Poland

After falling asleep at 9 p.m. at Denmark, I was awakened by somebody in my room. Instead of saying something, I just pretended to still be asleep. I turned my head just a little bit to see who it was, I saw a dark figure, trying their best to be quiet. It was my mother, who came in to steal a blanket for Zach. If I was still asleep before, I certainly wasn't now, the way she ripped apart the entire bed to get a bed sheet. After she "quietly" left, I rolled over to see what time it was. I powered on my phone, burning my eyeballs. It's 12:30 in the morning. I groaned as I knew it was going to be a long night. I tried to fall back asleep, by restlessly shifting around on my bed and staring out the open window but with no luck. After a seemingly endless night, I checked my phone, relieved that the rest  of my family would be getting up soon.

Rolling out of bed, I got dressed and put on my watch, and safari hunter hat, complete with stylish sunglasses. Our flight left at ten or eleven, so I started to get packing, mostly to get rid of my boredom. I went around fishing for my stuff through my sibling's backpack, my sleeping bag, and my water shoes. I wished I didn't have to carry them around, as my backpack became 2x bigger. I set my bag aside and waited for all my siblings to get up and get ready.

I sat around for an hour or so until we were all set to go. Stepping out of the apartment, we walked towards the bus stop. It was a cool morning, with a few people walking past, getting to their jobs or hobbies. I watched all this until my mom called out, "I forgot my FitBit!" I just looked at my dad who told her something along the lines of "Seriously, we are going to miss the bus!" But, he ran back to the apartment anyway

My mom has this look to her when she starts internally praying, she gets wide-eyed, starts doing a little dance thing. So, she was doing her ritual until my heroic father running back through the mist and handed my mom her bracelet. We all cheered, and by we, I mean my mom. The rest of the family just sighed.

Just five minutes after, the bus showed up. We picked up our gear and headed for the train station. I sat and looked through the window until we needed to get off, and speed walked to our train in order to make it on time.

We walked through the airport to our flight. These smaller airports don't seem to have those fancy walkways where they connect directly to the plane, so you have to go up to the plane and take the stairs, like the ones you see in the older movies. But, before you get to the plane, they make you take a bus full of people that smell like garbage and sweat. Also, I don't know why, but the flights here are full of weird colors, WOW airlines is purple and Ryanair is yellow. I don't mean a dark yellow, it's like a ripe banana.

But the flight was only 2 hours long and it wasn't that bad, I spent most of the flight watching a movie anyway.

I got through the airport and our family regrouped. My dad told us we had to take a train to get downtown and from there, walk to our apartment. The walk was about a mile away to our apartment so we need to walk fast if we are going to see anything later. I got all my stuff that I was carrying and started walking. The pace that my dad sets are more like a jog more than a walk. The best way I can describe it is how my mom puts it, "He walks like everything is on fire."

The day was cool, a nice temperature for July. It made the walk a lot more bearable. I could tell we were getting close to our apartment by the way my dad was looking at his phone. I should mention that google maps has been our best friend on this trip. In general, we have no idea if this trip would've been possible without phones.

I caught up with my dad after he started slowing down. We made it. We were greeted by this girl who was leaning on the door swinging the keys around. Funny enough, my dad told me that he told her to meet us at 3 without fully knowing if we were going to make it on time. Somehow we did, at 2:57.

Our family said hello and she took us down to our room via two hallways and an alley. She unlocked the door to our apartment. and walked through. Inside, she showed us around, with my family behind like sheep. I stopped seeing rooms as soon as I saw the living room couch. She said goodbye and that was that.

We got all situated and we decided to go see the square that was down the street. We were all pretty hungry so we kept an eye out for food as well. I first saw a sandwich place but turned it away when I saw the word "vegan." I like a little protein in my life and tofu doesn't make that cut.

We continued forward and found a pizza place just a little ways down where we all agreed to stop off and eat. Everything was so cheap in comparison to Denmark. Poland is generally cheap anyway, food is usually 2-5 United States dollars for a full entree which is nice for a family of eight. Our waitress was extremely friendly and helpful, probably just for a tip. ;-)

 After we finished, we made our way to the square. I should mention this is where I started to wish I could've slept last night because I was struggling to stay awake. Everywhere we sat down, I would take a quick nap, usually sitting up.

At the square, I looked around for keychains. There were a few shops that I browsed with really no luck. Until one store, I saw the missionaries. I didn't say anything because I wasn't in the mood to chat. They were also in the process of buying an 80 dollar chess set so I left them alone. I also found my keychain - a dragon. It's for the old folktale here about a dragon that once terrorized Krakow. You can read it here: http://myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/userstory6306-the-legend-of-the-wawel-dragon-a-polish-traditional-legend.html

I picked it up for 2 bucks and went to find my parents, who at the time were having ice cream without me. Before I knew it, there was a whole cone right in my face. It wasn't the best ice cream but it wasn't bad. If you're ever in Poland, just don't get the fruit flavors as I found them to not be very good.

After touring the square, we wanted to go see some WWII monuments that were around town, specifically Oskar Schindler's factory, where he saved 1,100 Jews by saying he needed them for the war effort. You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler

The walk to the Schindler factory is about 2 miles from the square. It was getting dark so we got up and left in order to make it back home not too late.  As we were walking, we were stopped by a tour guide with a golf cart thing. He told us that he could give us a tour around the entire city, seeing all the major sights and stuff. At first, we declined, but he said, "wait wait," then promptly grabs his phone and played Vivaldi. I found this funny because the first assumption he had for us English speakers is that we automatically love classical music. We declined again, but he gave us a good price so we finally agreed.

We hopped into the cart and we were off. I was so tired that I was out for most of it but I did see Schindler's factory so that was good. I also saw monuments for WWII and some cool buildings around the city as well.

After an hour, the tour came to an end. My dad had to pick up some zloty, so in the meantime, we had a photoshoot with our tour guide. I don't think he was used to being in photos but I got the photos.

We paid the guy and left to go back home. We stopped off to get some loady again before going home. This time, I got blueberry, not a good choice. I don't recommend it. Feel free to try it though to see what I meant.

We went to bed after playing the Wii at the apartment which Sam went crazy over. The thing was disgusting, the controllers were gross and you needed to take a shower even if you looked at them.

The next day, we planned out to go to Auschwitz, the camp where at least 1 million Jews died. We needed to get to the bus in order to make it on time. We got to the bus stop after passing through a mall. My dad had to pick up bus tickets in order to get on. After, we did a head check and realized we were missing someone, Sam was gone. We have a buddy system in place in order to prevent this type of thing, and Sam was my buddy so it was my fault that he was missing. My mom and dad started to panic and ran back into the mall and I looked through the crowds of people at the bus stop. My mom and dad found Sam, surrounded by old Polish women, desperately trying to understand what he was saying. My dad said that when he found him, Sam kept repeating my mom's phone number but didn't give the area code so it wouldn't have worked anyway. After I got chewed out a little for my mistake, we found our bus stop and waited for our ride.

As we were standing there, a girl approached us and asked, "Are you guys American?" I'm pretty sure she figured that out from the everything about our family, how we talk, and the size of our family. We said yeah and we went into a conversation about why we were out in Poland and where we were going. We chatted then got onto the bus. I then carried the conversation the rest of the time on the bus. I even talked about the church a little bit. Future missionary 2K17.

We got off the bus onto the entrance of Auschwitz. I have always wanted to see it and now there I was. They preserved Auschwitz in order for the world to  never forget what happened there and hope to have it that way as long as they can.

It was raining that morning and none of us had any jackets or warm clothing whatsoever, so we sat underneath a tree and waited while my dad bought tickets for the tour. We had some cookies that my dad bought too. Snacks are the savior of pacifying young kids. Shove a cookie into Zach's face and it shuts him up right away.

It was about an hour wait before our English speaking tour was on its way. We walked through a brick building that took us into the back where there were all these buildings lined up, housing for Jews. Inside each one was some history of either the Jews, the buildings, or the camp itself.

The building that got to me the most had a picture of  this mother with all of her kids. Mind you, the Nazi's would almost immediately kill women or children. So, when I saw this picture and seeing the look of fear in the mother's eyes it killed me inside.

We continued walking through buildings, seeing artifacts and photos, We saw one room with rows of prosthetic limbs and another room with 15,000 pounds of hair. It was harrowing to see.

 The rest of the tour was talking about a few other artifacts but the ones I mentioned struck out to me the most. I was able to get a few photos and sat down. The tour was supposed to continue to Birkenau, but we broke away and decided to get some food first before going to Birkenau. We walked past two sets of fences lined with electricity and barbed wire. I still cannot believe this happened. The last fence we crossed through said "Work Will Make You Free" which was an absolute lie. I can't describe the feeling I got when I read those words. We got to the entrance and made our way to find food.

We walked through an outdoor gym to a restaurant selling kebabs, burgers, and pizzas. The people were very friendly, and the food was a lot for an inexpensive price. My dad and I got the kebab while the rest of the family got either burgers or pizzas.

The food was massive! for only 3 dollars too! my kebab could've fed the entire family it was that much. My brother insisted that he could eat his own burger, so my dad ordered his own. When they brought it out, Jacob realized that it was too much. The burger was bigger than his face! We sat around there for a little until Natalie spilled garlic sauce into their plant water. We got out fast after that.

We walked back to Auschwitz and took a bus to the Birkenau concentration camp. It's about a 5 minute ride from Auschwitz or about a 30 minute walk. When we arrived, I was expecting the camp to be like Auschwitz, it's nothing like it. The camp is massive, with the housing for the Jews to be a barn. Cutting through the center of the camp were a set of railroad tracks. My dad pointed out to us that the tracks don't run through the camp. This camp was the last stop. We walked next to the tracks and walked around the buildings. We saw a crematorium, but was bombed out by the Germans in order to try to hide their crimes. We mostly just walked around and discussed the cruelties of WWII as there weren't as many buildings enter inside, in order to preserve the buildings.

It was getting late and we had to get going so we could make it back home on time. We hopped on our bus that took us to another bus which took us back to Krakow where we walked home from there. We got home and went to bed as soon as we could.

The next day we went to the salt mines in Poland. The mines had statues and carvings made entirely out of salt as the miners down there would work on sculptures in their free time. Getting up sort of early, we walked down to where the mine was located. It was really busy that day, where you had to wait an hour just to buy tickets. So, my dad waited in line while my mom but us more ice cream. My mom and dad were taking turns waiting in line while I was to keep an eye on the kids.

While my parents were gone, Zach told me that he needed to go to the bathroom. I had no idea where a bathroom was, but I couldn't just sit there. So, I picked him up and made my way to the nearest park. I found a little corner in some parking lot where he was able to go. I was constantly looking around hoping nobody would see me, but it didn't work out as I got a lot of weird stares from people walking past me. Doesn't matter, I'll never see them again.

I made my way back to where my family was hanging out where they were all eating ice cream while waiting. I sat down and decided to join them. Shortly after, our tour was beginning to start. We made our way to the entrance of the salt mines.

The stairs down was extremely long, almost 300 meters down! Our tour guide talked to us about the history of the mines along the way, explaining what we were going to see and why this salt mine was here. We got down to the bottom where we entered a huge empty room, with a few statues in the middle. I took a few photos while our tour guide was talking but the photos weren't very good because of the lighting.

We continued throughout the tour seeing the statues and carvings and they were impressive, but not as impressive as the tabernacle. The tabernacle was carved entirely out of salt, and it was huge! There were carvings on the walls and huge chandeliers made all out of salt. This room took 65 years to create, only made by 3 guys too. The picture on the right is only a small portion of it.

We continued through the remainder of the tour and hung out at a kid's zone thing for a little bit, where I took the advantage to take a nap. After and hour or so, we had to get going so we walked about a quarter mile to the elevators. When we were in line for the elevator, my dad figured out he forgot his glasses. He told me to go get them so I had to go all the way back, find the glasses, and come all the way back again. I managed to make it in time for our turn to go up, but I was getting close.

We got back to the surface and made our way home again. It was an intense day even though it was just the salt mines. We were all pretty hungry too so we stopped off and got some traditional Polish food.

Our dad was the one that usually took the responsibility of ordering for us, so we all didn't have to walk to the counter. So, my mom asks him to get her a salad, with a fried pork chop. He said great and went up to the counter. What he didn't realize was that he ordered her the XXL pork chop instead of the small one. The slab of meat was so big, they needed to bring it out on a cutting board. Make it worse, all underneath was packed with fries. It was rather funny to see all the other people around us, watching this happen with wide eyes and looks of surprise as this small lady is given a huge piece of pork.

After dinner, we went back to our apartment and got packed up again. This was our last night in Poland and we were making our way to Italy early ish the next morning. I loved Poland and I hope to find myself here again.