This morning we listened to professor dobkowski speak to us
about his parents story. It was very interesting to me because I always loved
the movie “defiance” because it exposed to me a part of the holocaust that I
never had known about before I watched it. his parents both hid out in the
woods and that is how they survived so to hear their story was huge for me.
then we walked to old Krakow where we saw various synagogues and listened to
the rest of sally’s story of survival. Following that we got lunch on our own
and myself and a group of some of the other students went on a quest to find
pierogies. We found a nice restaurant and were able to sit outside and enjoy
the sunshine on such a beautiful day in Krakow. The pierogies were relatively
cheap (15 zloty=$4.40 u.s.) and absolutely delicious. After we in front of the
Krakow ghetto. We were supposed to go in a check out the buildings and
schindler’s factory, however, as usual, things did not go as planned. I was
disappointed that we did not get to see these sights. So today was an overall
very light day for us. The weather was phenomenal and we got to really enjoy
our stay in Krakow. We listened to president mark gearan from hws speak to
us about service and then spent some time debriefing in smaller sized groups.
Next we went to dinner at an excellent restaurant in downtown Krakow where we
were served a multi-course meal. We were given bread at our table. Then, they
brought over giant bread bowls with a soup that was different, but good. Next,
we had our pierogies, which were a variety of potato, cabbage, and beef. Throughout
our meal we saw some traditional polish dancing and listened to some music and
they invited some of us up to dance. One of the guys picked me and I was so embarrassed
but he just kept twirling me around so I was able to manage, but my cheeks were
still red i’m sure. Then we were given a sort of flaky cake with a different
filling that was like cheesecake but much much lighter, if that even makes any
sense! For the rest of the night we had free time and I wanted to spend it
checking out some of the shops but everyone else had booze on the mind so we
spent some time searching for a bar. A lot of the bars were crowded because a
big soccer game was on tv tonight. While we were searching we found one of
those beer bike carts I described the other day, so of course I had to check it
out! It was great, a bunch of us decided to do it, including professor
dobkowski, president gearan, and another one of the hws professors. It was the
funniest thing. We drove around downtown and cheered as we passed people. We
peddled away and drank our hearts out and had a blast. It was honestly one of
my most favorite things I have ever done. Next we got ice cream (strange, I
know) but it cost 4 zloty and I only had a 50 so president gearan paid for me, it
was very nice. The old guys went back to the hotel and the kids hit up the bar
and club seen. Everywhere there are girls that hand you coupons for drinks at
the bar. We went to one and had a lot of fun dancing. It is interesting to listen
to the music there. We heard songs such as “uptown girl” “it’s my life” and the
song that’s in the shaving commercials that goes “I’m your venus, I’m your
fire, your desire.” But we had a great time dancing and it started to get late
so a few people headed back but the rest of us went on looking for more places
to check out. One place wouldn't let us in because a few of the guys were
wearing sneakers. The next place i.d.ed us but it was funny because they didn’t
know where to find our date of birth on our license. I danced with a boy from Britain.
Oh, European boys :P that’s it for tonight. I had a lot of fun. We all needed
it after yesterday.
Goodnight!
-jill
synagogue in krakow
sally after telling us her story of survival
group after lunch
memorial outside of the krakow ghetto
market square
me and my roommate, laura, in market square
some of the group
most of the group
me and my new friend lisa (hws, from brooklyn)
dancers
market square at night
myself, margaret, and andrew on the beer bike cart
lisa, john, and i on the beer cart
president gearan, professor dobkowski, and professor salter
me and lisa with a few british boys we met dancing
Well Jillian - just finished your next blogs - what an emotional day you must have had, to see the barbed wire "cattle" lines where those poor, sweet people would have walked to the worst thing ever, and the pile of shoes, just horrific. Sorry it was so hard for you, but I bet you're finding a strength for true humanity and this will make an already wonderful, caring person (you), even more so. I loved seeing the pictures, it makes everything so real. On a lighter note, very glad you all had a day to decompress and have fun, the beer bike sounds super fun! and the dancing-very cool!! Looking forward to the next chapter. Take care.
ReplyDeleteStay away from European boys - they only have 1 thing on their mind! Oops, I forgot its all boys.
ReplyDeleteGlad you got to take a break and have some fun. Onward to Warsaw.
Dad
thank you chris/don! it was hard but yesterday certainly took some of the stress off and it was great to kick back and relax a little with my new "family."
ReplyDeletedad, hush! they were cute, i couldn't help it (;
we just arrived at our hotel in warsaw. i will blog later tonight.