Day One and a Half

Hello All,

We left New York City for Newark Airport around 1:30pm on Sunday, September 11th. Given the day, we expected long security lines at the airport but found it to be nearly deserted and made it to our gate quickly and uneventfully. After making our final phone calls and saying our final goodbyes, we boarded our flight for Copenhagen and then on to Warsaw.

After about 20 or so hours of traveling we landed in Warsaw, Poland. My father's family lived in this area from the middle ages through the mid 1950's. Jewish by heritage, they endured years of persecution and my grandparents survived the holocaust hiding throughout Poland.

We arrived in Warsaw around 9am. After a relatively sleepless night we both desperately longed for a nap. We boarded a city bus downtown and found that buying bus and tram tickets, although obligatory, is rarely done. This should make traveling through Warsaw both easy and inexpensive. Score one for Jon and Amanda.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at our hostel in downtown Warsaw around 11am, we found out checkin wasn't possible until 2pm. We dropped our bags and asked the hostel worker where we should go to eat. He sent us to a place called Sphinx about a 15 minute walk away. We arrived to find Sphinx in a mall full of American mainstays like Sephora and the Gap. The restraunt boasted an english menu and American dishes like buffalo wings. This was not what we were after.

We boarded a free(?) tram and headed to the old part of Warsaw called Praga. Praga, about 10% of the city of Warsaw, is the only neighborhood that wasn't destroyed by the German's during WWII. En route to Praga, we passed by the stadium the Poles are building to host the Euro Cup soccer tournament next year, a great source of current Polish pride. Praga is beautiful. We saw two ornate churches, one orthodox and one Catholic. We saw pre-war buildings that looked like something out of a movie. After walking for a bit, we decided to get the Polish food that eluded us at the mall.








We ducked into a place that seemed popular amongst the locals. Oh, did I mention that very few people here speak English. This made ordering quite difficult. We pointed to a few dishes on the menu and shortly thereafter had a delicious meal of Pierogi (polish dumplings), some kind of soup, some kind of meat with potatoes, and some delicious red saur kraut with apples. We also picked up some cabanos (polish sausage) from a local meat store. The whole meal, more than we could eat, with 2 drinks was about $9. After eating, we went back to the hostel around 4pm, checked in, and took a much needed nap. We awoke only briefly for a snack and our first beers of the trip, then went back to bed.

At around 4:15am, I sat up in my bed. One of the slats broke. The mattress fell into a perfect U shape. My biological clock not yet adjusted, I decided this was an omen to get up. I kissed Amanda and went next door to an internet cafe to compose this blog post and check on the Broncos game.

Today, we will visit many of the places in Warsaw important to my grandparents while they were in hiding during the holocaust. I am emotional and excited to see these places. We will also hopefully connect with some folks who helped my family to survive the genocide. Amanda and I read my grandfather's memoires from the war and their story is truly tragic, compelling, powerful, and inspiring. It will be an emotionally enduring and prideful journey as we retrace their clandestine steps through Poland. I hope you all continue to follow our blog as we continue our travels onward. Please send emails, post comments and stay in touch!! We miss you all already!!

Much Love,
Jon and Amanda