned from fighting in the war. We thought it was very neat how they celebrated his safe return. It was especially neat because our brother-in-law is currently serving in Afghanistan and is stationed at the Polish base. After we finished our ice cream, we headed to the tram stop where we went to the Jewish Quarter and visited the old cemetery and Remu’h Synagogue. It was so cute to see Austin wearing a yamaka. He certainly didn’t understand why he had to put that thing on his head. From here, we made the short walk back to our apartment after a long day of exploring Krakow.

Krakow and Auschwitz

June 22nd—The kids and I said “bye” to Mike around 8:30 this morning. He was heading to Auschwitz for the day. The kids and I got dressed and headed out of the apartment around 10:00. No, we didn’t know exactly what we were doing, but we were going to attempt it. We ventured out into the rain and walked to the tram stop. Luckily, we had been using public transportation for a long time now and they all kind of work the same way. We hopped on the tram and headed to the Main Market Square. Our first stop inside the square was at Hard Rock Café. The restaurant was not open yet, but the rock shop was, so I purchased a pin and off we went. We walked through the Cloth Hall where many Polish souvenirs are sold. There was a lot of amber jewelry, chess sets, and wood carvings. The kids put up with shopping for about as long as they could handle before they started asking for lunch. So, we left the Cloth Hall and went to eat at Polskie Smaki (“Polish Flavors”). It was a self-service cafeteria, a dressed up milk bar. Poland is known for its milk bars (a hold over from the communist days) which are an incredibly cheap way to get a good meal. We were able to walk up to the counter and point at what we wanted. It’s always good when you can see the food before eating it. The kids and I really enjoyed our food and busing our own table. That’s another part that makes it so cheap is that you clear off your table when finished eating. It’s a fun experience. After eating lunch, we walked back by the Cloth Hall and into Church of St. Adalbert. This is the oldest church in Krakow and the smallest church we’ve seen so far. When we walked out of the church, it was pouring down rain so I decided that we needed to head back to the apartment. We walked back toward the tram station, but before getting on the tram both kids had to go to the bathroom in the pouring down rain. I had to locate a water closet in the…pouring down rain. Anyway, we found one real close to the tram stop and took care of business. Then, caught the next tram back to our apartment. We got back to the apartment in time for a nap. Austin went right to sleep and slept a good while. I got caught up on the blog and Abby watched a movie. After Austin got up from his name, we went looking for a snack, specifically ice cream. Luckily, right down the street from our apartment was an awesome bakery that even had ice cream. By the time we got back to the apartment, we didn’t have to wait long before Mike returned from Auschwitz and it was time for dinner. So, we all went to a restaurant that was very small and served pierogis. Pierogis are a ravioli-like dumpling that comes with various fillings. The best pierogi was mine which was Mexican (I got so excited when I saw Mexican on the menu) that had chicken and red beans in it. It was spicy and good! It had started raining again while we were at dinner, so we all ran back to the apartment to get ready for bed.


Auschwitz -I got up this morning and left Amy and the kiddos at the apartment as I set off for a trip to Auschwitz. They had given me the day trip for my Father's Day gift....what a powerful gift it would be. When I left the apartment it was raining and so I walked to the tram stop to catch a tram to the train/bus station. I could not determine which line to take, but I saw a lady with a suitcase and decided my odds were good that she would be going to the train/bus station. I hoped on the tram she did and luckily arrived at the station after just a few stops. I then had to navigate my way to the bus station. It was a little confusing to find, but I finally found the station and there was a bus that left 20 minutes later. I bought a ticket and off I went. It was about a 75 minute bus ride through the Poland country side to get to Oswiecim, the home of Auschwitz. When we arrived, it was still lightly raining. For some reason, it just felt right that it was cool, cloudy and rainy. I went into the ticket office and bought a ticket for an English guided tour. It was a 3.5 hour tour and I decided this would be the best way to see and experience Auschwitz. The name Auschwitz actually refers to a series of camps. The ticket office was located at Auschwitz I and this is where our tour started. This was the first Auschwitz camp and was initially used as a base for the Polish army before WWII. You enter through the notorious gate with the German phrase Arbeit Macht Frei ("Work Sets You Free"). Honestly, if you didn't know where you were, you would find this to be a nice, peaceful camp. It has nice brick barracks and tree lined streets. However, after just a few moments, you quickly are reminded of the incredible events that occurred. An average of 14,000 "prisoners" were kept in the barracks, which have now been turned into National Memorials and museum exhibits. We walked through a couple of different barracks that explored different issues such as: everyday life, evidence of crimes, camp conditions and extermination. I don't have to explain how difficult many of these rooms were, faced with pictures of emancipated men, women and children and the articles they left behind. We then explored the "death block". This was where those that were held on criminal charges were kept and tortured before their death. Finally, we visited the crematorium and the "shower rooms" where the mass executions occurred. From here we took a short bus ride to Auschwitz II - Birkenau. When the original Auschwitz got to be too small, they began this second camp in some nearby farm fields. It was originally planned to hold 200,000 people, but held only 100,000 at it's peak. Most of the barracks here were built of wood by fellow prisoners at Auschwitz. These were either destroyed by the Nazi's or later used for building materials by the Germans, so you primarily see a large field, with the brick foundations and chimney's remaining. The area seems to go on forever and it is unbelievable to see how large this camp is (and planned to be even larger). There are train tracks that lead straight into the main building and through the camp to the back where the 4 large crematoriums were built. When the trains entered, people were separated at the dividing platform. If you were directed to the right, you were immediately sent to the "showers" and death. If you were directed to the left, you would live a little longer (although working yourself to death). There were a few barracks left standing that we entered. It provides some insight into the horrible conditions those who were not immediately murdered endured. As it was cool and raining, I kept trying to imagine how bad it would have been for those living there that had no running water or heat, and slept 4 or 5 to a bunk with no blankets or pillows. Our tour ended at the back of the camp where the 4 crematoriums had originally stood and where now stands a memorial. I then walked the 1KM or so back along the train tracks reflecting on the horror of this place. As a father, obviously the most difficult part to see and comprehend was the treatment of the children. While Auschwitz may not make many people's list of "places to visit", or seem like a desirable Father's Day gift, it will definitely remain as one of my most remembered.

Hello Crocodile (Krakow)

June 21st--Today was a travel day for us to Krakow, Poland (or crocodile as Austin calls it). We were sad to say goodbye to the beautiful city of Prague, but not to the apartment we stayed in. If I had to take another "spit" shower, it wasn't going to be pleasant. The bathroom in this apartment was so dirty especially the shower. Luckily, there was a garden bath tub that looked like it was fairly new. It had a shower head nozzle on it so without too many details and definitely no pictures, I chose to stand in the bathtub and "take a shower". Now, mind you the ceiling was sloped right there too so I had to really hunker off to make this happen. Use your imagination if you want, but it was a pain to do and especially while trying to touch as little as possible. Yuk! Anyway, so we left this apartment at 7:00 a.m. to catch our 8:00 a.m. train. We were lucky enough to get on a fairly empty train and got a compartment all to ourselves. The 4 hours to Bohumin went by really quick. When we arrived in Bohumin, we had to switch trains. We got on the 2nd train for the day and it was a really nice train. We again got our own compartment and this time had electrical outlets so the kids watched a movie all the way to Katowice. We arrived late into Katowice so we only had about 15 minutes to get to our next train. While we were on the 2nd train, the ticket guy informed us that we would have to purchase tickets for the children for the train into Krakow. So, Mike left me and the kids standing on the platform with the luggage while he ran downstairs to buy the tickets. I looked around trying to see if I could locate where our train was, but had no luck. Mike came back up the stairs with no tickets in hand. He said the ticket lady couldn't understand English so he just said "forget it, we'll just pay a fine if we have to". We took off down the stairs pulling our suitcases to change platforms and then up a different flight of stairs pulling, carrying, lugging all 4 suitcases. We thought our train left from this platform, but some nice workers informed us that that wasn't our train and we needed to go back to the platform we had just come from. So, again down and up the stairs. Once we arrived up to that platform, our train was posted on the board and said postponed on it. Luckily it was late or we would have missed it. It was a mad dash to get on this train. It was totally full and we found a compartment with a lady, her 2 1/2 year old son and her father. It turned out great because Abby and Austin played with this little boy, David, all the way to Krakow. Oh, and we didn't have to pay a fine when the ticket guy came around. He looked at the tickets we had and didn't say anything about not having tickets for the kids. We arrived in Krakow about 4:30. Our only problem at this point was we didn't have the address of our apartment. The reason for this was that our internet in Prague didn't work last night nor was it working this morning. We found a tourist information in the Krakow train station that offered internet. Mike had to go to the ATM first to get money before he could get on his e-mails. He quickly got on and got the information we needed. We got in a taxi and were on our way arriving at the apartment about 10 minutes later. We were greeted by Jacek and taken up 4 1/2 flights of stairs (no elevator). The apartment though is wonderful. It has been remodeled with a contemporary look and has a clean bathroom. Hallelujah! We made our usual trip to the local grocery store to pick up a few things and then off to dinner we went. There is a local pizzeria right by the apartment so pizza it was for dinner. Today was probably not the exact way Mike would have liked to spend his Father's Day, but at least he could say he got some quality time with his kids.

Fighting the rain in Prague

June 2oth--We were certainly prepared for the rain yesterday, but not today. When we checked the weather before leaving the apartment it did not mention anything about rain. So, we headed out in hopes to ride on a paddle boat. On our way walking down to the river, we stopped at the Dancing House. This house is built on the Vlatava riverbank and depicts a pair of Czech patriots...or Fred and Ginger. The architecture has really captured us during our travels. We have become big fans of the different styles of buildings and the amazing colors used too. While walking along the riverbank, the kids spotted several playgrounds and begged us to take them to one. Well, there was one right by an area where a band was setting up and starting to play music. So, we figured that the kids could enjoy the playing while we enjoyed the music. All was great until it started sprinkling...we left the playground to figure out where to go next. We started walking and the rain got heavier and heavier. We hovered under the awning of the National Theater and realized there was a cafe right across the street. We ran into the restaurant and enjoyed coffee and hot chocolate while waiting for the rain to stop. The rain let up about 30 minutes later so we decided to head for the Charles Bridge before we didn't get to see it all together. We fought the crowds all the way across the bridge, but it didn't keep us from getting some wonderful views of Prague. Once we got on the other side of the bridge, we were hungry for lunch and saw a restaurant called Bohemia Bagel. The restaurant served breakfast food and that sounded really good to all of us. It was very Americanized so we all enjoyed a good American breakfast. With our bellies full, we exited the restaurant to blue skies. We thought the rain had past, but by the time we did a little window shopping and started walking back towards the river, it was sprinkling again. We continued walking though knowing that it would stop eventually. By the time we made it to the paddle boats, the rain had blown through and we had beautiful weather for our ride around the river. It was so nice and relaxing plus we could hear a band playing music on one of the islands. As we found out, it was United Islands weekend. All different bands were playing at different locations along the river. So, the playground we were at earlier, that we returned to again after paddle boating, was having a United Islands celebration. We let the kids play for about an hour before heading back towards the apartment. We weren't really hungry for dinner, but didn't want to miss out on our last meal in Prague. So, we went to our favorite restaurant (that makes 3 times in 5 days) and had more great food. The kids had chicken skewers and the adults had beef goulash. Yummy! If anyone ever goes to Prague, just be ready to do some eating and put on some pounds. It's amazing how good the food is there. After dinner, we returned back to the apartment and put the kids to bed. Mike left right after that to go to a concert in St. Nicholas Church. He had been wanting to go to a concert/opera while in Eastern Europe so I encouraged him to go tonight. The concert was only an hour long, but he enjoyed the music.

New Town Prague

June 19th—We woke up this morning to rain. We had a slow start to the day because we were trying to let the rain go away. It finally did so we headed out and stopped at our now favorite restaurant, Novomestsky pivovar, for a wonderful lunch. Mike ordered the same bohemian platter from the other night, and I ordered the chicken pocket filled with Parma ham and spinach served with roasted potatoes and pepper sauce. No complaints…the food was still wonderful. After lunch, we walked up Winceslas Square. The name of this area is so odd to us because you would think the it was actually a square or plaza, but it’s a street. Anyway, at the top of the street is a statue of Sir Winceslas. So, we walked up to the statue and then back down the street admiring the different architecture. We made a slight detour off the street to the post office for some stamps. Upon arriving back on the street, there was a a big crowd and a lot of noise coming from this crowd. It was obviously a protest or rally of some sort so we followed the crowd back up the square in order to figure out what was going on. It wasn’t until we got back to the apartment and google translated the signs that we determined what the rally was about. It was some 9,000 or so high school students protesting the implementation of a state graduation test. We left the rally and continued back down Winseslas Square. Once we got to the bottom of the street, we walked down some other major shopping streets. We walked to the Powder Tower which was the Gothic gate of the town wall. We also saw the Art Noveau Municipal House. As we left this area heading into the Old Town, we got stuck in a little bit of rain. So, we darted into the Rock Candy shop. We arrived at the shop at the perfect time. This shop makes their own candy and a candy making event was going on. We all really enjoyed seeing how the candy was made while eating our own snack. After the candy was done being made and we got to sample it, we exited the shop. We headed over to the Old Town square and listened to a band play. From here, we started walking back to our apartment and stopped off at the bakery for a light dinner.