Okay, so I know I am horribly behind so far, but the trip has been very quick paced and it has been difficult to extricate myself from the present to thoroughly reflect and explain what I have been experiencing. We are all on overload. I am determined to finish the blog, but it will probably be officially finished once I am in the states again.
To update you on where I am... :)
We flew to Israel on Monday (the 14th) and had a really nice flight (that was guarded by Israeli military armed with automatic weapons). We drove from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and spent our evening crashing in the hotel. We did a city tour of the classic stuff, I put a prayer in at the Western Wall!!!, and we spent the afternoon touring Yad Vashem and our evening viewing the Dead Sea Scrolls. A very busy, but really amazing day.
Since then we have spent two full days taking classes at the International Education Center at Yad Vashem and spent this morning driving North to Nahariya via Haifa (where we stopped for pictures). We spent the afternoon at the Ghetto Fighters House - which is officially the first Holocaust Museum in the world back in 1949. Very cool stuff - this is the more reflective and laid back part of our trip - we are ten minutes walking from the Mediterranean and just a few miles from the Lebanon border.
All is well! This has been an amazing journey and I have learned a tremendous amount - I can't wait to share it with all of you back home!
I promise more blogs are coming...I'm working on it :)
Friday, July 18, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Updates from Poland in progress...
I am nearly finished with my next few reflections - it's funny how I do them in spurts, but sometimes you feel more reflective than others. I am working on getting my Majdanek pictures uploaded and will try to upload as many pictures as I can before we fly to Israel in the morning! The picture below is a picture from an exhibit in Majdanek that shows the concentration and death camps in Poland. In the past week we have visited Majdanek, Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau (II), Plaszow, and Treblinka. So far I am having a truly powerful experience and learning so very much. Hope you are all doing well!
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Tuesday – 08 July 2008 Lublin, Poland – Majdanek
*Part One* I am trying to give each reflection justice - which means that I need enough time to record my thoughts, not just laundry list what I've done -- so, with that in mind, here is part one of my trip to Majdanek, part two is coming and will perhaps be polished off on the bus to Auschwitz tomorrow morning...
Today we rose early (5:45), showered, ate a fantastic breakfast, and hit the road just after 7. I experienced our thirty-six teacher count off for the first time as we all got comfortable on our coach bus, gearing up for our three hour drive. We drove to Lublin, Poland which is southeast of Warsaw to visit the Majdanek concentration camp. (pronounced "mah-don-neck")
Click below to see pictures of Majdanek - explanation of many of the pictures may be found within my blog as well:
Majdanek was initially a camp designed to hold Soviet POW's, as the road through Lublin that runs directly beside the camp was the main supply line to the Nazi's Eastern Front. The camp ended up housing a combination of Soviet prisoners, Poles, and Jews from Poland and other countries occupied by the Nazis. After the “Aktion Reinhard” - which was essentially the official decree for the Final Solution, late 1941/early 1942, the camp began receiving Jews and was converted to a killing center for not only Jews, but also prisoners who were too weak to work. By September 1942, the gas chambers were operating. One distinctive day in the camp occurred in November of 1943. After a group of Jews led an uprising in Soibibor – another death camp in Poland, Himmler became very nervous and initiated “Operation Harvest Festival.” In one day 18,000 Jews were forced to lay in ditches and were all shot to death – this occurred across several of the camps – and the SS kills 42,000 Jews in one day (November 3rd).
Our trip to Majdanek was fairly pleasant, Stephen Feinberg discussed some pertinant details about our visit – as did our other guide, whose name escapes me at the moment – but he is a very nice man who led our tour through the camp and is fluent in both Polish and English. He lost quite a few family members during the Holocaust. Both spent a large part of our three hours telling different stories and prepping us with various information.
The Majdanek camp is just on the other side of Lublin – it's actually eery how close the camp and the city are to each other. So we were looking at the urban environment, Lublin castle, trees, and this large, ominous, concentration camp suddenly emerges – as far as you can see. The suddenness with which we were looking at urban environment to suddenly staring at a death camp that killed over 300,000 people took our breaths away. The watchtowers, the barbed wire, the open fields, the rows of barracks – it was haunting.
We visited the reception area and watched a brief video that included pictures background information about the camp...and then we set out. Our guide led us through the first building as we entered the camp, saw the field where they tore children from their mothers and wives from their husbands, and entered the building labeled “Disinfection.” The first room was where they cut off everyone's hair so they could sell it – the German's made money by the kilogram of hair – which was then used to create other military supplies. The second room was used to cleanse the victims. The third was a disinfectant room so that clothing could be disinfected and shipped bac into the Reich...and then there were two doors. You either exited to become one of their slave laborers or you proceeded further back into the building to be exterminated. The gas chambers had pipes to pump in carbon monoxide, and also had the ability to drop Zyklon B pellets in... I am not really sure what else to say about looking at a thick, dark, heavy, ominous door that was used to enclose the victims in a room...or what to say about looking into a room that essentially is a concrete box, a trap, and how it felt to know that thousands of people were shoved into the dark box, naked and shivering...terrified, only to see the dark ominous door close....
We were given a while to walk through the camp and all did so at our own leisure, transitioning from historian who clicked away at the camera, to emotional human being who could imagine what individual the artifact may have belonged to... Several of the barracks contained museum like information. Maps, photographs, basic explanations, samples of prisoners uniforms, etc. We walked through the first two barracks processing the information. The third barrack hit hard. As your eyes adjusted to the light, you realized that the barrack was full of bins of shoes. The shoes were brownish/black b/c when the Soviet government turned the camp into a state museum in 1947, they sprayed all the shoes with a oil based preservative to make them last...so there was a distinct smell in the room that we later learned was the preservative mixed with shoe leather.
The room of shoes was most difficult for me. I saw small ones that belonged to little kids... A few shoes had maintained their color and in a pile of brown/black lay one distinctive red one – it was probably the young woman's favorite. I imagined how big a pile it would make if all the kids in one of my classes took off their shoes and piled them...and then multiplied and multiplied...I couldn't begin to figure out how many schools worth of people were within the room. I was choked up. And then I stumbled upon two shoes on top of a pile that were side by side – a small one that looked like it belonged to a young boy, alongside the shoe of a woman – a mother....the shoes to me represented a mother and young son side by side. On my way out of the barrack I saw a mother with her arm around her elementary age son, talking him through each aspect of the camp… that was it for me – I was off to the field to walk it off.
We also were able to walk in a few barracks that still contained all the bunks with straw beds and coarse cloth.. Between 500 and 800 people slept in each barrack, which was difficult to fathom as claustrophobia abounded.
To be continued…
Today we rose early (5:45), showered, ate a fantastic breakfast, and hit the road just after 7. I experienced our thirty-six teacher count off for the first time as we all got comfortable on our coach bus, gearing up for our three hour drive. We drove to Lublin, Poland which is southeast of Warsaw to visit the Majdanek concentration camp. (pronounced "mah-don-neck")
Click below to see pictures of Majdanek - explanation of many of the pictures may be found within my blog as well:
 |
| Lublin, Poland - Majdanek Concentrat |
Majdanek was initially a camp designed to hold Soviet POW's, as the road through Lublin that runs directly beside the camp was the main supply line to the Nazi's Eastern Front. The camp ended up housing a combination of Soviet prisoners, Poles, and Jews from Poland and other countries occupied by the Nazis. After the “Aktion Reinhard” - which was essentially the official decree for the Final Solution, late 1941/early 1942, the camp began receiving Jews and was converted to a killing center for not only Jews, but also prisoners who were too weak to work. By September 1942, the gas chambers were operating. One distinctive day in the camp occurred in November of 1943. After a group of Jews led an uprising in Soibibor – another death camp in Poland, Himmler became very nervous and initiated “Operation Harvest Festival.” In one day 18,000 Jews were forced to lay in ditches and were all shot to death – this occurred across several of the camps – and the SS kills 42,000 Jews in one day (November 3rd).
Our trip to Majdanek was fairly pleasant, Stephen Feinberg discussed some pertinant details about our visit – as did our other guide, whose name escapes me at the moment – but he is a very nice man who led our tour through the camp and is fluent in both Polish and English. He lost quite a few family members during the Holocaust. Both spent a large part of our three hours telling different stories and prepping us with various information.
The Majdanek camp is just on the other side of Lublin – it's actually eery how close the camp and the city are to each other. So we were looking at the urban environment, Lublin castle, trees, and this large, ominous, concentration camp suddenly emerges – as far as you can see. The suddenness with which we were looking at urban environment to suddenly staring at a death camp that killed over 300,000 people took our breaths away. The watchtowers, the barbed wire, the open fields, the rows of barracks – it was haunting.
We visited the reception area and watched a brief video that included pictures background information about the camp...and then we set out. Our guide led us through the first building as we entered the camp, saw the field where they tore children from their mothers and wives from their husbands, and entered the building labeled “Disinfection.” The first room was where they cut off everyone's hair so they could sell it – the German's made money by the kilogram of hair – which was then used to create other military supplies. The second room was used to cleanse the victims. The third was a disinfectant room so that clothing could be disinfected and shipped bac into the Reich...and then there were two doors. You either exited to become one of their slave laborers or you proceeded further back into the building to be exterminated. The gas chambers had pipes to pump in carbon monoxide, and also had the ability to drop Zyklon B pellets in... I am not really sure what else to say about looking at a thick, dark, heavy, ominous door that was used to enclose the victims in a room...or what to say about looking into a room that essentially is a concrete box, a trap, and how it felt to know that thousands of people were shoved into the dark box, naked and shivering...terrified, only to see the dark ominous door close....
We were given a while to walk through the camp and all did so at our own leisure, transitioning from historian who clicked away at the camera, to emotional human being who could imagine what individual the artifact may have belonged to... Several of the barracks contained museum like information. Maps, photographs, basic explanations, samples of prisoners uniforms, etc. We walked through the first two barracks processing the information. The third barrack hit hard. As your eyes adjusted to the light, you realized that the barrack was full of bins of shoes. The shoes were brownish/black b/c when the Soviet government turned the camp into a state museum in 1947, they sprayed all the shoes with a oil based preservative to make them last...so there was a distinct smell in the room that we later learned was the preservative mixed with shoe leather.
The room of shoes was most difficult for me. I saw small ones that belonged to little kids... A few shoes had maintained their color and in a pile of brown/black lay one distinctive red one – it was probably the young woman's favorite. I imagined how big a pile it would make if all the kids in one of my classes took off their shoes and piled them...and then multiplied and multiplied...I couldn't begin to figure out how many schools worth of people were within the room. I was choked up. And then I stumbled upon two shoes on top of a pile that were side by side – a small one that looked like it belonged to a young boy, alongside the shoe of a woman – a mother....the shoes to me represented a mother and young son side by side. On my way out of the barrack I saw a mother with her arm around her elementary age son, talking him through each aspect of the camp… that was it for me – I was off to the field to walk it off.
We also were able to walk in a few barracks that still contained all the bunks with straw beds and coarse cloth.. Between 500 and 800 people slept in each barrack, which was difficult to fathom as claustrophobia abounded.
To be continued…
Monday – 07 July 2008 They're Here!
Well, in a whirlwind, the people who would become my colleagues and friends in a matter of seconds, came rushing in the door – chattering away in English. When I heard one of them say to the bell hop, well there are a lot of us, I knew it was them. As over thirty people crowded into the lobby I stood to the side, grinning like a cheshire cat, and approached a group of friendly looking women to make sure it was them and to introduce myself. They all said “Oh!! You must be number 16!!” I looked puzzled, but they said that they had been taught to do roll call by number and that when they got to 16, one of the leaders had said – she's the one who isn't here yet. Regardless, the women were very welcoming and interested in knowing why I was already here and was in the midst of conversation when I heard my name called – with a quick “oh, she's getting here later” and a chime in from me “no, I'm here!!”
My roommate is a sweet girl named Wendy from Massachusetts who is exactly my age – graduated from college the same year and has been the perfect roommate so far. We headed off to our room as I filled her in and she filled me in on the plane ride and the orientation meeting in New York. Once I figured the chaos in the lobby had died down I ran back downstairs to get my packet and was set. We had a meeting at five. I was in!
Wendy and I set off to explore Old Town and to grab a quick bite to eat, squeezed in a twenty minute crash break, and headed off to our five o'clock meeting. The meeting was a great deal longer than any of us had anticipated. I was fine – no jet lag for me!, but my colleagues were struggling. Stephen Feinberg – a historian for the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC is our main guide for the trip – and is truly a fount of knowledge with a wonderful sense of humor and a fabulous sense of the power of words and their definitions. He spoke for about forty-five minutes about the beginnings of Judaism and discussed/skimmed over several thousand years of history focusing on major shifts of the Jewish people. He is very good at including a basic level of information along with a far more complex level – to key you in, jog your memory (or teach you something you really didn't know), and then delve into more complexities. After he spoke we met with a man named Stephen Stoltenberg from the US Embassy in Poland. He is actually an analyst for Poland and Baltic state accounts and works in what is essentially a state department think tank. He is here on a one month assignment while the embassy has summer breaks and transitions. He discussed US-Poland relations and how there has been a history of very positive pro-US relations in Poland, but that there may be a major change in the tide occurring at this moment. The United States has been trying to negotiate an agreement that would allow the US to install a missile defense system (like the one in Alaska) in Poland so that there would be one on the European continent. Poland has been very assertive in its negotiations and is not inclined to accept – in fact so far, it hasn't. This is a marked change in US-Poland relations, as Poland has always been very pro US and is one of the only countries to supply us with troops in Iraq. And, in fact, under new governmental leadership, Polish troops will now be pulling out of Iraq by October of 2008. I found all of this very interesting and a distinctive change from the pro-US things I heard when I was studying in Poland in 2005. Very interesting.
The next speaker was Dr. Michael Steinlauf who wrote a book called “Bondage to the Dead” which addresses how Poles after the second world war reacted and dealt with the Holocaust, what they witnessed, and what happened in Poland. He began with a general history about the Jewish population in Poland through the centuries prior to the second world war. His points were poignant and interesting – definitely something that deepened my understanding and things to mull over. After that Vladka Meed, our wonderful founder, spoke to us briefly and we headed in for a delicious dinner. Vladka Meed is the founder of the teacher's program and was a Jew in Warsaw during the war. Because of her Aryan looks, she was able to escape from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Aryan side and help the Jewish underground resistance. She helped people escape from the ghetto and find hiding places, proper paperwork, etc. She also helped smuggle goods into the ghetto – including things that would be instrumental in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. She wrote a wonderful book “On the Other Side of the Wall” that we all read prior to the trip. It was very exciting to see her and hear from her. Her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson are all here with her and it is the first time her grandson (a future high school senior) is here in Poland – so it is a very special trip for the family.
After dinner I was wired and had the advantage of not being jet lagged – so I worked out, spoke to Daniel on email, etc. I stayed up and read the two articles they had given us to prepare for our visit to Majdanek, and I went to sleep, much more at peace, no longer lonely, and excited to begin my new journey!
My roommate is a sweet girl named Wendy from Massachusetts who is exactly my age – graduated from college the same year and has been the perfect roommate so far. We headed off to our room as I filled her in and she filled me in on the plane ride and the orientation meeting in New York. Once I figured the chaos in the lobby had died down I ran back downstairs to get my packet and was set. We had a meeting at five. I was in!
Wendy and I set off to explore Old Town and to grab a quick bite to eat, squeezed in a twenty minute crash break, and headed off to our five o'clock meeting. The meeting was a great deal longer than any of us had anticipated. I was fine – no jet lag for me!, but my colleagues were struggling. Stephen Feinberg – a historian for the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC is our main guide for the trip – and is truly a fount of knowledge with a wonderful sense of humor and a fabulous sense of the power of words and their definitions. He spoke for about forty-five minutes about the beginnings of Judaism and discussed/skimmed over several thousand years of history focusing on major shifts of the Jewish people. He is very good at including a basic level of information along with a far more complex level – to key you in, jog your memory (or teach you something you really didn't know), and then delve into more complexities. After he spoke we met with a man named Stephen Stoltenberg from the US Embassy in Poland. He is actually an analyst for Poland and Baltic state accounts and works in what is essentially a state department think tank. He is here on a one month assignment while the embassy has summer breaks and transitions. He discussed US-Poland relations and how there has been a history of very positive pro-US relations in Poland, but that there may be a major change in the tide occurring at this moment. The United States has been trying to negotiate an agreement that would allow the US to install a missile defense system (like the one in Alaska) in Poland so that there would be one on the European continent. Poland has been very assertive in its negotiations and is not inclined to accept – in fact so far, it hasn't. This is a marked change in US-Poland relations, as Poland has always been very pro US and is one of the only countries to supply us with troops in Iraq. And, in fact, under new governmental leadership, Polish troops will now be pulling out of Iraq by October of 2008. I found all of this very interesting and a distinctive change from the pro-US things I heard when I was studying in Poland in 2005. Very interesting.
The next speaker was Dr. Michael Steinlauf who wrote a book called “Bondage to the Dead” which addresses how Poles after the second world war reacted and dealt with the Holocaust, what they witnessed, and what happened in Poland. He began with a general history about the Jewish population in Poland through the centuries prior to the second world war. His points were poignant and interesting – definitely something that deepened my understanding and things to mull over. After that Vladka Meed, our wonderful founder, spoke to us briefly and we headed in for a delicious dinner. Vladka Meed is the founder of the teacher's program and was a Jew in Warsaw during the war. Because of her Aryan looks, she was able to escape from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Aryan side and help the Jewish underground resistance. She helped people escape from the ghetto and find hiding places, proper paperwork, etc. She also helped smuggle goods into the ghetto – including things that would be instrumental in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. She wrote a wonderful book “On the Other Side of the Wall” that we all read prior to the trip. It was very exciting to see her and hear from her. Her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson are all here with her and it is the first time her grandson (a future high school senior) is here in Poland – so it is a very special trip for the family.
After dinner I was wired and had the advantage of not being jet lagged – so I worked out, spoke to Daniel on email, etc. I stayed up and read the two articles they had given us to prepare for our visit to Majdanek, and I went to sleep, much more at peace, no longer lonely, and excited to begin my new journey!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Warsaw, Poland - July 3, 4, and 5, 2008
Click on the adorable picture below to see our Warsaw album!
Ah, well we made it to Warsaw and had a wonderful last two days of our trip. We took a nice, easy, pleasantly breezy morning train to Warsaw, spent an hour wracking our brains to figure out where on earth the 175 bus line was and where we could catch it...and then, once we reached Foksal street and found 12 Foksal, I ended up asking a travel agency on the block to help us - and the woman graciously used her cell phone to call our contact. We waited ten minutes and a cute blond showed up to show us our apartment. Whew. But seriously, actually getting the kilometer or two from the train station up to our apartment took over an hour and a half.
After all that was over, we ate a lunch at a Mexican restaurant - which are actually very difficult to find around here, and then set out to explore. We headed towards Old Town Square, figuring it was a great place to start. It's a moderate walk and we enjoy the scenary along the way, stopping for pictures when we want, peeking into churches, etc. We reach old town and enjoy checking out some of the shops and meandering down the alleys. The exhibit I really wanted to check out was closed indefinitely so that made things a little challenging. We decided to go ahead and get all our stuff sorted out so that we could have a full last day of touring and spent a few hours getting everything sorted out and organized for Daniel's flight on Saturday. After that we set out to explore some more and find a good restaurant for dinner - we found a neat place that had delicious food and really enjoyed ourselves. We wandered around more after that and decided to call it a night. We had gotten up fairly early to catch the train and had not slept well on the night train the evening before - and besides, we wanted to go full throttle on Daniel's last day.
We woke up and Daniel went down and got yummy things from the shop that was on our block. We got ready and set out for a moderate walk to Lazienki Park. We walked through a pretty garden and then reached the park and the Chopin monument. I had visited the palace and the park in January of 2005 while I was on foreign study and had always thought it would be pretty, but wow. The park was absolutely beautiful! A vast variety of wildlife and luscious plants, flowers, and trees abounded. While heading towards the palace (which is in the heart of the park) I was on the lookout for the special squirrels I had seen while on foreign study. They are red, extremely friendly and cute, and have very hairy ears - they just look different than any squirrel you would ever see in the US, and I remembered being floored by how unique and cute they were. We had been walking for a while and no squirrels were to be found anywhere. I was getting worried. But! Just as I said to Daniel "Sigh, I really wonder where the squirrels are!" one popped up!
We had gone to the grocery store prior to heading to the park, and I had happened to buy sunflower seeds as a snack for myself, but ended up pulling them out to try to attract the squirrels. I had remembered that Andy Pendley had crumbs in his pocket and had nearly gotten the squirrel to eat out of his hands. The squirrel was interested, but timid -- but the birds were not! After recovering from the shock of being dive bombed by the birds, I had a truly "Snow White" moment. I scattered a bunch of seeds on the ground for the squirrel adn then refilled my palm with more seeds and stood, palm up. All these really pretty little birds - with blue, grey, and green colors came flying into the palm of my hand! Up to three at a time were flying up, taking a seed and flying back away.
How fun! Daniel took advantage of the situation and snapped away while I delighted in the sensation of the little birds firmly grabbing your finger and taking a seed. They came from all over - there must have been nearly twenty of them swooping in for a snack. We fed them for a while and then headed deeper into the park along the wooded paths, heading for the palace.
When we reached the palace - which basically is sitting on top of a river, so there is water on both sides, we saw peacocks roaming the grounds! They were a brilliant shade of blue and were just milling about all around the palace. It was mating season - as the brown females were taunting the males and the males kept opening up their feathers and pomping just a few feet away from us! It was really neat! We saw field mice, swans, turtles, large fish in the ponds, peacocks, pidgeons, ravens, finches, red furry squirrels - all very fun! We strolled around for a while and managed to take lots of pretty pictures and really soak up the beautiful, peaceful park.
As we were heading out (which was going to take a while, b/c we actually got lost a few times), we were approached by a very friendly, ambitious squirrel! I actually got her to eat out of the palm of my hand! A little while later one approached Daniel and he got to do the same thing as well - a very fun little suprise in our afternoon.
After that we ventured to Old Town by bus to save time and grabbed lunch at a brewary that had excellent excellent food. Then we perused through Old Town looking for gifts for the Melbourne guys. Daniel had thought long and hard about what he wanted to get them - but we actually had to find what he was looking for.
We returned to the apartment with our loot and took care of few last things that would get Daniel travel ready. After that we set out for Daniel's last European dinner and a night on the town of Warsaw. We even managed to find a jazz club to check out for a while.
Saturday morning came early - we had both been dreading its arrival for the past few days. We have said goodbye to each other many times, but I don't think it has ever been as hard to part from Daniel as it was at the airport on Saturday. We are a very busy couple - we do not have kids yet to keep us even more busy, but between graduate classes, full work schedules, all of my teaching obligations (track, Model UN, AP) and evertyhing else we don't have a lot of uninterrupted time together. During this vacation we got to experience twenty-three uninterrupted days together, during which we were absolutely inseparable - we were each other's English speaking world. And there were some days when the only people we talked to were each other. It was absolutely wonderful and the past three weeks were some of the best we have ever shared - and because of that, parting was excruciating. I cannot begin to tell you how much it hurts to begin writing the travel journal and blogs with "I" instead of "we."
Ah, what a wonderful trip we shared! Daniel kept a 76 page journal (Mark Shelley you can go ahead and do a double take) that kept track of our adventures in vivid detail - so if you have real detail questions ask him. I kept the blog going and continually picked out the best pictures to showcase our trip so we could share it with all of you. At times I wondered if I was mis-spending my time, but decided that if I didn't do it as we went along, I would never manage to put it all together later. I don't regret sitting down periodically and reflecting and posting about our adventures.
I am currently sitting in the Bristol Hotel waiting to meet up with the Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teacher's Program. I have spent two days by myself in Warsaw, feeling a bit like a mute, craving conversation - but any minute now a group of thirty or so dedicated, passionate teachers who share my interests should be wakling through the door.
I will continue the blog as I continue my adventure and quest to acquire a deeper understanding of it all - thank you for reading so far! I am beginning to crave messages from back home - so any emails, comments, or greetings, that you would like to send my way would be greatly appreciated. (beth.hals@gmail.com) :)
On I go!
 |
| Warsaw, Poland |
Ah, well we made it to Warsaw and had a wonderful last two days of our trip. We took a nice, easy, pleasantly breezy morning train to Warsaw, spent an hour wracking our brains to figure out where on earth the 175 bus line was and where we could catch it...and then, once we reached Foksal street and found 12 Foksal, I ended up asking a travel agency on the block to help us - and the woman graciously used her cell phone to call our contact. We waited ten minutes and a cute blond showed up to show us our apartment. Whew. But seriously, actually getting the kilometer or two from the train station up to our apartment took over an hour and a half.
After all that was over, we ate a lunch at a Mexican restaurant - which are actually very difficult to find around here, and then set out to explore. We headed towards Old Town Square, figuring it was a great place to start. It's a moderate walk and we enjoy the scenary along the way, stopping for pictures when we want, peeking into churches, etc. We reach old town and enjoy checking out some of the shops and meandering down the alleys. The exhibit I really wanted to check out was closed indefinitely so that made things a little challenging. We decided to go ahead and get all our stuff sorted out so that we could have a full last day of touring and spent a few hours getting everything sorted out and organized for Daniel's flight on Saturday. After that we set out to explore some more and find a good restaurant for dinner - we found a neat place that had delicious food and really enjoyed ourselves. We wandered around more after that and decided to call it a night. We had gotten up fairly early to catch the train and had not slept well on the night train the evening before - and besides, we wanted to go full throttle on Daniel's last day.
We woke up and Daniel went down and got yummy things from the shop that was on our block. We got ready and set out for a moderate walk to Lazienki Park. We walked through a pretty garden and then reached the park and the Chopin monument. I had visited the palace and the park in January of 2005 while I was on foreign study and had always thought it would be pretty, but wow. The park was absolutely beautiful! A vast variety of wildlife and luscious plants, flowers, and trees abounded. While heading towards the palace (which is in the heart of the park) I was on the lookout for the special squirrels I had seen while on foreign study. They are red, extremely friendly and cute, and have very hairy ears - they just look different than any squirrel you would ever see in the US, and I remembered being floored by how unique and cute they were. We had been walking for a while and no squirrels were to be found anywhere. I was getting worried. But! Just as I said to Daniel "Sigh, I really wonder where the squirrels are!" one popped up!
We had gone to the grocery store prior to heading to the park, and I had happened to buy sunflower seeds as a snack for myself, but ended up pulling them out to try to attract the squirrels. I had remembered that Andy Pendley had crumbs in his pocket and had nearly gotten the squirrel to eat out of his hands. The squirrel was interested, but timid -- but the birds were not! After recovering from the shock of being dive bombed by the birds, I had a truly "Snow White" moment. I scattered a bunch of seeds on the ground for the squirrel adn then refilled my palm with more seeds and stood, palm up. All these really pretty little birds - with blue, grey, and green colors came flying into the palm of my hand! Up to three at a time were flying up, taking a seed and flying back away.
How fun! Daniel took advantage of the situation and snapped away while I delighted in the sensation of the little birds firmly grabbing your finger and taking a seed. They came from all over - there must have been nearly twenty of them swooping in for a snack. We fed them for a while and then headed deeper into the park along the wooded paths, heading for the palace.
When we reached the palace - which basically is sitting on top of a river, so there is water on both sides, we saw peacocks roaming the grounds! They were a brilliant shade of blue and were just milling about all around the palace. It was mating season - as the brown females were taunting the males and the males kept opening up their feathers and pomping just a few feet away from us! It was really neat! We saw field mice, swans, turtles, large fish in the ponds, peacocks, pidgeons, ravens, finches, red furry squirrels - all very fun! We strolled around for a while and managed to take lots of pretty pictures and really soak up the beautiful, peaceful park.
As we were heading out (which was going to take a while, b/c we actually got lost a few times), we were approached by a very friendly, ambitious squirrel! I actually got her to eat out of the palm of my hand! A little while later one approached Daniel and he got to do the same thing as well - a very fun little suprise in our afternoon.
After that we ventured to Old Town by bus to save time and grabbed lunch at a brewary that had excellent excellent food. Then we perused through Old Town looking for gifts for the Melbourne guys. Daniel had thought long and hard about what he wanted to get them - but we actually had to find what he was looking for.
We returned to the apartment with our loot and took care of few last things that would get Daniel travel ready. After that we set out for Daniel's last European dinner and a night on the town of Warsaw. We even managed to find a jazz club to check out for a while.
Saturday morning came early - we had both been dreading its arrival for the past few days. We have said goodbye to each other many times, but I don't think it has ever been as hard to part from Daniel as it was at the airport on Saturday. We are a very busy couple - we do not have kids yet to keep us even more busy, but between graduate classes, full work schedules, all of my teaching obligations (track, Model UN, AP) and evertyhing else we don't have a lot of uninterrupted time together. During this vacation we got to experience twenty-three uninterrupted days together, during which we were absolutely inseparable - we were each other's English speaking world. And there were some days when the only people we talked to were each other. It was absolutely wonderful and the past three weeks were some of the best we have ever shared - and because of that, parting was excruciating. I cannot begin to tell you how much it hurts to begin writing the travel journal and blogs with "I" instead of "we."
Ah, what a wonderful trip we shared! Daniel kept a 76 page journal (Mark Shelley you can go ahead and do a double take) that kept track of our adventures in vivid detail - so if you have real detail questions ask him. I kept the blog going and continually picked out the best pictures to showcase our trip so we could share it with all of you. At times I wondered if I was mis-spending my time, but decided that if I didn't do it as we went along, I would never manage to put it all together later. I don't regret sitting down periodically and reflecting and posting about our adventures.
I am currently sitting in the Bristol Hotel waiting to meet up with the Holocaust and Jewish Resistance Teacher's Program. I have spent two days by myself in Warsaw, feeling a bit like a mute, craving conversation - but any minute now a group of thirty or so dedicated, passionate teachers who share my interests should be wakling through the door.
I will continue the blog as I continue my adventure and quest to acquire a deeper understanding of it all - thank you for reading so far! I am beginning to crave messages from back home - so any emails, comments, or greetings, that you would like to send my way would be greatly appreciated. (beth.hals@gmail.com) :)
On I go!
Krakow, Poland - July 2, 2008
Click here to see our Krakow Album:
After arriving in Krakow on our overnight train, we stumbled into the blinding daylight and tried to orient ourselves. Out of a combination of brilliance and luck I had managed to book a hostel that was directly across from the train station and one of the cheapest of our trip. So, for the first and only time on our trip we only dragged our luggage about 10 meters to the Golden Hostel of Krakow. Since it wasn't even 7 am and official check-in was actually noon, we weren't able to check-in, but we could go ahead and leave our luggage. We grabbed a few things out of our bags (and out of my stroke of genious grabbed my sweatshirt), got a train schedule and information about how to get to the salt mines, and headed back to the train station. We had about a thirty or forty minute wait (to grab some breakfast pastries from one of the many vendors) and spent the rest of the time hanging out at a bench in the station. It was a beautiful day and wonderful temperature - I actually enjoyed putting on a sweatshirt over my shirt and shorts outfit.
The train took twenty-five minutes and was a really nice local one. Usually the regional trains are the most trashed/in worst condition. This one was very clean, quiet and smooth. We arrived at the stop and followed the people, hoping we would see a sign telling us where to go. We came upon a big fresh produce stand and decided to buy apples to even out our breakfast -- I remembered from foreign study that Polish produce is all organic and very very yummy, so I was excited. When Poland was integrated into the EU, their produce became very popular throughout Europe and the Polish farmers benefited a great deal from the annexation. On foreign study I would sneak an apple or two every morning to eat during the day. I was glad when Daniel agreed that the apples were really really yummy.
So we followed the signs that pointed to what we thought probably translated to salt mines and were luckily correct. We bought tickets and waited twenty minutes for our English tour. The salt mines have been in use for over 700 years and the mining of salt from these mines only stopped in the past twenty or so years, as they ran out of salt to mine. The mines were all carved with pretty primitive tools - all hand held picks and hammers and reinforced with wood to keep the structure solid.
The mines contain lots of salt sculptures -- some of which were extremely talented. There are several churches inside, including a very large church in which nearly everything is carved from salt -- even the chandeliers were made of special salt crystals. Some neat things about it? If you touched the walls and licked your hands it tasted like salt. And, the air felt really really good to inhale - it was supposed to be especially theraputic for people with allergies or asthma. And after all the second hand smoke we've choked on it felt really good to take nice deep breaths of salty air. We also went down tons and tons of stairs - actually over 800 stairs which took us down over 450 feet. (They have a really crazy, dark, creepy elevator that jets you back up in about 45 seconds).
The salt mines were really neat and massive. We ate at the restaurant at the bottom and had some really really delicious local cuisine. And for being 450 feet under the earth, it was actually priced very well. After our salt mine trip we took the train back, checked into our hotel, showered, and got ready to go back out and explore Krakow's old town.
Now, a lot of what I wanted to see in Krakow are sights that I will be visiting during my teachers program next week, so we really just wanted to check out the vibes of the old town, the local churches, and the Wawel Castle Complex. We were somewhat successful, although by the time we made it down to the Wawel section it was too late to take a tour that day...but it was still neat to check out from the outside and take pictures. We saw lots of evidence of the loving relationship between Pope John Paul II and Krakow - monuments, plaques, pictures all over. Krakow was the biggest Polish city near his birth place, so there were very close ties.
It was really weird to walk around and realize this is the city that contained the Jewish Ghetto from Schindler's List and that Auschwitz was forty-five minutes away.
We enjoyed our day in Krakow - it was a place I would have liked to spend more time, but I actually will be spending more time later on this week. We are spending two and a half more days in the Krakow area during our teacher's program.
We got a good night's sleep and were off to Warsaw... :( the last city of Daniel's trip...
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| Krakow, Poland - July 2, 2008 |
After arriving in Krakow on our overnight train, we stumbled into the blinding daylight and tried to orient ourselves. Out of a combination of brilliance and luck I had managed to book a hostel that was directly across from the train station and one of the cheapest of our trip. So, for the first and only time on our trip we only dragged our luggage about 10 meters to the Golden Hostel of Krakow. Since it wasn't even 7 am and official check-in was actually noon, we weren't able to check-in, but we could go ahead and leave our luggage. We grabbed a few things out of our bags (and out of my stroke of genious grabbed my sweatshirt), got a train schedule and information about how to get to the salt mines, and headed back to the train station. We had about a thirty or forty minute wait (to grab some breakfast pastries from one of the many vendors) and spent the rest of the time hanging out at a bench in the station. It was a beautiful day and wonderful temperature - I actually enjoyed putting on a sweatshirt over my shirt and shorts outfit.
The train took twenty-five minutes and was a really nice local one. Usually the regional trains are the most trashed/in worst condition. This one was very clean, quiet and smooth. We arrived at the stop and followed the people, hoping we would see a sign telling us where to go. We came upon a big fresh produce stand and decided to buy apples to even out our breakfast -- I remembered from foreign study that Polish produce is all organic and very very yummy, so I was excited. When Poland was integrated into the EU, their produce became very popular throughout Europe and the Polish farmers benefited a great deal from the annexation. On foreign study I would sneak an apple or two every morning to eat during the day. I was glad when Daniel agreed that the apples were really really yummy.
So we followed the signs that pointed to what we thought probably translated to salt mines and were luckily correct. We bought tickets and waited twenty minutes for our English tour. The salt mines have been in use for over 700 years and the mining of salt from these mines only stopped in the past twenty or so years, as they ran out of salt to mine. The mines were all carved with pretty primitive tools - all hand held picks and hammers and reinforced with wood to keep the structure solid.
The mines contain lots of salt sculptures -- some of which were extremely talented. There are several churches inside, including a very large church in which nearly everything is carved from salt -- even the chandeliers were made of special salt crystals. Some neat things about it? If you touched the walls and licked your hands it tasted like salt. And, the air felt really really good to inhale - it was supposed to be especially theraputic for people with allergies or asthma. And after all the second hand smoke we've choked on it felt really good to take nice deep breaths of salty air. We also went down tons and tons of stairs - actually over 800 stairs which took us down over 450 feet. (They have a really crazy, dark, creepy elevator that jets you back up in about 45 seconds).
The salt mines were really neat and massive. We ate at the restaurant at the bottom and had some really really delicious local cuisine. And for being 450 feet under the earth, it was actually priced very well. After our salt mine trip we took the train back, checked into our hotel, showered, and got ready to go back out and explore Krakow's old town.
Now, a lot of what I wanted to see in Krakow are sights that I will be visiting during my teachers program next week, so we really just wanted to check out the vibes of the old town, the local churches, and the Wawel Castle Complex. We were somewhat successful, although by the time we made it down to the Wawel section it was too late to take a tour that day...but it was still neat to check out from the outside and take pictures. We saw lots of evidence of the loving relationship between Pope John Paul II and Krakow - monuments, plaques, pictures all over. Krakow was the biggest Polish city near his birth place, so there were very close ties.
It was really weird to walk around and realize this is the city that contained the Jewish Ghetto from Schindler's List and that Auschwitz was forty-five minutes away.
We enjoyed our day in Krakow - it was a place I would have liked to spend more time, but I actually will be spending more time later on this week. We are spending two and a half more days in the Krakow area during our teacher's program.
We got a good night's sleep and were off to Warsaw... :( the last city of Daniel's trip...
Budapest, Hungary - June 29, 30, and July 1
Click here for our photo album of Budapest:
After a miserable 12 hour train ride from Sarajevo to Budapest in which we think the train was stopped as much as it was going, we reached Budapest. The train also didn't have a dining car for the entire twelve hour duration. So we arrived in Budapest very hungry and with an hour and forty minutes before the start of the Final Match of the Euro Cup. Budapest is the city in which I had found a local guy who rents apartments out and is willing to meet you at the train station to escort you there. He was a year younger than us and I had read good things about him on several different websites. So, despite Daniel's semi-joking suspicion that he was a serial killer, I booked our apartment through him. We were greeted at the train station and helped aboard to different city buses as we navigated our way to the apartment. The apartment was a new one they had just bought and added to the list to be rented out – it was quite nice. Very cute, great location, etc. We had a few hiccups, but they fixed them quickly. As they had just acquired the apartment, they didn't have the washer yet – so we were given keys and directions to another apartment and were encouraged to wash our clothes there. After we left we discovered the hot water wasn't working (post-attempt at a shower), but they had someone come out first thing the next morning and fix it. So a few hiccups, but they took care of them quickly. Not a big deal.
We settled in quickly and set out to meet one of them at a bar where they had staked out a table to watch the final match from. We mis-navigated and then corrected ourselves, and arrived at the game just before half-time starving and frustrated. The bar was atop a building that had been “remodeled” by the Soviets and was absolutely hideous – but the rooftop had a massive projection screen, good speaker system, and good LCD projector that projected the game for several hundred to see with ease. After getting a sandwich in our tummies we felt much better and were able to enjoy the second half. The game wasn't as exciting as some of the others have been, but we enjoyed it. Germany fought until the last second, but Spain triumphed and played a great game.
The next day we had agreed to sleep in a bit. We would have two full days in the city and felt ourselves getting a little tired. Our focus for the day would be to tour as much of the city as we could while working on completing our laundry at another apartment. We decided – per our hosts recommendations, to visit the Jewish Quarter. The Dohany Synagogue in Budapest is the second largest synagogue in the world (second to the one in NYC) and was very beautiful. The synagogue was built during the latter half of the 19th century by a neo-logue group, so there are elements of Catholicism laced into the construction, in that the convenient is at the front of the synagogue instead of the center, and there are two pulpits. The synagogue was within the Jewish Ghetto during the second world war. Now, because Hungary had aligned with Germany and because of certain politicians, the Jewish population of Budapest was not decimated. The Hungarian Jews from the countryside (which were actually Jews who had fled the USSR, Ukraine, and Poland over the past century), were all deported – most directly to Auschwitz. About one third or so of the Jews killed in Auschwitz were Hungarian. But the Jewish population in Budapest managed to be guarded through different politicians and diplomatic maneuverings, and thus, the Jewish population still thrives there today. There were over eighty thousand Jews living in Budapest today. But, I do not want to suggest that the Jews of Budapest didn't suffer – deportations had begun before the Soviets arrived in the city and the Jews of the city were still given harsh work details and little food.
Regardless, the Jewish population in Budapest still exists and continues to survive. To give context – before WW II, 1.5 million Jews lived in Poland, after WW II there were only 6,000-7,000 left. So to have a population of 80,000 within the city reflects a much more preserved and prominent culture. But I certainly don't want to undermine the vast number of Hungarian Jews that were murdered – the majority of the population was killed.
Our guided tour of the synagogue and the memorial sites, was very informative and interesting. We toured the synagogue, a cemetery full of just shy of 3,000 people that was adjacent to the synagogue – something that is traditionally forbidden according to religious beliefs, but was an exception that had to be made late 1944 and during 1945 when the Soviets and Nazis were duking it out and the traditional Jewish cemetery couldn't be reached. We also walked through their memorial section where they had a beautiful stain-glass monument that depicted a black and grey snake (symbolizing the evil of the Nazis) being burned up by a tri-colored flame (the flecks of the flame were yellow, symbolizing the Star of David, and two shades of orange, symbolizing the flames of the crematoriums). We also saw a commemorative willow tree made of silver and stainless steel. Many of the leaves of the tree had a name engraved on it that represented a Jewish man, woman, or child who never received a proper burial. The museum upstairs has many relics and religious pieces, including very old Torah scrolls. There was also a section of the museum dedicated to the Holocaust that was full of pictures and artifacts – the one I found most chilling was a bar of soap that had been made from human fat.
The synagogue has only been restored since 1995, as it was damaged during WW II but was unable to be repaired under the Soviet regime. (Soviets didn't support organized religions). The wrought iron chandeliers were just recently replaced as Hitler had ordered them to be removed and melted down for weapons. (Although, this didn't just happen in synagogues – I remember hearing several similar stories at various churches in Germany – church bells were a targeted source). The fallen church bells of Lubeck, Germany are one of the few anomalies. Many of the artifacts in the museum – as well as the old Torah scrolls – were hidden during the war by Christians and returned to the Jewish community after the war was over.
We spent our afternoon exploring the city more and our evening hanging our laundry up to dry – very exciting to have clean clothes again!
The next day we get up at a decent time, knowing it’s one of our last days of the trip to take it easy in the morning, but also knowing it is our last day in the city. We had muesli left in our suitcase, so I ask Daniel to get milk from the shop around the corner while I shower and step out to discover he has come home with a bountiful feast. Milk, fresh bakery rolls, cheese, meat, yummy stuff. We eat a big breakfast and head out to the train station to buy our sleeper reservations. (We have East passes that work in Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Poland), but need to pay for our bed for the night. Cheaper than a hotel Unfortunately, the international ticket line is ten people long…and in a thirty minute period four people go through….
Over an hour later, we have gotten to know the mom and son in front of us who are from NJ and are pleased that the sleeper was inexpensive, but exasperated at how long our transaction took. Also relieved that the attendant understood us well enough to help us – language was a pretty big barrier in the Hungarian train station.
We set off to check out the rest of the city. We had spent the previous day touring the lower part of Buda, so the plan was to check out upper Buda and the highlights of Pest. I would say we were fairly successful. We got to see the Parliament building…one of my favorites – I just love its architecture. We walked across the chain bridge, up to the National Gallery, up to the dome to get a nice panorama of the city, over to the Fisherman’s Bastion (which looked like a gigantic sand castle to me), and managed to run out of time pretty easily. We ate a late lunch/early dinner and headed back to the apartment to pack up our newly dry and clean clothes! We made it to the train station fairly seamlessly – we took some public transport, but still dragged our luggage fairly far, and had plenty of time to spare to board our train. After a few inquiries, several platform workers showed me which car we would be on and we began our night train adventure.
First, they take your tickets for the entire night. Which is fine…but in our case they were passes, so if they lost them, they would lose a lot of money’s worth of tickets. Second, we were in a little sleeper cabin that had to columns of three bunks in a very small space. Daniel’s face was priceless. Luckily, all of them were between 20 and 24 and all of them spoke English! What fun! We spent the first twenty minutes getting settled, so that by the time the train started at 8 we were set. We spent the next three or four hours talking with other young travelers! Once again, what fun! Two girls were traveling together and were from Australia, but were studying in the EU at various places and the other two were a couple, one from Finland and one from New Zealand, so they were tackling how to stay together while not being able to legally stay in any place for too long.
We had a great time chatting with them, talking about travels, discussing universities, environmental policies…all sorts of stuff. We all were tired by midnight and did our best to sleep through the bumpy train, but we had a lot of fun!
We woke up about 25 minutes outside of Krakow, with enough time to wake-up and stumble off the train into the 6 am brightness.
Budapest was a lot of fun and by far the most affordable so far – although that’s not to say that it was cheap. But at least affordable – more in our price range…every once in a while we actually felt like we had gotten a great deal! Very pretty city, lots of neat monuments, renovations still occurring all over – it seems there is a distinct priority list of renovations that the city wants to occur to remove as many Soviet marks and facades as possible, but it is definitely coming along and the phrase “can’t judge a book by it’s cover” is a perfect motto for many of the buildings of this city.
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| Budapest, Hungary - June 29, 30 and July 1, 2008 |
After a miserable 12 hour train ride from Sarajevo to Budapest in which we think the train was stopped as much as it was going, we reached Budapest. The train also didn't have a dining car for the entire twelve hour duration. So we arrived in Budapest very hungry and with an hour and forty minutes before the start of the Final Match of the Euro Cup. Budapest is the city in which I had found a local guy who rents apartments out and is willing to meet you at the train station to escort you there. He was a year younger than us and I had read good things about him on several different websites. So, despite Daniel's semi-joking suspicion that he was a serial killer, I booked our apartment through him. We were greeted at the train station and helped aboard to different city buses as we navigated our way to the apartment. The apartment was a new one they had just bought and added to the list to be rented out – it was quite nice. Very cute, great location, etc. We had a few hiccups, but they fixed them quickly. As they had just acquired the apartment, they didn't have the washer yet – so we were given keys and directions to another apartment and were encouraged to wash our clothes there. After we left we discovered the hot water wasn't working (post-attempt at a shower), but they had someone come out first thing the next morning and fix it. So a few hiccups, but they took care of them quickly. Not a big deal.
We settled in quickly and set out to meet one of them at a bar where they had staked out a table to watch the final match from. We mis-navigated and then corrected ourselves, and arrived at the game just before half-time starving and frustrated. The bar was atop a building that had been “remodeled” by the Soviets and was absolutely hideous – but the rooftop had a massive projection screen, good speaker system, and good LCD projector that projected the game for several hundred to see with ease. After getting a sandwich in our tummies we felt much better and were able to enjoy the second half. The game wasn't as exciting as some of the others have been, but we enjoyed it. Germany fought until the last second, but Spain triumphed and played a great game.
The next day we had agreed to sleep in a bit. We would have two full days in the city and felt ourselves getting a little tired. Our focus for the day would be to tour as much of the city as we could while working on completing our laundry at another apartment. We decided – per our hosts recommendations, to visit the Jewish Quarter. The Dohany Synagogue in Budapest is the second largest synagogue in the world (second to the one in NYC) and was very beautiful. The synagogue was built during the latter half of the 19th century by a neo-logue group, so there are elements of Catholicism laced into the construction, in that the convenient is at the front of the synagogue instead of the center, and there are two pulpits. The synagogue was within the Jewish Ghetto during the second world war. Now, because Hungary had aligned with Germany and because of certain politicians, the Jewish population of Budapest was not decimated. The Hungarian Jews from the countryside (which were actually Jews who had fled the USSR, Ukraine, and Poland over the past century), were all deported – most directly to Auschwitz. About one third or so of the Jews killed in Auschwitz were Hungarian. But the Jewish population in Budapest managed to be guarded through different politicians and diplomatic maneuverings, and thus, the Jewish population still thrives there today. There were over eighty thousand Jews living in Budapest today. But, I do not want to suggest that the Jews of Budapest didn't suffer – deportations had begun before the Soviets arrived in the city and the Jews of the city were still given harsh work details and little food.
Regardless, the Jewish population in Budapest still exists and continues to survive. To give context – before WW II, 1.5 million Jews lived in Poland, after WW II there were only 6,000-7,000 left. So to have a population of 80,000 within the city reflects a much more preserved and prominent culture. But I certainly don't want to undermine the vast number of Hungarian Jews that were murdered – the majority of the population was killed.
Our guided tour of the synagogue and the memorial sites, was very informative and interesting. We toured the synagogue, a cemetery full of just shy of 3,000 people that was adjacent to the synagogue – something that is traditionally forbidden according to religious beliefs, but was an exception that had to be made late 1944 and during 1945 when the Soviets and Nazis were duking it out and the traditional Jewish cemetery couldn't be reached. We also walked through their memorial section where they had a beautiful stain-glass monument that depicted a black and grey snake (symbolizing the evil of the Nazis) being burned up by a tri-colored flame (the flecks of the flame were yellow, symbolizing the Star of David, and two shades of orange, symbolizing the flames of the crematoriums). We also saw a commemorative willow tree made of silver and stainless steel. Many of the leaves of the tree had a name engraved on it that represented a Jewish man, woman, or child who never received a proper burial. The museum upstairs has many relics and religious pieces, including very old Torah scrolls. There was also a section of the museum dedicated to the Holocaust that was full of pictures and artifacts – the one I found most chilling was a bar of soap that had been made from human fat.
The synagogue has only been restored since 1995, as it was damaged during WW II but was unable to be repaired under the Soviet regime. (Soviets didn't support organized religions). The wrought iron chandeliers were just recently replaced as Hitler had ordered them to be removed and melted down for weapons. (Although, this didn't just happen in synagogues – I remember hearing several similar stories at various churches in Germany – church bells were a targeted source). The fallen church bells of Lubeck, Germany are one of the few anomalies. Many of the artifacts in the museum – as well as the old Torah scrolls – were hidden during the war by Christians and returned to the Jewish community after the war was over.
We spent our afternoon exploring the city more and our evening hanging our laundry up to dry – very exciting to have clean clothes again!
The next day we get up at a decent time, knowing it’s one of our last days of the trip to take it easy in the morning, but also knowing it is our last day in the city. We had muesli left in our suitcase, so I ask Daniel to get milk from the shop around the corner while I shower and step out to discover he has come home with a bountiful feast. Milk, fresh bakery rolls, cheese, meat, yummy stuff. We eat a big breakfast and head out to the train station to buy our sleeper reservations. (We have East passes that work in Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Poland), but need to pay for our bed for the night. Cheaper than a hotel Unfortunately, the international ticket line is ten people long…and in a thirty minute period four people go through….
Over an hour later, we have gotten to know the mom and son in front of us who are from NJ and are pleased that the sleeper was inexpensive, but exasperated at how long our transaction took. Also relieved that the attendant understood us well enough to help us – language was a pretty big barrier in the Hungarian train station.
We set off to check out the rest of the city. We had spent the previous day touring the lower part of Buda, so the plan was to check out upper Buda and the highlights of Pest. I would say we were fairly successful. We got to see the Parliament building…one of my favorites – I just love its architecture. We walked across the chain bridge, up to the National Gallery, up to the dome to get a nice panorama of the city, over to the Fisherman’s Bastion (which looked like a gigantic sand castle to me), and managed to run out of time pretty easily. We ate a late lunch/early dinner and headed back to the apartment to pack up our newly dry and clean clothes! We made it to the train station fairly seamlessly – we took some public transport, but still dragged our luggage fairly far, and had plenty of time to spare to board our train. After a few inquiries, several platform workers showed me which car we would be on and we began our night train adventure.
First, they take your tickets for the entire night. Which is fine…but in our case they were passes, so if they lost them, they would lose a lot of money’s worth of tickets. Second, we were in a little sleeper cabin that had to columns of three bunks in a very small space. Daniel’s face was priceless. Luckily, all of them were between 20 and 24 and all of them spoke English! What fun! We spent the first twenty minutes getting settled, so that by the time the train started at 8 we were set. We spent the next three or four hours talking with other young travelers! Once again, what fun! Two girls were traveling together and were from Australia, but were studying in the EU at various places and the other two were a couple, one from Finland and one from New Zealand, so they were tackling how to stay together while not being able to legally stay in any place for too long.
We had a great time chatting with them, talking about travels, discussing universities, environmental policies…all sorts of stuff. We all were tired by midnight and did our best to sleep through the bumpy train, but we had a lot of fun!
We woke up about 25 minutes outside of Krakow, with enough time to wake-up and stumble off the train into the 6 am brightness.
Budapest was a lot of fun and by far the most affordable so far – although that’s not to say that it was cheap. But at least affordable – more in our price range…every once in a while we actually felt like we had gotten a great deal! Very pretty city, lots of neat monuments, renovations still occurring all over – it seems there is a distinct priority list of renovations that the city wants to occur to remove as many Soviet marks and facades as possible, but it is definitely coming along and the phrase “can’t judge a book by it’s cover” is a perfect motto for many of the buildings of this city.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Sarajevo, Bosnia i Herzegovina - June 27 & 28, 2008
Click on this photo to see our album:
I wanted to give myself a day to process my thoughts and reflections from our visit to Bosnia and the beautiful town of Sarajevo. I had intended to write on the train from Sarajevo to Budapest, but the train was miserable and making myself hotter by having a warm laptop in my lap was not an option. Entering Bosnia was one of the most relaxed border checks I have ever encountered. Our passports were not even stamped. Some people just waved their ID card at the patrolman. As we entered the country I nearly immediately noticed an increase of abandoned buildings – many of which were not just abandoned, but were demolished – caved in or hollowed out with trees and shrubs growing out through the windows. We passed many cemetaries that seemed very full, but were also very unkempt – with grass growing higher than many of the stones. We also passed many, many, many works in progress and buildings at various stages of construction.
The randomness of which buildings were damaged was especially apparent. We saw a beautiful church – perfect, pristine, intact – juxtaposed with the connecting fellowship hall that was completely hollowed out and destroyed. We noticed that abandoned buildings often occurred in strings, with five or six all in a row. As we drove through Mostar, the effects of war were especially noticeable compared to the countryside and a large number of the buildings were damaged. On one of the main streets our bus drove us down we saw a cafe, a clothing shop, a shell of a building in which the only living things were trees and birds, a pub, a shoe store...
Now I must mention that Daniel really gave me free reign while planning this trip. I told him what I was planning along the way – but as he wasn't the one researching each step, he wasn't processing all the details the same way I was. Now, with that in mind – I definitely told him we would be going to Bosnia and I did mention that there were still visible signs of the war that occurred over a decade ago. But I guess it hadn't processed. The look on his face as we drove into the next city of our vacation – a city that was full of bullet holes and bombed out buildings and piles of rubble and barbed wire fences... well his face was priceless. But his trust in me was unwaivering (I think), and I quickly won him over once we arrived with a walk through the city and a yummy Bosnian meal.
After surviving our bus ride – which was supposed to be seven hours, but took eight, we finally arrived at the bus stop. We immediately sought an ATM and got some BAM out. :) Bosnia and Herzegovina are two different regions. Bosnia's capital is Sarajevo, Herzegovina's capital is Mostar. The country is most frequently seen abbreviated at BiH (the “i” being like our “and”). Money is noted on the world market as BAM, but frequently referred to as KM (Konvertible Markas). The country is also abbreviated as “Ba” sometimes – like on websites.
Anyway, we reached the bus stop, got some BAM, and hailed a taxi. About ten bucks later we found ourselves at Hotel Michele – which ended up being a fabulous choice – a little pricey – but by far the nicest room we've ever had in our lives. It was our sanctuary. We also later found out that Richard Gere had stayed in the apartment above us, Michael Moore in the apartment across from us, and Steve Buscemi had stayed in our apartment. (Yes, the aparmtent really was that nice). The front desk was wonderful, very helpful and welcoming, and whisked us upstairs to our gorgeous room. Our room was larger than our own apartment – all hard wood and full of furniture you usually find roped off in palaces or museums. We spent the first five minutes standing in amazement and trying to figure out which of the fifty light switches did what. We realized we had gotten in just in time – because for the first time of our trip, it started storming. Not just thunderstorming, but actually hailing almost quarter size hail. And that was it for our hot weather. The temperature dropped to sixty and we were in heaven.
We showered while it stormed – finally cool after our days in sweaty Hvar and the dreadful bus ride, we were ready to explore! We discovered that we were two or three blocks from the old town area that is open only to pedestrians and includes lots and lots of little shops. We walked down towards the water and City Hall and made our way to a restaurant called Inat Kuca that our hotel had recommended to us. The restaurant served authentic Bosnian dishes and was wonderful. I ate a dish called “dolmas” which was vegetables (peppers, onions, and rolled herb leaves) stuffed with meat and rice and Daniel got a dish that was the equivalent of the Tour of Italy at Olive Garden, giving us a tour of Bosnian food from Inat Kuca (some dolmas, sis kabob, and other things). The food was excellent. I will also mention that my excitement continued to heighten, because as we ate dinner, one of the calls to prayer began to echo through the city from the loudspeakers of some of the minarets. We had made it to Sarajevo and I was loving it!
We headed in fairly early and got a good nights sleep so that we would be ready for a full day of exploring. We woke up early – had an incredibly fancy breakfast, and set out to see what we could. In daylight we realized that our hotel truly was an oasis amidst a row of buildings that had been severely damaged. The building directly beside ours was uninhabitable, the one beside that was a pile of rubble, the one beside that was standing and functional – but barely. We passed a tall apartment building on the way to the main road and realized that some of the stories were missing chunks of their exterior walls – we could see into some of the people's apartments as they drank coffee and read the newspaper. We walked down the road past a building chock full of bullet holes – listening to several different instruments practicing all at one – and realized at the bottom that it was actually a music academy.
We wandered through one of the main bazaars, stepped into the Cathedral of Jesus' Sacred Heart, and signed up for a tour of the Tunnel Museum at the tourist center. We spent a few hours wondering around, checking out the Kazandziluk road full of copper, nickel, and silver pieces and looking at the City Hall/National Library that lost over 90% of its books during an attack and is currently under rennovation. The City Hall's architecture is extremely beautiful and we could definitely see how beautiful a building it once was – but the damage was extremely evident, and though under rennovation, it was very obvious that there was a tremendous amount of work to be done. From there we headed down to the Latin Bridge, which is very close to the sight where Austria-Hungary's Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914...hopefully you know what happened after that... We took pictures of the plaque marking the spot and went into the museum that had the pistol used by Gavrilo Princips and some other items of the Black Hand conspirators. Good pictures for a history teacher to have.
We ate a quick lunch of cevapi – pita and sausage, and headed on to the tourist center to meet our tour guide. We were sent with eight other English speaking tourists down two or three blocks to meet up with a man named Tak who would serve as our escort to the Tunnel Museum. The tour included transportation, guided information, and admittance to the museum. During Bosnia's quest for independence – a war from 1992-1995, Sarajevo became beseiged by the Serbains and the city itself because nearly surrounded. The city was essentially bottlenecked, with a very narrow corridor linking the city to the rest of free Bosnia. This narrow corridor was their only hope to receive supplies, food, weapons, etc. The corridor linked up into the Olympic mountains – in which their was one road that remained open to connect them to the other side of the mountain pass. Now, this was a very modern war and the Serbians has sniper rifles, night vision, and a number of other tools that empowered them to shoot anything that moved along the corridor; thus inhibiting any supplies from reaching Sarajevo. During 1993, (a year in which our guide told us was a year in which the entire city went with no electricity), a tunnel was built by a group of volunterrs that ran underground for 800 meters through the narrow passage, linking the city of Sarajevo to a series of houses by the mountain pass. During the war the tunnel shuttled over 4,000 people a day from one side to the other, along with millions of pounds of essential goods to keep the city running. Our guide said he actually had to use the tunnel to leave the city for a while, but as a fifteen year old male who was expected to serve in the military at seventeen he only received a one month visa to go to the other side.
As part of our tour we drove through the city as our guide pointed out various buildings and their relevance during the war. As we approached sniper row he explained that the Holiday Inn was the location where all of the journalists and UN workers stayed and it was the only building from which no one died. He told us that during the seige supplies were extraordinarily low and that it was difficult to find necessary supplies without leaving your home – but, sniper row was a very difficult place to need to leave your home. He pointed out the one section of the city that had big trees older than thirteen years old and said the city government had protected those few trees, but all other trees were cut down at some point and burned for fuel during the long winters. He discussed the conditions of the rows and rows and rows of apartments that looked very similar to the aparmtnets in Croatia – essentially tenements. Tak explained that the aparmtnes rose up as homes to accommodate factory wokers – but that after the war the factories oved and unemployment was especially high.
We continued on through the city and eventually reahced the tunnel museum near the airport. Homes were used on each side to serve as entrance and exit points – to offer shelter as you came up out of the tunnel. We entered the home and went down to a bunker like area to watch a twenty minute film. The film had all first hand footage and showed various artillary attacks on the city, cars flying down sniper ally, city hall burning with the national library's contents inside, etc; the second half showed the interior of the tunnel (which was very narrow and not tall enough for anyone to stand up straight in) and soldiers and civilians using the tunnel to bring goods and wounded soldiers back and forth. The footage itself was quite good, but there was no narration or any form of guidance to explain what you were watching.
From there we were invited to walk through a 20 or 30 foot section of the tunnel, so see it first hand. The tunnel had many problems with water leakage and was difficult to maintain, so only part of it has fully been preserved. There were tracks at the bottom for the little carts they would use as gourneys to transport the wounded soldiers out of the city. They had a large map with the boundaries of the Serbian and Bosnian military forces clearly marked to better explain the “bottle-neck seige” I attempted to explain earlier. Our guide used a little stick to show us where everyone was situated, as well as sniper ally and how Sarajevo is kind of in a bowl that was surrounded by Serbians on the hills. He also pointed out some of the mountains that the Bosnians filled with land mines to make it more difficult to traverse. He pointed to one mountain and said - “This one is so full of land mines we can't even think about trying to remove all of them. We'll wait one hundred years and then start using the mountain again...”
After that we went upstairs and saw different artifacts from the war – some of the different kinds of carts, some old artillery, and lots and lots of pictures. Their were lots of pictures from the war and further demonstrating the use of the tunnel, and there was also a wall full of pictures of famous people who had visited the tunnel with lots of letters and notes from political officials and diplomats. We saw pictures of John McCain, Michael Moore, Jeremy Irons (voice of Scar), Daniel Craig (new James Bond), Richard Gere, and Fred Thompson, as well as pictures and letters from the US Ambassadors to Bosnia and their families from over the past decade.
The tunnel musuem was definitely one of my favorite things that we did in Sarajevo – and I agree with Daniel whole-heartedly that our tour really made it all click and helped us really understand what we were seeing. Our hotel had tried to make it sound like it was too far away and not worth doing, but the tourist office was very helpful and contrary to what our hotel said, it took about 30 minutes to drive out each way and the trip was well worth it.
Next, I really wanted to go into one of the mosques – but I was in shorts and a t-shirt...which wasn't really acceptable. So, we went back to the apartment and relaxed for a little bit, got our stuff together (I have a black pull on skirt and a sarong to cover my head and arms for religious sites we're going to visit on the Holocaust trip), and headed back out. We got to squeeze in a trip to the Gazi Husrevbeg Mosque before it closed – which was very beautiful. Daniel got to stand there while I had to cover my legs, arms, and hair. We lucked out because our guide needed to be somewhere else, so he let us in and we got to take our time and explore on our own.
We spent the rest of the evening walking through markets and further exploring the city. I think I have a soft spot for countries and cities that have overcome adversity. The have a more palpable spirit that the others and I definitely thought this was the case in Sarajevo. I was romanced by the beautiful markets, the wonderfully delicious food, the beautiful mosques, churches, and synagogues, the courteousness of the people, and the lilting voice that emanated from the minarets. One of the continual themes of Bosnia is “making it work” and working with what you have. Another is that it's all a work in progress...the whole city is a laundry list of reconstruction projects – but they really and truly are working on it, it's just going to take a long time. It seems to be a combination of need for money, organizational issues, and the sheer number of projects that inhibit speedy reconstruction. And yet, there's the spunk, the perseveriance and belief that, no matter how long it takes, we will overcome it, we will reconstruct it, we will rebuild it, and as the cemetaries echo from the hills and as it commands on the plaque of Sarajevo's City Hall, “Do Not Forget!”
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| Sarajevo, Bosnia i Herzegovin |
I wanted to give myself a day to process my thoughts and reflections from our visit to Bosnia and the beautiful town of Sarajevo. I had intended to write on the train from Sarajevo to Budapest, but the train was miserable and making myself hotter by having a warm laptop in my lap was not an option. Entering Bosnia was one of the most relaxed border checks I have ever encountered. Our passports were not even stamped. Some people just waved their ID card at the patrolman. As we entered the country I nearly immediately noticed an increase of abandoned buildings – many of which were not just abandoned, but were demolished – caved in or hollowed out with trees and shrubs growing out through the windows. We passed many cemetaries that seemed very full, but were also very unkempt – with grass growing higher than many of the stones. We also passed many, many, many works in progress and buildings at various stages of construction.
The randomness of which buildings were damaged was especially apparent. We saw a beautiful church – perfect, pristine, intact – juxtaposed with the connecting fellowship hall that was completely hollowed out and destroyed. We noticed that abandoned buildings often occurred in strings, with five or six all in a row. As we drove through Mostar, the effects of war were especially noticeable compared to the countryside and a large number of the buildings were damaged. On one of the main streets our bus drove us down we saw a cafe, a clothing shop, a shell of a building in which the only living things were trees and birds, a pub, a shoe store...
Now I must mention that Daniel really gave me free reign while planning this trip. I told him what I was planning along the way – but as he wasn't the one researching each step, he wasn't processing all the details the same way I was. Now, with that in mind – I definitely told him we would be going to Bosnia and I did mention that there were still visible signs of the war that occurred over a decade ago. But I guess it hadn't processed. The look on his face as we drove into the next city of our vacation – a city that was full of bullet holes and bombed out buildings and piles of rubble and barbed wire fences... well his face was priceless. But his trust in me was unwaivering (I think), and I quickly won him over once we arrived with a walk through the city and a yummy Bosnian meal.
After surviving our bus ride – which was supposed to be seven hours, but took eight, we finally arrived at the bus stop. We immediately sought an ATM and got some BAM out. :) Bosnia and Herzegovina are two different regions. Bosnia's capital is Sarajevo, Herzegovina's capital is Mostar. The country is most frequently seen abbreviated at BiH (the “i” being like our “and”). Money is noted on the world market as BAM, but frequently referred to as KM (Konvertible Markas). The country is also abbreviated as “Ba” sometimes – like on websites.
Anyway, we reached the bus stop, got some BAM, and hailed a taxi. About ten bucks later we found ourselves at Hotel Michele – which ended up being a fabulous choice – a little pricey – but by far the nicest room we've ever had in our lives. It was our sanctuary. We also later found out that Richard Gere had stayed in the apartment above us, Michael Moore in the apartment across from us, and Steve Buscemi had stayed in our apartment. (Yes, the aparmtent really was that nice). The front desk was wonderful, very helpful and welcoming, and whisked us upstairs to our gorgeous room. Our room was larger than our own apartment – all hard wood and full of furniture you usually find roped off in palaces or museums. We spent the first five minutes standing in amazement and trying to figure out which of the fifty light switches did what. We realized we had gotten in just in time – because for the first time of our trip, it started storming. Not just thunderstorming, but actually hailing almost quarter size hail. And that was it for our hot weather. The temperature dropped to sixty and we were in heaven.
We showered while it stormed – finally cool after our days in sweaty Hvar and the dreadful bus ride, we were ready to explore! We discovered that we were two or three blocks from the old town area that is open only to pedestrians and includes lots and lots of little shops. We walked down towards the water and City Hall and made our way to a restaurant called Inat Kuca that our hotel had recommended to us. The restaurant served authentic Bosnian dishes and was wonderful. I ate a dish called “dolmas” which was vegetables (peppers, onions, and rolled herb leaves) stuffed with meat and rice and Daniel got a dish that was the equivalent of the Tour of Italy at Olive Garden, giving us a tour of Bosnian food from Inat Kuca (some dolmas, sis kabob, and other things). The food was excellent. I will also mention that my excitement continued to heighten, because as we ate dinner, one of the calls to prayer began to echo through the city from the loudspeakers of some of the minarets. We had made it to Sarajevo and I was loving it!
We headed in fairly early and got a good nights sleep so that we would be ready for a full day of exploring. We woke up early – had an incredibly fancy breakfast, and set out to see what we could. In daylight we realized that our hotel truly was an oasis amidst a row of buildings that had been severely damaged. The building directly beside ours was uninhabitable, the one beside that was a pile of rubble, the one beside that was standing and functional – but barely. We passed a tall apartment building on the way to the main road and realized that some of the stories were missing chunks of their exterior walls – we could see into some of the people's apartments as they drank coffee and read the newspaper. We walked down the road past a building chock full of bullet holes – listening to several different instruments practicing all at one – and realized at the bottom that it was actually a music academy.
We wandered through one of the main bazaars, stepped into the Cathedral of Jesus' Sacred Heart, and signed up for a tour of the Tunnel Museum at the tourist center. We spent a few hours wondering around, checking out the Kazandziluk road full of copper, nickel, and silver pieces and looking at the City Hall/National Library that lost over 90% of its books during an attack and is currently under rennovation. The City Hall's architecture is extremely beautiful and we could definitely see how beautiful a building it once was – but the damage was extremely evident, and though under rennovation, it was very obvious that there was a tremendous amount of work to be done. From there we headed down to the Latin Bridge, which is very close to the sight where Austria-Hungary's Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914...hopefully you know what happened after that... We took pictures of the plaque marking the spot and went into the museum that had the pistol used by Gavrilo Princips and some other items of the Black Hand conspirators. Good pictures for a history teacher to have.
We ate a quick lunch of cevapi – pita and sausage, and headed on to the tourist center to meet our tour guide. We were sent with eight other English speaking tourists down two or three blocks to meet up with a man named Tak who would serve as our escort to the Tunnel Museum. The tour included transportation, guided information, and admittance to the museum. During Bosnia's quest for independence – a war from 1992-1995, Sarajevo became beseiged by the Serbains and the city itself because nearly surrounded. The city was essentially bottlenecked, with a very narrow corridor linking the city to the rest of free Bosnia. This narrow corridor was their only hope to receive supplies, food, weapons, etc. The corridor linked up into the Olympic mountains – in which their was one road that remained open to connect them to the other side of the mountain pass. Now, this was a very modern war and the Serbians has sniper rifles, night vision, and a number of other tools that empowered them to shoot anything that moved along the corridor; thus inhibiting any supplies from reaching Sarajevo. During 1993, (a year in which our guide told us was a year in which the entire city went with no electricity), a tunnel was built by a group of volunterrs that ran underground for 800 meters through the narrow passage, linking the city of Sarajevo to a series of houses by the mountain pass. During the war the tunnel shuttled over 4,000 people a day from one side to the other, along with millions of pounds of essential goods to keep the city running. Our guide said he actually had to use the tunnel to leave the city for a while, but as a fifteen year old male who was expected to serve in the military at seventeen he only received a one month visa to go to the other side.
As part of our tour we drove through the city as our guide pointed out various buildings and their relevance during the war. As we approached sniper row he explained that the Holiday Inn was the location where all of the journalists and UN workers stayed and it was the only building from which no one died. He told us that during the seige supplies were extraordinarily low and that it was difficult to find necessary supplies without leaving your home – but, sniper row was a very difficult place to need to leave your home. He pointed out the one section of the city that had big trees older than thirteen years old and said the city government had protected those few trees, but all other trees were cut down at some point and burned for fuel during the long winters. He discussed the conditions of the rows and rows and rows of apartments that looked very similar to the aparmtnets in Croatia – essentially tenements. Tak explained that the aparmtnes rose up as homes to accommodate factory wokers – but that after the war the factories oved and unemployment was especially high.
We continued on through the city and eventually reahced the tunnel museum near the airport. Homes were used on each side to serve as entrance and exit points – to offer shelter as you came up out of the tunnel. We entered the home and went down to a bunker like area to watch a twenty minute film. The film had all first hand footage and showed various artillary attacks on the city, cars flying down sniper ally, city hall burning with the national library's contents inside, etc; the second half showed the interior of the tunnel (which was very narrow and not tall enough for anyone to stand up straight in) and soldiers and civilians using the tunnel to bring goods and wounded soldiers back and forth. The footage itself was quite good, but there was no narration or any form of guidance to explain what you were watching.
From there we were invited to walk through a 20 or 30 foot section of the tunnel, so see it first hand. The tunnel had many problems with water leakage and was difficult to maintain, so only part of it has fully been preserved. There were tracks at the bottom for the little carts they would use as gourneys to transport the wounded soldiers out of the city. They had a large map with the boundaries of the Serbian and Bosnian military forces clearly marked to better explain the “bottle-neck seige” I attempted to explain earlier. Our guide used a little stick to show us where everyone was situated, as well as sniper ally and how Sarajevo is kind of in a bowl that was surrounded by Serbians on the hills. He also pointed out some of the mountains that the Bosnians filled with land mines to make it more difficult to traverse. He pointed to one mountain and said - “This one is so full of land mines we can't even think about trying to remove all of them. We'll wait one hundred years and then start using the mountain again...”
After that we went upstairs and saw different artifacts from the war – some of the different kinds of carts, some old artillery, and lots and lots of pictures. Their were lots of pictures from the war and further demonstrating the use of the tunnel, and there was also a wall full of pictures of famous people who had visited the tunnel with lots of letters and notes from political officials and diplomats. We saw pictures of John McCain, Michael Moore, Jeremy Irons (voice of Scar), Daniel Craig (new James Bond), Richard Gere, and Fred Thompson, as well as pictures and letters from the US Ambassadors to Bosnia and their families from over the past decade.
The tunnel musuem was definitely one of my favorite things that we did in Sarajevo – and I agree with Daniel whole-heartedly that our tour really made it all click and helped us really understand what we were seeing. Our hotel had tried to make it sound like it was too far away and not worth doing, but the tourist office was very helpful and contrary to what our hotel said, it took about 30 minutes to drive out each way and the trip was well worth it.
Next, I really wanted to go into one of the mosques – but I was in shorts and a t-shirt...which wasn't really acceptable. So, we went back to the apartment and relaxed for a little bit, got our stuff together (I have a black pull on skirt and a sarong to cover my head and arms for religious sites we're going to visit on the Holocaust trip), and headed back out. We got to squeeze in a trip to the Gazi Husrevbeg Mosque before it closed – which was very beautiful. Daniel got to stand there while I had to cover my legs, arms, and hair. We lucked out because our guide needed to be somewhere else, so he let us in and we got to take our time and explore on our own.
We spent the rest of the evening walking through markets and further exploring the city. I think I have a soft spot for countries and cities that have overcome adversity. The have a more palpable spirit that the others and I definitely thought this was the case in Sarajevo. I was romanced by the beautiful markets, the wonderfully delicious food, the beautiful mosques, churches, and synagogues, the courteousness of the people, and the lilting voice that emanated from the minarets. One of the continual themes of Bosnia is “making it work” and working with what you have. Another is that it's all a work in progress...the whole city is a laundry list of reconstruction projects – but they really and truly are working on it, it's just going to take a long time. It seems to be a combination of need for money, organizational issues, and the sheer number of projects that inhibit speedy reconstruction. And yet, there's the spunk, the perseveriance and belief that, no matter how long it takes, we will overcome it, we will reconstruct it, we will rebuild it, and as the cemetaries echo from the hills and as it commands on the plaque of Sarajevo's City Hall, “Do Not Forget!”
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