Poland: dziękuję!

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Trysta

When Joe and I started this “Olmsted Scholar adventure” we set a few goals for ourselves. One of those goals was to visit each of the NINE countries that share a border with Germany! Poland was the last country we needed to visit to reach that goal, and we were able to do it because of our wonderful families! As our Christmas gift last year, we asked them to send us to Paris. We had such a good time and loved involving our favorite people in our travels that we decided to do it again. This year, they sent us to Poland!

Here is a huge “dziękuję” to our families. Thank you for a wonderful trip, helping us reach our goals, and most importantly, for the love and support you continually bless us with.

Thank you to MIL & FIL Stickford and GM & GP Wall for the plane tickets to and from Poland!

When we fly somewhere, Liv is unforuntately left behind. She has a 2nd home in the Black Forest, which she (hopefully) enjoys! It takes forever to pick her up after a trip because these two love to recount all the crazy things our canine child did while we were away. Thanks to GM & GP Yañez, their great grand-dog was safe and sound during our journey.

Joe and I have utilized every possible type of transportaion during this Olmsted journey, except for long distance buses….until our trip to Poland! We spent ten hours on two bus trips between Gdansk and Krakow, which were actually really very comfortable and convenient. Thank you Laurie & Jim, for taking the stress out of traversing the entire country of Poland!

We kicked off our visit in Warsaw with a communist themed walking tour, thanks also to Laurie & Jim.

Warsaw’s Castle Square

We visited more museums in Poland than during any of our other trips. They were all really top-notch! Thank you Daryl & Denise and Mom for our morning at the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

No trip to Poland is complete without some pierogies! We thought about you, Tana & Chip, whilst enjoying a myriad of pierogies in Warsaw. Thank you!

In Warsaw, there is a Fotoplastikon, which allowed visitors to view changing 3-D images of life during the 19th century. This Fotoplastikon is the only one in Poland, and one of only a few in the world. Thank you Mom and Daryl & Denise for this unique experience!

We finished up our Warsaw adventure with a meal at Czerwony Wieprz, which was voted one of the 25 most interesting restaurants in the world. This restaurant, translated to “Inn Under The Red Hog”, was named so because it used to be a meeting spot for “red” communist leaders such as Lenin, Fidel Castro, and Mao Tse Tung. Thanks Jernigan Family, for the tasty and educational dinner!

After arriving in Krakow, we oriented ourselves with a walking tour of the Old Town. Krakow experienced minimal destruction during WWII and communism, so the Old Town was really interesting to experience and learn about. Thank you Laurie & Jim, for another great walking tour!

The Cloth Hall in Krakow’s Old Town

The Rynek Underground Museum is located beneath the main square in Krakow and allows visitors to stroll through what used to be the original streets and cellars of buildings that used to make up the main square hundreds of years ago. Thank you to Mom and Daryl & Denise for the really interesting view into Krakow’s history.

Thanks to Daryl & Denise and Lacey & Nolan, we enjoyed a visit to Wawel Hill, Krakow’s crown jewel of architectural treasures. Wawel Hill has everything a visitor could want: ancient history, political history, religious significance, documentation of current events, and even a great view of the city!!

The Cathedral on Wawel Hill

Another great museum is housed in the factory that used to be owned by Oskar Schindler. Thanks to Daryl & Denise, we were able to learn more about Schindler, as well as the impact of Nazi Germany’s occupation of Krakow and Poland in general.

My favorite part of the museum was a circular room covered in newspaper-like print. Filling the walls were statements about Oskar Schindler, in many different languages, from the Jews who were saved in his factory.

He employed me at his factory, even though he knew I was useless to him.

The Galicia Museum is located in the historical Jewish district of Kazimierz in Krakow, and focuses on how Jewish life in Poland was, how it has changed, and what it is currently. What makes this museum really interesting is that it shares the development of Jewish life in Poland through only contemporary photographs. The intention is to teach history with photographs of the present. I really enjoyed this museum and thought the approach was remarkable. Thank you to Daryl & Denise and Laurie & Jim for this experience.

We rang in 2014 in Krakow, complete with champagne and amateur fireworks! Thank you Laurie & Jim for the midnight treats!

Joe selecting our midnight libations.

We did a lot of eating in Krakow, to include lots of traditional polish dishes. However, about a year ago, Joe and I released ourselves of the pressure to eat local food for Every. Single. Meal. It was an amazing decision, because we have enjoyed many traditional spins on our favorite foods. The same Mexican restaurant was recommended by several of our friends, so of course we stopped in! It was soooo good. Thank you Daryl & Denise for the best Mexican we have had in Europe to date!

I even had a cosmo for you, Daryl. It has been more than a decade since that ill-fated day with you, me, and the cosmos, but this one was well worth the wait! 🙂

We also did some vodka tasting…also thanks to Daryl & Denise! Pretty good stuff!

This is what happens after an entire bottle of wine…and numerous rounds of vodka samples as dessert. Whoops!

We enjoyed a self-indulgent spa trip during our last stop in Poland, thanks to Tyler and Regina. I am still finding shea butter in mysterious places!

Although not exactly part of our plans, the trip to the top of Kasprowy Wierch Mountain was beautiful! Thank you Daryl & Denise for the funicular tickets and lunch at the top of the mountain. Maybe all four of us can go snowmobiling someday together, since it didn’t work out this time around.

Finally, thanks to Mom, we were able to take home fun mementos from each of our stops! Someday our Christmas tree is going to be as packed-full as yours, Mom!

In the Cloth Hall of Krakow.

Thank you, everyone, for all of the experiences and memories from Poland! It was another fantastic Christmas gift, with your collaborative efforts! Dziękuję!

Poland: reverence and sensitivity

Posted on January 4, 2014 by Trysta

Outside of Krakow, in the town of Oświęcim, is what remains of the 45+ camps that made up Auschwitz. Hmmm…what does one say about this place? As an American, and more specifically an American living in Germany, learning about WWII has developed into something that I never would have expected for myself.

Despite more than two years of preparing for this visit, our day at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II –Birkenau really caught me off guard. First off, it is huge. Bigger than I could have ever imagined. Some of the buildings have been turned into museum exhibits, some have been re-built to show visitors what life in the camp was like, while only brick chimney stacks remain of the majority.

However, what surprised me the most was the behavior of visitors- those who were physically present with us during our visit, and those who have documented their visit via Internet media. The actions of Nazi Germany during the 1930s and 40s have brought me to tears several times, but this is not what I mourn for today.

This simple fact seems to have been forgotten by many: the grounds of the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps are the largest cemetery in the world and are the site of one of the most horrific genocides known to mankind. Sometime in the 70+ years that have passed between WWII and now, some people seemed to have lost their sensitivity…and their sensibility…and failed to treat it as such.

Joe and I have visited several concentration camps during our journey and I hope that I have reflected on each of them in this blog with tact and sensitivity. The facts are important to know, to prevent history from reoccurring, but reading them here could never ignite the reverence that Auschwitz deserves. Henceforth, I will not recite the specifics of death tolls, torture methods, or inhumane living conditions. Photographs feel trivial, when compared to the despair felt by so many innocent people. So, you will also not find pictures here of locations where over a million souls took their last breaths and silently pleaded with God.

What does one say about this place? For Joe and I, it provoked enduring thoughts and feelings too complex to be summed up in a blog. If you are interested in knowing more about Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, or how you can prepare for your own visit, please reach out personally. We are more than willing to share our experiences, as well as engaging and sensitive educational materials, so that you can memorialize the outrages of WWII in a way that feels right for you.

Poland: border to border – Part 2

Posted on January 2, 2014 by Trysta

KRAKOW – I am going to focus on the more cheerful elements of our Krakow visit. We visited the old Jewish neighborhood, the remaining section of the ghetto wall, memorials to the victims of WWII, and several amazing museums. However, there is more to Poland than WWII and Communism…so that is what I feel like sharing!

Let’s focus on eating and drinking for a bit!! We thought our days of European Christmas markets were finished last month, so we were super excited that the market in Krakow was still open!! Krakow’s Old Town is so beautiful, and we enjoyed wandering around eating pierogies and drinking mulled wine!

Speaking of pierogies, one order arrived like this:

Sadly, we didn’t sample the “bread plate”, as it was literally as hard as a real plate. The pierogies were pretty tasty though…obviously:

Karkow’s Old Town is where we rang in 2014! We got a preview of the concert and festivity preparations a few days in advance.

Actual New Year’s Eve was quite interesting. I’m not going to lie: I’m looking forward to returning to the States, where most firework shows are carried out by professionals. There is something about hundreds of thousands of drunk people standing shoulder to shoulder, roman candles, and bottle rockets that just scream ‘danger’! We returned home unscathed, but I’m not sure about some of our fellow partiers! The concert consisted of Polish pop stars performing their own versions of American songs. It felt like the theme should have been “Polish Karaoke Night 2014!”

At the end of our visit in Krakow, we were lucky enough to meet up with the current Olmsted Scholar living in Krakow and her family. They took us on a great tour of Krakow’s funky bar scene! While everyone else was chasing their vodka shots with beer, this “non-hops fan” was following vodka with more vodka. This is what most of the evening looked like from my perspective:

Of course, I’m exaggerating here…however, I can’t exaggerate about how much fun we had getting to know another member of the Olmsted crowd and drinking our way around Krakow. Thank you for sharing your “family time” with us!

ZAKOPANE – Last stop, Zakopane: Poland’s “Winter Wonderland”! Our plan was to explore the Gubałówka Mountains via snowmobile. Due to the extraordinarily warm winter we are having here in Europe, there was not enough snow in Zakopane to snowmobile. So, our adventure was changed to an ATV trip. Unfortunately, as we were driving to the base of the mountain, we found out that our ATV tour was cancelled for no given reason. Although disappointed and frustrated, this change of fate probably saved our lives: we were lost and had already spun out several times, as well as slid backwards down a hill covered in ice with our super-stellar (read: horrifically awful) rental car. Lack of snow does not mean lack of ice in “winter wonderland”!

Plan B: Kasprowy Wierch mountain range in the Tatra National Park! We took two funiculars to the top, which had plenty of the white stuff!

We still enjoyed a beautiful “winter” day, even without the snowmobiles!!

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Our journey through Germany and beyond

Category Archives: Poland

Poland: dziękuję!

Poland: reverence and sensitivity

Poland: border to border – Part 2