Krakow

Yes it's been a while, I know! I have been incredibly busy.

Things I find myself doing much more than a normal person:

a) sprinting down the street at full throttle, often in heels, to catch a tram/train
b) crying in airports
c) buying lots and lots of vegetables, and throwing them all away a week later (very bad I know, but I do compost them)

Lately I feel my life is a big jumble of racing from bed to work to french to bed etc and not much sleeping. And a lot of traveling. Let's start there.

Two weeks ago, I went to Krakow, Poland to meet up with Abby and Melissa (2 friends from college) and Cara. I LOVED Poland. The love affair began instantly, unexpectedly, like these things often do.

I exchanged some euros at the currency counter and received a neat stack of Polish zloty. "And this is for you too" she said, handing me a candy. When was the last time you exchanged money and got candy (ok I always got candy at the bank when I was little, I mean, as an adult)?? Then I got in a taxi with a driver who spoke about 10 words of english. "Hello" "Please" and "Tip I keep?" being half of that. Although we could hardly communicate, I told him that I was from Chicago, which is practically part of Poland, there are so many Polish people there. This was very exciting. Things heated up when I told him that my grandparents were Polish AND I knew how to say thank you in Polish! I was beautiful, I was told, because I am Polish. Score!

I had the wonderful fortune of arriving after the girls tried to check in to our first hotel, which was apparently a cross between a halfway house and a boxcar circus train from the sounds of it. So I arrived at the beautiful Sheraton in Krakow and showered my friends with hugs, kisses and of course, imported swiss cheese. Yum!!! You can read about some of the adventures we had on Abby and Cara's blog here.

Krakow was cheap, the food was good, the people super nice and the beer was outstanding!! I think we tried around 5 or 6. My favorite was called Dog in the Fog, a darkish local Polish beer. The slogan was "he will not lose his way" or something like that. I've looked for some stuff on google about it but have come up empty handed. You'll just have to trust me until I can get my hands on Abby's photos which prove it!

One of the interesting things we did while there was take a trip to Auschwitz, about an hour away. Why would anyone, on a sunny, fun filled vacation, choose to spend the majority of a day going to a concentration camp? We pondered it too. But we were compelled to go see it. It was one of those things that you don't necessarily want to see or do, because it is painful and heartwrenching. I visited Ground Zero earlier this year, which is different but the same in the way that it was the site of a tremendous atrocity and not something that you really want to do on vacation. In New York, I felt extremely emotional and near tears, maybe because it was something that happened during a critical time in my life and I still remember every minute of that entire day - and although it's in the past, for most people my age it is a memory that we live with constantly. At Auschwitz, it felt more like history, and while it was shocking, it was in some ways more difficult to comprehend everything. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the barracks looked more like college dormitories than places that used to house thousands of people. At one point we stood near a wall where many people had been shot, and a group of girls began simultaneously praying (what sounded like the our father to me, although it was in Polish so I couldn't tell). That stayed with me throughout the day, as did the hundreds of photographs we saw saying how long people remained alive there. Some were a year or more. Some were five days or less. I don't know if I forgot from school or I never really knew the extent, but I didn't realize the intent to basically eliminate the entire Polish population, regardless of religion. The quotes and photographs were truly mind-boggling and shocking, and I couldn't decide what astounded me more - the fact that people could actually think and act in such a manner towards fellow human beings, or the fact that other people could stand by and let them get away with it. The other thing which stayed with me for the day was walking through a barrack called "Evidence of Crimes against humanity" where you saw articles left behind from the holocaust victims. A room the size and depth of a large swimming pool filled with pots and pans. A large window, filled with thousands of pairs of spectacles. And another room, high and deep, and on either side, thousands and thousands and thounsand of shoes big and small.

I don't mean to be depressing, but the main thing I personally took away from the experience was that it is ok to feel uncomfortable and depressed and kind of angry about these things that happened, and to allow yourself to feel that way. Because it was really, really awful, and we should feel that way about it and work to ensure nothing like that would ever happen again. If you try to just glaze over it and numb yourself...well I think it was put best by one of the quotes at the site: "he who forgets history is condemned to repeat it."

Anyway...I had to get that off my chest. Back to the fun parts of Poland.

Going to Poland and experiencing everything was cool for me because I am half Polish, and it was the first visit I had to a country of my ancestors. The other fun trip we had was visiting a huge salt mine!! It was about 130 m underground and we had a super funny and cute guide to show us around. Salt is bad ass and was the world's first major trading commodity. There were a lot of really cool sculptures and an entire church which were completely carved from salt. However I think my personal highlight of the entire tour was when Abby licked the wall, and excitedly proclaimed, "It's totally salty!!"

After all the pierogis, beer, Polish history lessons (man they have had a rough time with the neighbors) and adventures, I felt more proud of my Polish heritage than I ever had. Which I commemorated by purchasing a super tacky bright red POLSKA t shirt with a huge eagle on it. Love you Poland!!! (thanks for letting me steal your line Cara!)