Week of Wonders

My Tuesday surprise was a visit to the largest shopping mall in Silesia, near Katowice. Walking in a shopping mall makes my back ache and Aneta dislikes shopping so between the two of us we are not a mall merchants dream team.

I was able to finish a little Christmas shopping for things I will leave behind with people I have grown to care about over these past few months. Aneta and Witek are throwing a big good-bye party for me on Saturday to which everyone I have met here has been invited. Aneta found some nice all wood toys for Ania and Timon and I succeeded in finding Christmas presents for both Aneta and Witek so we had a good shopping day. We had lunch in the mall food court at the Thai Express (that took a bit of convincing for Aneta)with soft drinks from McDonalds because you can get a drink with ICE at McD's. On our return home we stopped for groceries at Auchan, a smaller shopping mall come grocery retailer near Knurow. At 5:30 pm we collapsed on a bench in the mall and indulged in a small ice cream cone to cap our vigorous day of shopping. If there was Ania evening attached to this day I am afraid I don't remember much about it!

Fot: The courtyartd of the Pieskowa Skala Castle, Linda

Wednesday I was up bright and early to be ready for a 9:30 am departure with Kamil and Aneta to visit the palace/castle at Pieskowa in the Ojcowski National Park. Of course the castle museum was closed for the winter but we were able to walk all around the interior court yards, read about the history, dating from the mid 1300's, and enjoy a lovely long walk through the woods and down a long road from the car park to the palace. We had a light lunch at the cafe in the castle tower. I had an omlette with mushrooms and it was the most unusual omlette I have ever had. It was puffed up full of air so that when you bit down on a bite it was like eating foam and it had zero seasoning so the experience was a bit like eating foam as well. I think they prepared the eggs in one of these milk frothers they use here for making coffee with foamed milk on top.

Fot: Pieskowa Skala Castle, Kamil

I enjoyed a lively and pleasant conversation with Kamil in his new Volkswagon Golf with the built in GPS on the dash board. Pretty fancy stuff for this old outdated Americano. Speaking English is very stressful for Kamil as he works at it so hard and worries so about making a mistake.

Fot: Linda and Kamil, Aneta

His English is actually quite good and I felt that we did an admirable job of communicating about the science of climate change, politics in America, opportunity for young people in both Poland and America and his brother's recent visit to America and Chicago and his attendant observations on American life. We also discussed the "old west" and the area of Eastern Oregon in which I live and how it is like the real old west in so many ways.

Before we left the Ojcowski National Park Kamil drove to another area of the park to show me a other castle ruin. This really was a ruin and it was way up on top of a steep hill. I was so worn out from our looong walk to the Pieskowa Palace that I said I could not possibly climb up that long very steep hill to see another castle ruin.

Fot: Ojcow Castle Ruins, Linda

Besides,Ania was asleep in the backseat carseat and it would have been unkind to wake her up for this. So we took some photos from the raking area at the bottom of the hill and then moved on to visit a very interesting old wooded church spanning a river. It turns out that at some time in the past when the

Fot: The chapel on the water, Linda

Russians still had Tzars, one of them issued an edict that people could not build catholic churches on the land area that now comprises Silesia. So, ever creative, the people built their church on pillars standing in the river bed as the edict said nothing about building on water. Now there were benches arranged as if they were pews sitting all along the river bank in front of the church building.

After we returned to Gliwice Kamil took us to visit a new Chocolatier in old town Gliwice recently opened by friends of his. The place is charming and the hot chocolate was so think we had to eat it with a spoon! It was made from real melted chocolate and was absolutely delicious. Kamil ordered four slices of chocolate cake as well, two each of two different varieties and we shared the eating of them. All in all it was a wonderful evening following a wonderful day visiting a beautiful park with incredible rock formations and castles- both standing and in ruins. Thank you my dear new friend, Kamil, for such an experience.

I am certain that planning future trips to Poland will at some point have to include a tour of Silesia as this populous area has an incredible history and many beautiful antiquities upon which to feast the eyes. However, I recommend coming in the spring or summer when the palaces and castles are open!

Fot: George (our guide), Linda and Michal, Aneta

Michal arrived on Thursday morning at 10 am to take Aneta and me to the Tarnowskie Gory Silver Mine. This underground adventure was perfect for this cold, foggy day. Upon arriving we learned that we would have to tour with a large group of school children or purchase 4 admissions and get a private English Speaking guide. I was not privy to the conversation so I didn't give input but soon found that we had a private guide - Jerzy ( or "George" in English, he informed me) was a man at least as old as I am who spoke very good English and was a wonderful guide. Jerzy led us on quite the tour including 800 meters in a narrow boat along an underground canal that was used by the silver miners to move ore from the chambers to the buckets they used to haul it to the surface. There are over 130 miles of underground corridors and waterways in this mine. Needless to say we only toured a small part of it.

Fot: St. Barbara, miner's patron, Linda

We did tour passageways that were made 400 years ago and some made as recently as 100 years ago. The water from the underground canals flows into the two largest rivers in Poland the Wistula and the Odra after it leaves the underground caverns. Some of the passageways were very narrow and had very Odis ceilings so that we had to walk bent over with our hands resting on our knees. Jerzy repeatedly told us how the miners where much shorter than people are today - perhaps working underground from an early age stunts growth!

The tour of the mine and the mining museum took over two hours and we were walking the entire time with the exception of the 800 meters in a boat. We were all hungry and tired when we emerged into the world of light and living things so we made haste for home where we could fix a nice hot dinner. Michal dropped us off at Tesco so we could pick up a few things for making spaghetti and Aneta and I walked back to the flat with our bags of groceries. Michal went to pick Agnes up from work and then Konrad, Agnes and Michal came over for dinner. I prepared spaghetti as close to American style as I could manage and Aneta threw together a nice green salad with Italian dressing. I sliced a baguette and buttered the pieces and wrapped them in aluminum foil to heat in the oven, Garlic salt does not exist in this kitchen, nor does powdered garlic so we just had to pretend we had warm garlic bread as an accompaniment.

Fot: Look, what we found on the wall of the mine!

I SKYPED with my mom tonight and learned that my cousin Patti's husband,Ray Crim,died last week. I am so sad for Patti. She lost her mother in August and now her husband just three months later. Life and death continue on wherever we are in the world.

Friday was supposed to be shopping day for the big party on Saturday night but Aneta's car has been in the shop since Thursday morning and isn't ready yet. So we spent the day cleaning the apartment - I should say Aneta cleaning the apartment and me packing and trying to get some of my stuff out of her living room so she can actually have a party in there on Saturday.
I packed up another box of gifts and goods to mail home as I will be over the limit for weight with luggage if I try to carry all this stuff with me. Witek arrived earlier than expected and we were all happy to see him. He announced that he passed all his exams with the highest score possible and graduated tops of his class at the fire school administrators program. Congratulations Witek!

Witek went and got his parents car so we could go shopping and with the neighbor girl, Kacia, in tow we went to Auchan for our big grocery shopping expedition. When we arrived home again I headed for the kitchen as I had promised to make my American potato salad for the big event. Witek was also in the kitchen making Tiramisu and Aneta was making Polish Vegetable salad and the chicken layered salad that we put on the blog last week. I finally crawled into bed at 11 pm and Aneta and Witek were both still up on the kitchen working away. I was long since asleep when they shut out the lights and went to bed. I had an early morning at the hairdresser this morning - Saturday and needed my beauty sleep.

I was up at 7:30 today and got myself ready to walk up to the shopping are sin Knurow where Agneta the lovely hairdresser has her little shop. The ground was wet and we were having rain for only the second time in the three months plus that I have been here! The air was reasonably warm and I enjoyed my early morning walk. I met a man at the hairdresser who spoke quite good English. He was commenting that he was happy to see rain and not snow because he is a truck driver. He was excited to meet someone who spoke English but mistakenly thought I was from England and waxed enthusiastic about what a beautiful country England is. He looked so disappointed when I told him I was from America! Actually he looked confused more than disappointed.

So, gifts are wrapped, cards of thanks are written, food is nearly all prepared and now we wait for the long good-bye to begin. Already this morning Agnes has called to say she is so ill she can't get out of bed and Konrad is also ill so only Michal will come to the party and he can only stay for about an hour. This has to be a stressful time in their lives as Michal was downsized St work and is unemployed since Thursday, which is why he had a free day to take me to the silver mine. This is a fact I didn't learn until after the fact, however, or I never would have agreed. Then to top it off this lovely little family bought me a pair of the most lovely Amethyst earrings as a good-bye gift. They were so excited to give them to me they couldn't wait until the party on Saturday. Now I am glad I opened them on Thursday so they could all see my joy at this thoughtful and unexpected gift.

Tomorrow I will post about the party. I fly out of Katowice on the 9th - next Friday and leave Warsaw early Saturday morning. It will be hard to leave my new friends and my polish family but I am anxious to get home to my own family and see my beautiful grandchildren - all six of them!

Aneta has put a few more photos on the blog recently if you haven't scrolled back to earlier blogs you might want to take a look.

Linda

Linda