Pilgrimage to Poland

We are in Poland right now - Krakow to be exact - where we are spending our May Day holidays. The trip here has truly been a pilgrimage of sorts: We started in Kyiv on Friday where we caught a train out to Lviv in western Ukraine. We spent the night. The next morning we spent about 2.5 hours taking a "mashrutka" ride out to the Ukrainian border at which time we had to walk across the border to Poland. Sounds easy, eh? My only 'border walking' experience having been between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico, I was not prepared for what we saw. No less than 350 people were waiting in a long long crowd-like line to pass through the customs checkpoint. Our hearts sank. The Lady was waiting ... who is The Lady you ask?

Well a little over a year ago, I finished a copy of DaVinci's Lady with Ermine. It had been an assignment to copy an old master for a painting class; I came to be obsessed with the painting spending many many hours staring at it and trying to get a good likeness (see photo). When we moved to this part of the world, one of our goals was to go see the original which just happens to be in ... Krakow!

I marched to the front of the "border" line where a guard told me to go to the back of the huge crowd. I asked him if I could just go to the front for a "minutechku"... Joe waited behind. I went straight through a door where I saw a tall official-looking Ukrainian customs guy in a blue military-style suit. I said, "I need to go to Poland." He said, "Passport?" I said, "OK, here" (in my best American accent while waving to Joe to come forth and join me!). The official said, "Oh, America." Then escorted me and Joe to the front of the line - talk about queue-jumping! It was truly divine intervention that had pushed me to pull that stunt and get away with it. Needless to say, we will take the train back across the border the next time through.

So, during our first day in Krakow, we saw the amazing original version of the painting. It was captivating drawing commentary and long gazes from each tourist that entered the room in which it stands alone. The museum itself was very good, but it was hard to concentrate after seeing The Lady. The funniest thing was that I felt some incredible sense of attachment to it, like it was really mine or something. Like I wanted to tell the people around me, "I did a pretty good job, didn't I?" It was surreal.

Krakow is really a fun city with a great old town, amazing architecture, and a very tourist-friendly atmosphere. Almost everyone speaks some English... because tourism is rather new here, no one seems jaded or bothered by the throngs of foreigners visiting. We have been enjoying the coffee shops, flea markets, and reasonably-priced Polish cuisine.

We spend the whole day yesterday at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the site where up to 1.5 million people were killed during WWII. I hadn't originally wanted to go thinking that it would be so depressing. However, we decided to go, and we are glad we went. The two sites, Auschwitz and Birkenau, are well-organized for tourists and we took a 3 1/2 hour English speaking tour. I have heard about this site my whole life, especially while in junior high school. The tour was very professional, and the most astounding thing was the magnitude of how many people were put to death by the Nazis in such an innocent-looking area with green grass and big trees. The dormitory buildings at Auschwitz now house museum-like displays, or rooms rather, full of prisoners' shoes, shaving brushes, clothing, and other personal items. It was very sad, but it was done in a way that seemed respectful of those who died. Tourists are not allowed to take pictures inside most of the dormitories and the gas chambers - which we were actually able to enter and see the adjoining crematoriums. Joe took an eerie photograph of the gate at the entrance to the Auschwitz camp, reading "Arbeit Macht Frei", which means "Work Brings Freedom" - truly ironic considering no matter how hard people worked in the camps, they usually lived no more than 2 or 3 months.

Tomorrow we are headed for a small village outside Krakow which just happens to be the birthplace of John Paul II, the pope who recently died. Maybe we will be able to wade through the pilgrims to get a piece of JP's favorite cream cake, served at a local bakery there.