Shopping on Długa and Sightseeing in Sopot

On Tuesday we took P to see the university where Myles is working. We walked on the campus and he gave her the guided tour. We had lunch at the little cafeteria in the Business School.

 

We then went to the tourist section of Gdansk. We wandered around, shopped and ate ice cream.

We walked P through the Torture Museum and she enjoyed trying some of the torture methods out.

We found a very nice Polish cuisine restaurant and had a wonderful dinner together. 

 

P tried out some of Poland's finest pierogies and thought they were very tasty.

Today P, Abbie, Trey and I went out on our own. Ben had some homework to do and Natalie did not feel well so they stayed home (she is feeling fine now). Myles had to work all day today. We walked over to the kids' school so that P could see the journey we take to get there every Monday. We then walked to the train station and took a train about 15 minutes to the resort town of Sopot. We had lunch and did some more shopping. We walked along the pier and the day was a beautiful 61 degrees. My California sister was still sporting her winter coat but we were taking ours off!

We walked under the pier for no good reason at all.

Tomorrow is P's last full day here with us. We will be heading an hour south on the train to Malbork. There is a castle there that belonged to the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century.

Stutthof

Yesterday P, Natalie and I went to go see Stutthof. Abbie was invited but she declined. She was with us when we went to Auschwitz and does not want any further education on concentration camps at this point. I am fine with that. This is heavy stuff. This camp museum forbids kids under 13 so Myles stayed home with Trey. Myles and Ben are going on their own in the next couple of weeks. Sztutowo is the name of the town and Stutthof is the German version of that. Sztutowo (Shtu-toe-vo) is about 40 kilometers--25 miles--outside of Gdansk. A friend of ours had been there and gave me instructions how to get there by bus. We arrived at the bus station downtown and waited for our 9:15 bus to arrive.

We got on the bus and started on our way. It takes about an hour to get to Sztutowo. About halfway there our bus driver stops along the side of the road and gets out to have a smoke. Then about 15 mintues later he stops and gets out to make a cell phone call.

About 15 minutes later we arrive at our destination. It is out in the middle of nowhere and our bus stop was simply a sign on the side of the road.

In this picture you can see railroad tracks by Natalie's feet. These were the tracks that brought more than 100,000 people to the Stutthof concentration camp. The entrance to the concentration camp is across the street and down a block or so. This sign is original and visible from the street.

This camp was set up at the very beginning of WWII, and the first people to be brought here were people from Gdansk and the area. Jews were not brought to this camp until 1944. The people brought here were normal citizens, mostly men, who were seen as opposing the goals of the Germans. This camp was cruel and similar to Auschwitz and Birkeneau in several ways. People were treated badly. People worked in harsh conditions. All children brought to Stutthof were immediately killed. Little food and inadequate clothing were provided. There were gas chambers and crematoriums. We did not see inside the gas chamber but the guide told us that there are obvious marks on the walls inside where desperate people tried to claw their way out when the poisonous Cyclone B was dropped in. Horrific. 65,000 people were exterminated here and 20,000 more died from disease.

People who survived the camp return on occasion for ceremonies and meetings. There are boards telling some of their stories.

This is a memorial to all the Catholics who died at the camp. In the background is a cattle car like the ones that brought thousands of humans to this place.

This is a memorial to the Jews who were brought here and perished.

This monument is huge and honors all of the people who suffered deplorable conditions and lost their lives at Stutthof.

The parish that we attend here in Gdansk is Saint Stanislaus. We walk there every Sunday, so it is close. On September 2, 1939, the pastor of this parish, Bronisław Komorowski,was abducted and taken to Stutthof along with others. He was murdered there on Good Friday of 1940. There are several pictures of him displayed at Stutthof. One was taken before this trouble and Saint Stanislaus church is in the background. The church looks the same now. This really brings the horror of what happened to life for us. There is a cemetery about two blocks from our house where many of the victims of Stutthof are buried, or at least are recognized.

After our tour we walked a few blocks to the bus stop to head back to Gdansk. We had to wait for about an hour for the bus, but the roosters by the stop kept us entertained.

The bus finally came and we made it home in the late afternoon and relaxed for a while. Then we all went out for pizza for dinner.

Palm Sunday

I am having a great time with my sister in town! On Saturday it was rainy and in the low 40s. She was still getting acclimated to the time difference so we had a low key day. We went to our nearby mall and shopped with the girls for Easter dresses. They each found one that they are happy with and they both found new spring shoes to match their outfits. We enjoyed wandering around and visiting. Ben and Trey took the bus and met us at the mall for lunch. Then we came home and hung around the house for the rest of the day. Myles arrived home from his trip to France in the evening.

Daylight Savings Time started for us today, so we lost our hour last night. Pam is extra lucky this year. Not everyone gets to spring forward twice in one year (at home in California two weeks ago and now here)! Fortunately, she is still time confused so another lost hour is not having too much of an effect on her. This morning we went to Mass for Palm Sunday. I had decided before we went to church that we were not going to get palms to bring home. Well that all changed when I arrived at church! We walked in and everyone was holding beautiful handmade palm creations. These are so pretty and we do not have anything like this at home for Palm Sunday.

There were children singing and holding their "palms" (for lack of a better word) up high. Whenever they got to the refrain where Jesus is mentioned, they waved their palms around. It was an impressive and very sweet scene. Well, I could not resist, and we did get one of these creations. Mass started and the priest blessed all of the people and the palms. Then he started down the aisle and all of the people followed him. I had no idea where we were going but we didn't want to miss out, so we followed along. He went out the side door and all of the altar boys and the congregation followed. A couple of altar boys had microphones and speakers physically attached to themselves and were singing.

We made one lap around the outside of the church and then went back in. Everyone was in a different seat than we started out in. We were at the end of the procession so there were no seats left. We ended up going up the stairs to the choir loft and sitting up there with some others who had also lost their seats. The rest of Mass was the same as always. We are looking forward to seeing the Easter celebration. On our way home from church we stopped by the grocery store. There was a guy outside, dressed in a dingy gray bunny costume, holding his bunny head, smoking a cigarette. Wish I had a picture of that!

In the afternoon we took Pam to the small Solidarity Museum and to the memorial for the ship builders who were killed in 1970. We had been there before but it was interesting to see again. Here are Pam and Natalie by the "dominoes" at the museum.

They symbolize the chain reaction that occurred when Poland finally broke free from communism. The rest of the countries that were under Soviet control soon broke free as well. After the museum we walked to one of our favorite restaurants here. It is a Turkish restaurant with really yummy kebabs. It's only kind of Turkish because they also have pizza that the kids love. We saw this cute, little, old lady on the way to the restaurant. She is holding a pigeon that is eating out of her hand. I love her hat, her cane and her intense focus on that bird!

After dinner we had to take a tram and a bus home. As we exited the tram we saw our bus coming down the street. We had to run to catch it, and we did! P is learning lots about public transportation. It is quite exciting! Tomorrow P, Natalie and I are going to the Stutthof Musuem. WWII started here in Gdansk on September 1, 1939. Stutthof was the first concentration camp. It was set up September 2, 1939 and it was the last one to be shut down. This will be a somber visit but I think since we are in this part of the world we are obligated to learn and understand what happened here.

P Has Landed

After much anticipation, my sister's visit to Poland is finally here!

Trey and I went to the airport to pick her up. Her plane was right on time. She flew 11 hours from Los Angeles to Frankfurt and then another hour and a half from Frankfurt to Gdansk. She sure did not look any the worse for wear after that long journey! We arrived home (via taxi) at about 6:30 p.m. We had dinner and then all sat around visiting for the evening. Gdansk is eight hours ahead of California right now. On Sunday we will join the rest of the world in Daylight Savings Time and will then be nine hours ahead. So she has some time adjusting to do.

Look what she brought us! It's hard to tell in the picture, but those are Girl Scout Cookies! Thin Mints!

She brought Ben's paperwork for re-enrolling at Aquinas. I asked Aquinas to send the information to her since we knew she was coming. She also brought beef jerky for Ben and his friends.

We got taco seasoning! That is a very good thing since I cannot find anything close to it here. She brought six packets. That should last us for the next not quite three months!

And brownie mix--American treats! The box even says "America's Favorite!"

We are planning to go to the mall tomorrow to find some Easter dresses for the girls. Pam also wants to see those swans at the beach. I think tomorrow is going to be the warmest day she is here so we will try to get there tomorrow as well. Oh, and today was 68 degrees by the way. What a happy, happy day! Tomorrow is only supposed to be in the 50s but we will take it. Looks like spring has finally made it to Poland.

Myles is still in France but comes home tomorrow night. We will be glad to have him back home as well.

"Sis"

We just learned today that a beloved member of Myles' family passed away on February 26th. Marie White (pictured on the right), affectionately known as Sis, was 92 years old. Myles' godmother, Aunt Dot (pictured in the center) lost her mother in a fire when she was 14 months old. She and Sis, one year apart in age, were technically cousins but were raised together as sisters. They lived across the street from each other most of their adult lives. We were able to visit with Sis when we went to St. Louis shortly before we left for Poland. She was bedridden but always had a smile and kind words for us. We are sorry we were not able to be with Dottie for her funeral. She was a special lady! Eternal rest, grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace.

Americana With a Heap of Pancakes

On Saturday I took Trey and Abbie to a playground.

We spied it back in early January but this was the first time that it was warm enough to get outside and play. They played hide and seek, and had a great time swinging and climbing.

We then met Myles, Ben and Natalie downtown. We did not really have any plans and just wandered. We walked by the office of Lech Walesa. Although we have not seen him (yet!), he does work right in downtown Gdansk.

It was cloudy but warm so we were happy. We walked by one of the many restaurants in Old Town and look what they had advertised on their board! (Second line under "Polecamy")

We went to a medieval crane museum. Gdansk used to be a major port city and this is where all of the goods came into the city from the ships. It's fascinating to see the innovative ways people used to bring goods ashore.

The best part of the day was that we found a place to eat dinner called Billy's American Restaurant! Wow!

They had license plates on the wall from many states. There was an almost current one from Kansas--Saline County! The expiration sticker was from 07. How did that arrive in a restaurant in Gdansk, Poland? Old Glory is outside and there are pictures of NYC, Mohammad Ali, Harley Davidsons and various other American symbols all throughout the dining area.

It kind of looks like a fast food place, but we went in, sat down and checked out the menu. We had to ask for menus in English but they had them. This was a pretty nice place--and prices were reasonable. So Trey ordered a hot dog, the girls ordered burgers, Ben and I had chicken sandwiches and Myles ordered a steak. While we were waiting for dinner we wondered about how "American" it would be. Red meat is not common here. I have found some fairly good hamburger meat at one of the huge grocery stores, but lots of times the smaller grocery stores don't have it at all. Turns out that this is an awesome American restaurant! It was sort of like an Applebee's. It was definitely a taste of home. The sandwiches, fries and cole slaw were similar to what we would find at any casual dining restaurant in Olathe. And Myles said his steak was pretty good, too.

We told the waiter that it was very American. He was surprised to learn that we were Americans living in Gdansk. He is a student at a different university studying finance, so he and Myles chatted for a bit.

We were full from our dinner so we did not order dessert. But one of the desserts on the dessert menu is "A Heap of American Pancakes with Maple Syrup." That leaves us to wonder how many American pancakes make up a heap? No worries, we will get to the bottom of it before we leave Gdansk for good. We will most certainly be making another visit to Billy's American Restaurant before we head home in June. The kids were already making plans to take Aunt P there while she is visiting us. She will be here on Friday. This Friday! But since she is coming from America, and will be returning to America seven days later, we will probably not be seeking out an American restaurant while she is here.

Spring Starts Tomorrow

But we got a sneak peek today! We've been craving a day over 40 degrees for a really, really long time, and today it shot clear up to 52! It was cloudy but that did not matter today. The kids went outside and tossed the ball around. There is still a tiny bit of snow on the ground in our yard, but most of it is gone (hopefully for the duration of our stay!).

I put the laundry out on the balconies to dry. We have had the laundry drying on racks in the house since about November. It was so nice to have it outside for a while!

It is back inside now because it looks like it could rain at any moment. But it was nice to have those things out of the way at least for a bit.

We did very little school work today, played hooky and went to the beach for a while. There was a tractor on the beach leveling the mounds of sand.

Ben and Natalie kicked the soccer ball around. Natalie spent a lot of time practicing her soccer juggling. It has been a long time since she has been able to have her foot on the ball and she has been missing it.

Abbie found a bottle in the water. She and Natalie tried to get it but it was too far out. It is way too cold to venture into the water, even if we suspect there might be a note in the bottle (as Abbie did). Someone else will have to get the message this time. Trey played in the sand and came home very dirty!

We were only there for an hour or so, but it is a favorite activity of all of us. If we want to go to the beach at home, major planning and traveling are involved to somehow get us to a coast. Here we can just go for an hour and enjoy the scenery. Everyone was thrilled to be able to ditch their coats this afternoon.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

'Tis St. Paddy's Day today! The chance of finding corned beef here is close to zero, so we'll just have to wear our green for the day. I just finished reading Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. What a storyteller! It is a heartbreaking, devastating, sweet and laugh out loud funny Irish memoir. It is now one of my all time favorite reads.

We are still waiting for some sign of spring in Poland! To be fair, it has been reaching above freezing on most days. We are definitely out of the deep freeze, but we are still spending more time than I would like around freezing (and below freezing at night). There are still mounds of snow in parking lots and some still left in our yard. Everyone tells us that they cannot remember a winter in Gdansk like this. Ok, we get it. We are ready to move on! According to the forecast we should have temperatures in the mid 40s in the next few days. Then next week it's back down into the 30s--just in time for my California sister to visit and find herself shocked into my world. We are so excited for her visit, and hopefully she'll be so taken with our warmth that she won't notice the cold weather outside.

We've been staying close to home, getting school work done and finding things to do around the house. Abbie and Trey were bursting with excitement when I brought home play doh from the store over the weekend. 

They spent hours rolling, molding, creating. There were many masterpieces throughout the day but the uncontested favorite was the American flag. They improvised yellow stars instead of white, but the idea was surely there.

I have been meaning to mention an interesting thing about Polish money for some time. Polish currency is the złoty. It takes about three of these to equal one dollar. Then the złoty is made up of 100 groszy (like cents). People here in stores like exact change. If you hand them a 50 or 100 bill, most of the time they will ask for the groszy. It took me a while of observing others (and learning a little Polish) to figure out what they were wanting. Now I try to have a handful of change to give them exact change. Sometimes we have it, sometimes not. Lines wait patiently as everyone counts out their groszy. Some people (especially older people) pull out a handful of change, open their hand and the cashier counts it out of their hand for them while they just stand there. I've even seen people (again, mostly older people but not always) just hand over their change purses for the cashier to count out the coins for them. Another subtle difference in money handling is that when exchanging money there is a little change plate at most counters. You set your money on the change plate, they pick it up from there. Then they put your change there and you pick it up. Now that we have been here for six months I am not having to think about these things so much anymore.

Speaking of money, we bought our plane tickets home yesterday! They were not cheap! It is much more expensive for us to go home than it was for us to get here. It's hard to believe we are already making plans to come home!

Common Sense, Anyone?

A decision has been made by the education officials regarding whether or not Natalie has to take the exam (in Polish) to determine what level she should be in at school. Myles and I wrote a letter explaining that Natalie just arrived in Poland at the end of September. She cannot read, write, speak or understand Polish. We told them that we are leaving the country permanently in June. We advised them that Natalie has been enrolled in our school back in the US, and gave them that contact information in case they wanted to verify the information.

There was a big pow wow Monday morning with the education folks and our school director. The officials have decided that in the future international students will not have to take the Polish test. But this year Polish wisdom dictates that Natalie will have to show up and write her name on the test. That's it. So she will have to go to school on a day that we don't usually go, write her name on this test and head home. Couldn't someone else write her name for her (it's not a signature) so we don't have to trek to the school, I ask. No, she has to write her name herself. Hmm, seems like an illogical waste of time to me!

Last Monday, Natalie hurt her finger in PE at school. We taped it to a popsicle stick and I was prepared to get on with life. By the weekend, after a few showers, the tape needed to be changed. We first ran into a problem because Trey used the rest of the medical adhesive to make a bridge for his trains in his room. So we had to get some more and went about changing it out. Well, her finger was still swollen and very bruised on the underside. Poor Natalie just about fainted from the pain when we were retaping the finger. We are now reasonably certain that it is actually broken, and not just sprained or jammed like we originally thought. I ended up using the popsicle stick and taping her ring finger and middle finger together. I had brought an ace bandage with us from home. (You never know! And it now has come in handy.) So we wrapped her hand to secure the "splint," and will leave it to heal for a while now.

Ben had a couple of friends over Saturday night. They hung out, ate pizza and played computer games all night long. They are a nice group of boys. We hope that they will make the big trip across the Atlantic and come stay with us in the US in the near future.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

We continue to march toward spring (ha! ha! Get it?). We had a couple of days in the low 40s, and quite a few in the 30s. It is going to dip back below freezing tomorrow and through the weekend. But the change in the amount of daylight is significant. It is now light well before 7:00 a.m. and stays light until about 5:40 p.m. By the end of the month it will be light until 7:30 p.m. because of the lengthening days and Daylight Savings Time.

On Tuesday the kids went ice skating with their school friends. At the international school the students usually have swimming on Tuesdays. Since it has been so cold the swimming facility has been unavailable. So they are doing other activities and invite us part timers to join in. Here is a picture of most of the students. I love this picture, but Abbie and a couple of other students are not in it. So I will have to keep my camera handy and get a picture of everyone before we leave Poland. The countries represented in this photo are: Italy, Colombia, Japan, Denmark, Latvia, Holland, Norway, Romania, Poland and US. That's pretty cool!

Trey and I skated but we spent most of our time holding onto the wall.

He skated around more than I did. It was a fun afternoon activity. The picture below is Ben and his friend Mads, from Denmark.

We took the tram to the ice skating rink and this ad for Alice in Wonderland was at the tram stop. I love seeing the translations of American movies over here. This version of Alice in Wonderland looks a bit disturbing to me, though.

Yesterday afternoon we went to the beach. It was still cold and pretty windy, but a lot of the snow that had been there has melted. You could at least see that there is sand on the beach. The remaining snow did not keep Trey from playing in the sand.

There has been quite a bit of beach erosion since we were there in January. There is a "cliff" that is about two feet higher than the water.

Natalie took the picture of Trey with the swans. She wants to be a photographer and practices a lot. She likes to take pictures when people are not looking at the camera. This picture is one of my favorites. She has a good eye!

We took this picture at this same spot the last time we came to the beach and it was very snowy. There is still snow on the ground but it is not nearly as deep as it was before, and the sun is much higher in the sky.

Abbie is posing in front of a beautiful background along our walk to the beach.