It was really funny because the back of the bus is usually where the "in crowd" ends up sitting, though I'm not sure why that's how bus politics end up working. Clare ended up grabbing a seat directly in front of the popular kids, so we ended up there the whole weekend and I was highly entertained. I ended up talking to them some too, though not a whole lot.
The bus ride was kind of uncomfortable - I think it was just partly because they were playing a movie of some sort for the majority of the bus ride, and it's really hard for me to sleep through those. Also, I was on the aisle seat, and I didn't figure out until the drive back that it had an arm rest I could have put up to rest on.
We arrived in Czestochowa in the freezing rain and walked up to the Jasna Gora Monastery which houses the sacred icon of the Black Madonna. At 6 AM they then unveiled the image while everyone knelt, which was accompanied by a huge drumroll and a trumpet fanfare. The Black Madonna itself was incredible to see - while I don't like icons much, there were so many jewels and so much gold detail that it was fantastic to just look at. The image is apparently miraculous, and you could still see the scratch marks on Our Lady's cheek where it had been slashed with a sword and struck with an arrow.
Jasna Gora Monastery
After that we got a wonderful hot breakfast at a random hotel, and were given some free time to explore Czestochowa. It was raining or drizzling for most of it, so it was pretty grey outside. Nevertheless, it was pretty. Clare and I joined up with Leslie and went adventuring for shoes; Clare and Leslie were both looking to buy some new flats to replace their shoes. Walking around Europe has been hard on everyone's footwear. My sneakers are shot, so are my boots, and now my casual walking shoes are starting to get that way too. Looks like I'll have plenty of room to bring back souvenirs.
We got some delicious pastries there in Czestochowa. Note about the currency and prices there - there are roughly 4 zloty in each Euro, but prices are also ridiculously low. I think the Polish economy just hasn't caught up to the rest of the world yet, that's the impression I got from Mr. Pipp. Those pastries were 2 zloty each, which is about 50 Euro cents and about 60 ish American cents. That's absurdly cheap, and the pastries were both huge and delicious.
After that we got on the buses and loaded up to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, the site of one of the largest concentration/death camps of the Holocaust. I didn't take any pictures there obviously, and I don't really know how to describe it in words save that I think it's important for everyone old enough, if they have the chance, to visit it.
Following our Auschwitz-Birkenau tour we got in the buses once again and headed to Krakow, Poland, where we checked into the hotel where we would be for the next two nights. We were served dinner and then after that I didn't feel very good, so I retired to my room for a bit to shower and recoup mentally. After being around people in such close quarters for so long and then visiting the concentration camp, I just needed to take a brief break.
The next morning we got up and were taken on a walking tour of Krakow. We actually got to see the university where St. John Paul II studied, and walked around on the waterfronts where he spent time. We had a tour also of Wawel Hill, and went inside the basilica up there, where we had mass on Sunday. The Wawel basilica is enormous, has relics of St. John Paul II in it, and a huge amount of tombs where they laid royalty to rest. There is also a crypt containing the bones of Frederyk Chopin, the pianist, and a copy of the miraculous Divine Mercy painting commissioned by St. Faustina.
Wawel Cathedral
Krakow is the 'city of the dragon' due to an old legend about the town. Once upon a time there was a shoemaker who had a true love, and in this city where they lived there was also a dragon who demanded sacrifices every year. One day the shoemaker's love was chosen to be sacrificed. The shoemaker wanted none of this, so he set off to do what no one else had been able to do - slay the dragon.
First he stuffed a flock of sheep full of sulphur so that when the dragon ate them, it got extremely thirsty, and went to quench its thirst. On drinking from the river, the water combined with the sulphur (?) and it died.
So legend goes. But right outside the basilica there are some massive bones hung from the wall right next to the main door, which are said to be the dragon's bones. Studies have been more recently done and show that they're bones from mammoths, which is still really cool.
I think Krakow is definitely my favorite city that we've visited so far. In addition to having extremely cheap prices for things, making it the perfect place to get gifts for people, it has both a combination of old architecture and buildings and sites, and also newer shops, malls, and it seems extremely busy and active both day and night. I loved it - it was full of activity, people to watch, views to see, and symmetrical buildings to admire. (I have discovered I definitely have this thing for symmetry.)
Wawel Main Marketplace (cathedral in the background)
We walked around it and got to see some of the beautiful churches, including a Franciscan church which contained a full scale replica of the Shroud of Turin. After that we went to the Main Market, which is an enormous square which is basically the heart of the city. The marketplace had tons and tons of booths selling bunches of touristy items, pierogies, and actually a lot of the items they were selling were of very beautiful craftsmanship, like the handmade pipes, carved boxes, and a lot of the carvings they had. I'm not sure if Poland is well-known for its carvings, but it sure had a lot of them.
In the marketplace there was also a lot of street entertainment, including one man who was lying on his back juggling a soccer ball from foot to head to nose to knees; accordion players who were serenading us with Vivaldi plus occasionally an opera singer; a stage that was almost always filled with Polish people dressed in traditional Polish clothing singing traditional songs; and on Sunday we saw a few guys who were doing some awesome break dancing. I took a video, so when I have better internet I'll upload it here.
The Polish marketplace was also filled with a bunch of pigeons, and I think pigeons are kind of sad because if people drop bread for them, they can't hold it down to tear away pieces, they just peck at it and toss the bread everywhere until they can just get a little bit. So I went over and put my foot down on a large piece, and soon enough I had pigeons standing on my shoes, crowding around my feet - it was really ticklish and funny.
Also, this guy:
Clare and I started off wandering with a few people, but everyone broke off into even smaller groups, and so it ended up being the two of us wandering around buying presents and sticking our noses into various shops and booths. It was actually a lot of fun for me, I loved it.
That afternoon we went to the Divine Mercy Shrine, which I will tell you right now looks like they tried to make a bishop's hat of some sort? But it looks like a spaceship with a tower, and it just seemed weirdly too modern. That shrine was separate from the actual church containing St. Faustina's relic and the original Divine Mercy Painting, though, thank goodness. We went into the church itself and it was just a very holy place. I really liked it - I think of the religious places we've seen so far, I've connected the most with the Divine Mercy version of Jesus.
We prayed the Divine Chaplet, then were taken for a talk with a religious sister there at the shrine. She was incredibly sweet and gentle and funny and she told us that on October 5th, the feast day of St. Faustina, we should go check out www.faustyna.pl (I forgot why though). She sang us a song and I don't remember much of what the talk was about, but I do remember thinking that when she talked about Jesus as her spouse, I kept thinking, "Boy, Jesus is a lucky guy..."
After that Clare decided to do a holy hour, I think she needed it to settle her mind a little bit. I wasn't sure where the adoration chapel was but I went exploring on my own anyways, I looked through the shops there and didn't see much, I went for a walk around the shrine and its grounds on my own, did a little praying, and climbed to the top of the tower to see the view of surrounding Krakow from the viewpoint, which was absolutely gorgeous and worth the stairs.
Following mass at the Divine Mercy Shrine we got driven back to Krakow, where we were expected to find our own dinner. Clare and I were sort of wishing we could find people to go with, but we didn't, so we set off looking for the marketplace to grab some pierogies, ... in the wrong direction.
We walked for about ten minutes going the wrong way and looking for the streets we needed on our map. Eventually we concluded that because we had seen absolutely zero of the streets we wanted, we needed to turn around. I had asked a lady for help, but she wasn't very interested in helping us and so I was kind of discouraged after that. We passed a couple of university age Polish kids who stared at us and seemed very amused. Krakow is very much a university town; I felt comfortable around the kids but also kind of gawky.
We eventually ran in to some other Franciscan people who gave us kind of vague directions to get to the marketplace. Ensue us wandering around until we hit the marketplace, and we got some really good kebabs and pierogies - I wasn't sure about the kebabs as much, though. They're cooked meat on a stick, but they separate the meat with something that looks like just a layer of fat,and the meat is really fatty itself.
It's really hard to eat healthy here. Some of it is my fault because of the Milka - the chocolate is so good! - but it seems like there's a lot of bread, pasta, rice, or spaetzel (some kind of egg-noodle mix?) here, and the combinations just seem kind of hopelessly unhealthy. Also I've been still sick for the last week or so, being in Czestochowa in the rain made my cough come back a little, so I'm in recovery again and because of traveling, cleaning, and school (or general goofing off/socializing) I haven't had a lot of chance to exercise. So that's one thing I miss about the Franciscan campus - the gym. I'll be super excited to come back and drop whatever extra pounds I might have put on (not really sure if the walking everywhere has been canceling it out, I can't tell much).
Anyway after dinner we went back and caught some Z's, and the next morning we had free time again in Krakow.
On our way to the main square, Ariana (red polka dot scarf) wanted to get a picture with this street performer. He invited us all in for a picture, and then the street performer signaled that he wanted the girls on either side of him to kiss his cheek. This was the reaction - Mr. Pipp's is the best (in the back), green jacket.
We wandered, bought some more stuff, and I got kielbasa for breakfast. My absolute favorite thing about the food in Poland is the meat - I don't like meat much, but the sausages were great.
Sunday in the Square
We had a lot of time, so we just did some general aimless walking, and eventually we ran into a group of those break dancers, which cheered us up directly before we headed back to the buses to Wadowice, St. John Paul II's birthplace.
Krakow Square
We didn't have much time in Wadowice, so we went into the church there (apparently it's the site where John Paul II decided to join the priesthood?). I didn't like the decor much, the basilica in the Krakow main square was much more beautiful. In the Krakow basilica there was a huge amount of lavish decoration, but it was tastefully done with a good color scheme and with symmetry, with the eye being led upwards and to the main altar. In the Wadowice basilica it just seemed extremely aimless, the decoration was random and spontaneous, and I felt like the only thing that made the church cool was that there was a relic of Padre Pio there and a relic also of John Paull II, both of which I got to pray at.
View from Wadowice Basilica of the main square
Clare and I tried out some pope cake - I guess JPII really loved the cake and asked it to be made whenever he came, so now it's produced in all the little cafes there. I didn't like it so much, I feel like cake needs to be more substantial than a flaky top and some cream puffy stuff. I also got some little pastry thingies with my extra change, just because you can't convert change back to Euro after you leave Poland.
A very artsy photo of destroyed food
There was this really old lady in the doorway of the basilica there who looked to be close to 90 who was praying the Rosary both when I got there and closer to when I got the pastries, and I was just so sad for her. She seemed so nice, and when I saw people giving her a few zloty (the equivalent of less than a dollar) she was so thankful. I gave her a few zloty also, and then when I got the pastries I went back there because it had been an hour and a half and she was still sitting there, and I gave her one of them. She looked so startled and pleased, I was really glad that I got to at least connect with her a little bit.
Finally we got back on the buses after Wadowice and headed back on the long bus drive to Gaming. I was so glad to get back. It was fun adventuring, but I kept thinking, man, I have midterms next week, and I need to do reading and I was just really tired of being on the move all the time. On the bus ride I did quite a bit of reading, was forced to watch Frozen, and when we stopped to eat dinner Clare and I both got to talk a little more with Allison Thilges, a girl who knew Maria last year. She's really nice.
Saw this in a gas station in the Czech Republic. Who knows what's happening here...
We arrived at Gaming at three in the morning and the last day or so has been spent cleaning, reorganizing the room, studying, and catching up. And as soon as I put pictures into this blog post that's what I'll be off to do - study hard and start researching to write my papers. I'm starting to feel really overloaded with the semester...
Also they have started turning off the internet at 10 PM every night, both in the main dorm building and also in the building where they said they'd leave it on until 1 AM so that people could skype.
I'm really aggravated with this. They said it's for the sake of us developing temperance, but you can't really force a virtue on people by just denying the privilege to exercise it on their own. Not only that, but I can't research for my Charlemagne paper or for my metaphysics homework, which specifically says use online sources. I also can't Skype. The authorities were saying that students could easily figure out a time, but by the time it's 10 PM our time, it's only 1 PM back at home, and people are usually either at school or work or I haven't gotten everything done that I needed to, so really what they did was screw over everyone from the West Coast. So thanks a lot, Gaming campus.
Bonus perks - on returning to main campus, while I was gone, they added Wifi to the dorms and made it so that you don't have to use quarters in the laundry anymore, you can just use your debit card. So I'm trying to keep my chin up and not get really, really, really angry with the staff for their little "we'll make this campus a social place! ... past 10 pm!" jaunt.
No comments:
Post a Comment