Joy in the Journey: Poland

To round out our European vacation, our final destination was Poland. The first thing we noticed when we arrived in Poland was the super cold weather. The average temperature during our Polish sojourn was around 10 - 12 degrees, yikes!

Our first stop was Warsaw, Poland. Sheena and I were able to visit the old town square, eat some traditional Polish cuisine, and visit a few of my Polish friends whom I was able to meet during my mission to Poland from 2002 - 2004. I was surprised to hear Sheena say she actually liked the food. While we were in old town Warsaw, we had bigos (Polish hunter's stew with sauerkraut, sausages, and a few other things), pierogi z miesem (flour dumplings with meat), and roast duck. After eating out we walked around for a bit in a few of the tourist shops and then met up with a friend, Leszek Klabisz, for some hot chocolate.

Our next stop in Poland was Lublin. Lublin is on the eastern border of Poland near the country of Ukraine. While there we were able to have dinner with Czarek and Beata Gladun. It was fun to be able to see the Gladun's and the timing was perfect. Czarek Jr. was heading off on his LDS mission the next day (he received a call to Poland), so we saw him just in time. During my LDS mission to Poland, I was able to teach the Gladun's and it was neat to see them again. During our second day in Lublin we visited Majdanek. Majdanek was a Nazi concentration camp from World War II located just outside Lublin. It was a sobering experience to see Majdanek and learn about some of the terrible things that took place there. Hundreds of thousands of prisoners were held at Majdanek and I believe around 80,000 people were murdered in the camp (mostly Jews, Polish nationals/POW's, and Russian nationals/POW's).

Our last night in Poland we returned to Warsaw. We took a train early the next day around 8:45 AM to Gdansk where we had a plan bound for Rome, Italy. The train ride took FOREVER, around 5.5 hours. I kept telling Sheena I could run faster with snow boots and a speed parachute; the train was super slow and stopped in like every little bum town. We finally arrived in Gdansk where after a bit of confusion, we caught our flight back to Rome, Italy.

The next morning we caught our flight from Rome back to the United States. Our trip took a little over two weeks. It felt like we had been gone in Europe a month because we packed lots of activities into those two weeks. We had a blast, but we were happy to get back to family and those things we love and enjoy at home.