Europe Trip - Day 6

June 20, 2010

Today we are on our way by bus to Krakow. Warsaw was amazing!

On the way Elena is telling us about recent weeks in Poland. She says "shit the President died. Shit the flood is coming." Everyone has been very concerned.

We then discussed the election and that we had not seen much advertising. She said this had been a very subdued election due to the plain crash and deaths involved but that Poland also has a "silence day" the day before and day of election. Interesting.

We are listening to Chopin on the bus. He was born in Poland.

We stopped by Schindler's factory on the way to Krakow. They have recently opened a museum there. We were not able to go in but took five minutes to get pictures. We have started watching Schindler's List on our travels.

We are touring synagogues and churches on our way through.

After we arrived in Krakow we walked through the Krakow Ghetto. It is amazing to thinkhow devastating this all was and is. We visited a square where all the Jewish people were gathered. The older people brought chairs with them. After the Nazis took everyone away, only the chairs remained. The square included a memorial of many empty chairs. All turned in the same direction except one; it faced an ally where several Jewish people were executed. Very powerful memorial.

We visited a synagogue and I learned of a poet, Wislawa Szymboeska, that wrote several poems about to concentration camps, death camps and the Holocaust. One she wrote told of her dreaming of a wagon taking away all of the Jewish family names during the night, never to return.

Brittany looked at a book, "Auschwitz: The Residence of Death" and we will have to look in to purchasing it at a later date.

We then took a long walk through Krakow, visiting three synagogues and two churches. Beautiful. So much history.

We had dinner at a Jewish restaurant that Ele suggested. It may have been the best part of the trip. Dinner was excellent and included beef, dumplings and a coleslaw like side. An authentic Jewish band entertained us. The band included piano, guitar, accordion, percussion and upright bass. The group was very talented and very playful. Elena sat at our table (Brittany and I) and it was much fun. Elena was happy to sit by the bass player. She said he was good AND good looking. As we were leaving she was talking to him in another language then came outside and said "bloody Hell"! I asked her what was up and she said "he's already married, and to a Hungarian!" Funny stuff.

Back at the Hotel Regina showed us a picture she took at Schlinder's factory of an old man leaning out his window. She said she is going to use it as her facebook profile pic. She's a funny lady.

Day 6 is in the books.