Our Trip To POLAND--Part 1

This blog has been silent for over a month.  It's because we were in preparation mode for pretty much all of July.  I know most of my readers are personal friends, but I don't publish when we're out of town or my husband is gone until after the fact.  So all last month I could not share what was occupying so much of my time.

My husband's younger brother, Wojciech (who goes by Tek), lives in Brussels, BELGIUM, and was tying the knot with Ula last weekend...in POLAND.  So, I FINALLY crossed the pond!  And we left the kids with my parents for 10 days. 

Passports, international driving licenses, shopping, trips to the notary to finalize our last wills & testaments and child medical release forms, packing, emptying out the refrigerator, holding mail...my head was buzzing!  BUT, we left without a hitch and a friend of my mother-in-law (who was traveling with us) drove us the 3 hours to Newark Airport, the afternoon of Wednesday, August 1st.  Our flight left at 8:20pm and after 8 1/2 hours we landed in Munich, GERMANY.  Our connecting flight left immediately after our arrival, and 1 1/2 hours later we were in Warsaw, POLAND.  Then a family friend along with Pete's aunt Tesia drove us the remaining 3 1/2 hours to his home city on the northeastern border, Bialystok.

Poland is 6 hours ahead, but we had been traveling (sitting) for 23 straight hours when we arrived at his grandmother's apartment.  We were all BONE TIRED and I hadn't been able to sleep a wink.

Pete's 89 year old babcia lives on the 10th floor of what is a typical sized apartment in the small city of Bialystok.  (See the set of windows second row from the top, right half of the row, starting with bottom panel curtains?  That's her kitchen and then one of her two bedrooms is immediately on the right.) 

This is part of her interior.  She didn't want her picture taken, so I hesitated to take many pictures while there.  She didn't speak any English, and I really do not speak much Polish beyond customary phrases...so we just smiled at each other alot.  :-)

And this is the view (left to right) out of her living room on the opposite side of the building.




Pete's mother was a civil engineer (and priorly a physical therapist) before their family moved to the States in 1986, and her company designed buildings like these during the Cold War era.  In recent years the city has done much to improve their appearance, mainly by painting.  During communism all the buildings were grey concrete...as if you were looking at the world only in black and white.

Koscuisko Market Square (and Town Hall) can be seen in the distance on the 3rd picture.  The following pictures were taken in this beautiful and quaint spot.



Pete and his aunt Tesia, catching up.  Tesia lives in Vienna, AUSTRIA, and is the firstborn of Pete's dad's two older sisters.



Nalesniki, which is Polish for crepes, and "still" bottled water.  Many Europeans drink carbonated water, but I haven't developed the taste for it yet, so I quickly learned to say "niegazowana".  Interestingly, even the restaurants refrigerated bottled water wasn't as cold as we're used to here in the States.  (We take everything to the extreme I guess, especially when it comes to our comforts.)


Painted facades...fascinating.



E. Wedel's Czekolady restaurant.  Many of us ordered the frozen cafe mocha latte, which was chocolate, strong coffee, and vanilla ice cream.  Delicious!

Check in tomorrow for a few more shots of Bialystok, namely Branicki Palace.
(There will be at least 5-6 more posts upcoming from our trip.)