We went on a short bus tour of the city of Warsaw, Poland today. Learned a lot about its history and found out why it looks so modern. Most of the city was destroyed during WWII. They have done a wonderful job rebuilding and recreating the old while blending in the new.
I am impressed with how clean the city is. That seems to be important to them. People have been friendly and courteous to us. Traffic was tight in places but it doesn’t have the feel of being a city of over 1 million people.
We had a city guide today that had a wicked sense of humor. Our bathroom break was a Shakespeare break – To pee or not to pee – that is ………. I don’t think a lot of the group got his humor but Nicole and I were laughing most of the tour.
At one point we were at a monument that represented the plight of the Jewish people and their live in a Ghetto. They were at times given a chance to get out of it and they could bring one suitcase of belongings. Of course they were tricked and taken to the gas chambers but man did that hit me when I heard that again today. Our Detainees can take one suitcase of belongings for them to be deported to a place that may well be their own type of gas chambers for some of them.
We ended the tour in Old Town as they call it. Found a delightful restaurant to have lunch in. I like that their food is mostly recognizable and not too spicy but is flavorful. We walked back to our hotel after lunch and spent a quiet afternoon in our room. There was an optional tour to see a castle but that isn’t really my thing.
We went to the hotel restaurant for dinner. I skipped eating as I was still full from lunch. Nicole had some soup and fries.
Tomorrow is an early day. We have to have our luggage outside our door at 6:30 and we leave on our bus ride at 7:30. We are going about 200 miles to our next hotel. There is an optional tour of a salt mine in the afternoon. Nicole signed up for that but I will get a couple hours of quiet time in the hotel.
It was a beautiful day here today. Our guide said that by now they have usually had their first snow fall of the season but so far this year no snow. I think it reached the lower 50’s this afternoon with bright blue skies. They told us it was most unusual to have a day like this so late in the year. It is to get colder as the week moves on but we are moving on too. Not sure what we will be running into weather wise as the trip progresses.
I got a quote from one of the insurance companies I am working with to get liability insurance for Love in Action. The only problem is for some reason it came in Polish and I have no idea what the numbers or words are. We tried several different things to try to get it back into English but no luck. I sent an email to the agent but the email bounced as the server was too busy. I will try to open the email tomorrow on a different server and see what happens. It might be interesting to see it in several different languages as our travels continue. I have never had that happen before.
Had trouble getting a text message to my sister go through. It finally went. Maybe their technology is at a different level than I am used to. I tried both via internet and my international phone service and both struggled. I am not a techie so have no idea what or where the problem is.
There are about 30 people on the tour. Most are couples but there are two single women plus Nicole and I. It is a big group but so far all have been on time. We haven’t found anyone to hang with but the tour is still young. One of the fun parts of a group tour is getting to meet people from all over. So far there has been no political conversations. Most seem to be very privileged retired white people and most have done lots of traveling.
Still processing in my head the results of the election. Holding my breath that the governor’s race goes to Cindy. It gives me hope that we can start turning things around. I wonder what it will do to the demand for Go Bags. Wouldn’t it be nice if that demand disappears? I can’t count on that completely but it will be interesting to watch what happens. Gives me a bit of breathing space to entertain the possibilities.
Grateful for this time with Nicole, grateful for a quiet afternoon, and grateful for the resilience of the human spirit.