Auschwitz on 12/27/2006

We went to Auschwitz yesterday 12/27/2006. Not a fun tour, but one everyone should do once. The saying above the gate translates to "freedom through work". The average life for a male was 6 months an the average life for a female was 3 months.

Christmas in Zakopane, Poland

We spent Christmas in a beautiful town in southern Poland called Zakopane. It was very nice but they are low on snow so only the bunny ski slope was open which was good enough for me (Wes) who was just learning. Luckily there are no pictures of me falling.

Here is our hotel, Sabala.


The main street through town.


View from the top.

Things we've seen

A beautiful church view from Wawel castle at sunset, notice the sunset colors showing through the windows:

We went to Wieliczka (the salt mine)

This was between 65-135 meters below the surface.

Chapel of Saint Kinga:



Notice the chandeliers are made of salt, and you can see the newer salt crystals growing through the ceiling:









According to Polish legend, when the Polish king sent his envoys to take princess Kinga to Poland to marry a Polish king, her father (the Hungarian king) wanted to show a royal generosity by giving gold and silver from his treasury to the Poles. Kinga asked him to give a salt instead, since Poles did have gold and silver but they did not have much needed salt. The king let Kinga to take as much Hungarian salt as she wanted, but Kinga had a premonition and she just dropped her engagement ring to the mine before going to Poland.

After Kinga's wedding in Krakow she went for a trip to a near by town of Wieliczka and she ordered to dig a well. People who dig the well had to stop because they encountered a hard stone.
She then ordered to lift up a chunk of the stone - it was a pure salt with Kinga's ring inside. In the place where Kinga asked to dig a well - huge deposits of pure salt were found. Therefore she became a patron of salt-miners.

This is a carving showing them finding her ring:

Settling in

Sorry we haven't added anything lately, we've been settling in here in Poland. We found an apartment very quickly, it's a 2 bedroom 1 bath. When we walk down to the end of our street we can see Wawel castle. Very cool!

Day II - Apartment hunting

As I (Evie) sit here typing, the sound of a horse drawn buggy comes to my ears and I envision it as it trots by the hotel and down the road to the square. There are many other sounds too, but this one always makes me want to go for a ride.

Even though it didn't seem like it at the time, today was a long day. I was shown 9 apartments in different parts of town ranging from really nice to not quite so nice and a few that weren't completely finished. All of them had (or would have when finished) furniture, major appliances, linens, at least one full size bathroom, a balcony or two and most had either a washer or a washer/dryer combo. I found out that until recently most people had washers, but not dryers. So my questions is "How many days does it take for jeans to dry outside on a clothesline in the middle of winter when it's below freezing?" I was pleasantly surprised to find out today that many of the apartments are now putting in the single units that do both. So I may never need an answer to my question.

Some of you reading this blog may have never had the experience of riding in a car in any country other than the US...believe me it is quite an adventure. The streets are not as wide nor as well kept up as those in the states. Think very skinny roads with thousands of cars weaving in between the buses and trams on tracks (they don't/can't move over for you) and thousand year-old buildings lining the streets. Luckily, most people own tiny vehicles made to fit this size of road. I did, however, notice one truck the size of the Dodge Ram we had, must have been a stubborn Texan or something. Oh, did I forget to mentioned the thousands of people on foot trying to cross these streets? Most of them do not use cross walks or wait for lights, because if they do they would never get across the street. So they just weave in and out of traffic because the drivers don't stop for pedestrians very often, it's look both ways on your mark, get set, go. These same people enter and exit the trams in the middle of the street so at one point you might have a sea of people surrounding your car only for a moment and then they are gone. It's really an amazing system to keep the street corners clear. Tomorrow I do this again to see more apartments.

Back to the apartments I saw today...if one of the unfinished ones had an earlier complete date than beginning to mid January, we might have gone with that one, but we don't really want to be in a hotel for a month or more. So we will probably choose the one our relocation agent emailed pictures of while we were still in Texas. If that's the one we choose we should know by Wednesday when we will be able to move in.

Day I - Krakow

We arrived in Krakow Sunday afternoon. The scenery here reminds me (Evie) of Oregon, lots of trees and hills and cloudy. No snow here yet, they say it's been a really mild winter so far.

When we got here we thought the cabbie was going to need to leave one of us and half of our luggage at the airport because of the number of bags we had and there was another Sabre person to pick up. But we all piled in and the car did not bottom out too badly.

Once at our hotel we started unpacking a little and then decided we should go out and explore before it got dark (it gets dark around 3:30pm here, so we didn't have a lot of time to waste). We walked to Rynek Glowny (the square). What a beautiful sight it is! It was decorated for Christmas with trees and lights everywhere and even Santa and a white reindeer that you could have your picture taken with (for a small fee). The temperature here is near freezing, there was not much breeze and it was mostly clear.

We walked on to Wawel castle and took in the sights there. The castle nearly took our breath away with the moon shining brightly in the sky, hanging in just the perfect spot and me without my camera! There are many things to see at the castle but we didn't get there early enough to do any of the tours, that will be left for another time. So we walked back to toward the square and stopped to have dinner at a place that served Italian and Polish food. We both chose Polish dishes, Italian we could get in Texas, but not Polish. Wes had the traditional beet soup with dumplings and pirogies with meat and I chose a traditional soup of sausage with boiled egg. The pirogies I had were spinach with sour cream. It was all very good and we were warm and full by the time we left there.

That evening we walked back to the square through the market and enjoyed a hot drink of mulled plum brandy while waiting to meet up with friends. We never found our friends (we found out later that they were waiting at a different corner of the square near a different statue than the one we were at)...but there were fireworks over the square last night. I think they were for us.

Moving date - December 2nd

After one month's delay and another near delay we have a move date! We will be beginning our adventure on Saturday December 2nd. We fly out of DFW around 4pm and land in Krakow, Poland on Sunday December 3rd around 1pm. Sounds like a long flight, but at 12.5 hrs (1.5 hrs is to change planes in London) it was one of the shortest! On Monday December 4th, Wes will begin working at the Sabre Polska office and I will begin looking for a flat to call home.

I (Evie) compiled several lists I received of what we should bring to Poland, here is the result:

What to bring to Poland

Bedroom/bath items:
Sheets, flat (queen or larger)
Towels
Facial tissues
Antibacterial hand gel
OTC med's

Kitchen/laundry items:
Lunchboxes
Tupperware-type containers
Zip-lock bags – all sizes
Hand held can openers, whisks
Favorite pots, pans, utensils, baking pans, etc.
Pizza pan/baking stones
Muffin tins
Measuring cups with BOTH metric and ounces
Thermos
Lysol-type spray
Dryer sheets - not much good there aren't many dryers!
Favorite detergent

Food items:
Pancake mix, breakfast drinks, or exotic spices, corn syrup
Chocolate chips
Chocolate baking powder
Rotel tomatoes
Candles

Specialty Clothing:
Waterproof boots (good, warm ones)
Silk Underwear (when Wes heard this he was all for it, but we found out they meant Long Johns made of silk or some other thin, insulating material)
Wooly socks
Ski-type coat (last year I don't think I even wore my Texas appropriate coat more than 2 times! We'll be looking for warmer coats before we move)

Other items:
Board games
Bikes
Books
Day planner/calendar in English
Plug adaptersTransformers 220 down to 110v and larger ones 200-300Watts

What an adventure we are about to embark on! I don't know what Wes will do without his usual Tex-Mex food fix...I guess I will have to learn how to make enchiladas and tamales. I heard that cabbage is put in Mexican food in Poland, not sure what that would do to the taste, but mixing beans and cabbage can't be a good thing!

One More Step Complete

Our great house in Trophy Club has sold. The couple that bought it, Neil and Tracie, are really cool and have some great plans for the house. After closing on Friday(Oct 27th) we went out for dinner and drinks with them at the Trophy Club Country Club and had a great time. Best of luck with the house guys.

The next steps are to get the work permit and visa. We also need to get winter clothes which we started shopping for this weekend.

Wes and Evie are moving to Poland

There have been many people email me over the past 2 months asking if the rumor that we were moving is true. The answer is yes it is true although we did not know all the details until today (Wednesday September 20^th). Today I signed a two year contract with Sabre Holdings to work out of the Krakow, Poland office. The official start date on the contract is December 1^st of this year so we will be moving in late November or early December. We are excited and a little nervous but ready for the adventure.

We do have few details to wrap up here (like selling our house). If you know of anyone interested in a nice house in Trophy Club, TX please send them our way.

We will miss you while we are gone and would love to have you come visit us in Poland. It is an easy trip by plane or train to most of the countries in Europe. If you like skiing come in the winter because there is skiing from November – May just an hour or so from Krakow. If you are from Texas I suggest you come in July or August. J