Last night Kendall arrived around 11:30 p.m. We then decided to change her flights so that she could be at Poland’s first anniversary celebration of Poland being open to missionaries. It marks 25 years since the missionaries started sharing the gospel and the Book of Mormon here. All the members and the missionaries are gathering to Warsaw. It just seemed crazy that we are here in Poland that she should be at that big event. Everyone is gathering and they have a whole Saturday planned. I think it is great since there are only about 400 active members of the church in Poland. When Poland joined the European Union many members moved to other parts of Europe and so there are several branches but not one ward in all of Poland. This will be great to see everyone in one place. I think it was clearly meant to be that we did this now. What a great reunion it will be.
We had a really funny time getting the flights changed because we actually had been on the phone with FastJet who I bought the flight from and they were so painful and unhelpful and then we got on with Lufthansa who the tickets were issued under and we got the most wonderful guy James. He was able to change our flights and get us money back with no charges or fees! We waited on the line a long time for his supervisor because we wanted to tell them how AWESOME James was! So around 2 a.m. we went to bed. When I woke up I had more hard calls to make. I haven’t had cell service for 5 days with ATT. I have called them 20 times and they keep saying it will be fixed and someone will call me and I haven’t gotten anywhere since Friday. Finally I said I was pulling my ATT membership and finally we got somewhere and transferred me to someone that could do something and they finally got it fixed. Wish James worked for ATT!!
We had a late start but our first stop was the Underground Main Square, which his literally underground the main square and old roads and ruins of homes and market stalls from the 10th-13th century. It was a great museum and really fascinating. Next we went into St Mary’s Basilica which is the grand church on the Main Square and it was an incredible church. We learned a bit about the altar piece in that church. It had been taken by the Germans to Nuremberg and then after the war brought back to Poland and restored. It was an elaborate mantle piece with depictions of Mary. The Basilica had a beautiful blue ceiling with stars, reminiscentt of German churches. The church I believe was built in the 13th century and was just spectacular and is an iconic church on the Main Square and iconic to Krakow. The many intricate and colorful stained glass too make it spectacular.
We opted for a horse drawn carriage to the Wawel Castle. There we walked around the grounds and into the Cathedral. We also walked into the Dragon Caves. It was believed a prince that had lived here killed the dragon that had been killing the people, and particularly beautiful girls. The Prince poisoned the dragon and then the dragon had drank from the river and exploded! The caves were cool and can understand why some good legends had to come from this big cave under the palace on the river.
We took a golf cart shuttle to Oskar Schindler’s factory where they had a history of Poland during the war and Schindler’s part in preserving the lives of so many Jews, 1200. He is the only Nazi that was buried in Israel since he gave all that he had, paying off officers in the SS with nice gifts to be able to keep his Jewish workers safe. The story is really moving, even as I read it to Sam and Kendall this morning over breakfast from the internet I cried. The movie Schindler's List I cried my eyes out I remember and it affected me for days after. The museum was excellent and full of mulit- media displays depicting what life was like under German rule in Poland. They walk you though what life was like in Jewish ghettos and Schindler's story. It was an excellent multimedia and interactive museum.
After our tour we had a golf cart take us into town looking for seaways so we could do a tour. Instead we found a place that does “scooter” rentals which looked like a blast. They are like "jazzys" which are like amped up wheelchairs. But they were fast and fun and we zipped around the city and streets and got to see all the main area of Krakow. We came across my favorite street performer ever- a man playing glasses with water and it was like he was playing an organ and each rang like a pipe and sounded just perfect. I LOVED this guy- gave him a huge tip and came back to him several times, just captivated by his talent....reminiscent of Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality :)
That evening we went for Sushi and then made an 8 p.m. classical 6 piece orchestra concert at the Peter and Paul Cathedral. It was excellent. The music was so inspiring and just love to hear violins play in the great acoustics of a chapel. We heard Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and other great composers. My favorite pieces were by Vivaldi.
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