Warsaw!

Warsaw, 2010. Yes, that is Caroline, not an alien.

So, before we lived in Germany, we lived in Poland.  In fact, Poland was when I first started this blog. The girls were just wee ones… two and five months when we moved there.  We were only there for twelve months, and while it was quite a challenging year for me, the memories have grown sweeter with time.

Just recently the military authorized Ben to go back for a couple weeks to brush up on his Polish.  We joined him for the last four days there.  After winging it for ten days on my own with the little ones, I was more than ready to be reunited with Ben.

  

The problem was we had to get there, and this was by far the biggest adventure of the whole trip.  "Getting there"  involved walking to the bus stop with my fat suitcase, stroller, and a million shoulder bags, taking the bus down to the u-bahn stop, taking the u-bahn to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station), taking the train to the Frankfurt airport, and taking a flight to Warsaw.  No biggie, right?

Waiting for our train at the Hauptbahnhof.  World class travelers.

Now that Emily is six, and the oldest, she has turned into a great little traveler.  She's excited, engaged, curious, helpful, and marches right along.  C and J on the other hand need some serious work.  C LOVES to whine.  And make demands. It's her principal form of communication.  And she despises walking.  She'd much rather be pushed around in a stroller like a royal highness.  The problem with J is that he LOVES to walk.  All he wants to do IS WALK, but he always heads in the completely wrong direction… like towards the train tracks. Or the street.  And he always wants to walk in places where we should be sitting… like on the train or the plane.  

At the train station: Em walking to our platform like she owns the place.

             

Perusing her Friend magazine with a fellow traveler :)

Well, during this very involved journey, I was overwhelmed by how many people jumped in and offered to help.  So much so, that I posted a little blurb about it on Facebook, so forgive me if you've already heard this part.  And forgive me for being lazy, I'm just going to copy and paste:

Yesterday my faith in humanity was restored... I was traveling on my own with the three kiddos and must have been quite the spectacle with the stroller, a 50 lb. suitcase, and several shoulder bags, plus the three kids in tow. But time and again complete strangers offered their assistance including a kind lady who helped me lift the stroller up the stairs when there was no elevator and a man right behind her lugged my suitcase up... A man who helped me reassemble the stroller after deboarding the plane and then offered to push it for me.The person who wins the prize for going most out of her way was a lady who saw me running to catch the train as I found myself on the wrong end of the platform. She grabbed the suitcase from me and ran along side me until I made it to my car, which was quite the little jog. My favorite though, was a very professional looking businessman who carried em's pink little fluffy suitcase and teddybear up the steps into the plane... quite the sight. I was overwhelmed by how kind and quick people were (Germans, mind you, gasp!) to lend a helping hand.

We finally arrived at 10:40 p.m. and I was overjoyed to see Ben waiting for us. 

It was great to be back in Warsaw, and I was reminded of everything that I loved about the city, and everything that made it kind of hard to live there.  They have the most beautiful Old Town and some wonderful parks, but there is a palpable difference being in a former Communist country and being in Western Europe.

What I love about Warsaw is that they are good at remembering.  The country has suffered so much, especially during WWII, and there are memorials everywhere you turn to remind us.

Makes sense that they would honor this guy since he was one of many influential people in ending the Cold War

There are memorials like this EVERYWHERE… remembering the horrible Warsaw Uprising in 1944 during which 250,000 civilians were killed in a 60 day period and Warsaw was leveled to the ground.  It's hard to wrap your head around it. So incredibly sad.

The last remaining wall of the Warsaw Ghetto… I had never been here before.  Very sobering and very cool at the same time.

Last of the Ghetto wall

We also learned about this wonderful Polish man during the war, Janusz Korczak… he was a Jewish pediatrician, children's author, teacher, and at the time of the war, the head of a boys and girls home… all the children, himself, and the staff were forced to move to the Warsaw Ghetto.  He was given the opportunity to flee the country, but instead, chose to stay with the children and went with them to the death camp at Treblinka where they were all exterminated.  Ben watched a movie about it, called Korczak.

And here is a memorial to him in the middle of the city.

And we got to visit the boys and girls home where a very knowledgable young Polish lady gave us a tour.  These are the children from the home, who ended up perishing at Treblinka.

Em teaching Ben hopscotch at the Boys and Girls home.

Other familiar sites from the city:

 J never. stops. walking.

Eating dinner.  I had the most amazing stuffed quail.  Who knew?

The other awesome part of living in Warsaw was the friends we made… we got to hang out with the Jagards, our dear friends.  And we got to go to a wedding reception of one of the branch members and see many of the lovely people we knew.  But of course, I didn't snap any pictures :(

With the Jagard kids walking down Nowy Swiat

Poland has amazing ice cream.

I've seen many a street performer, but this guy was one of a kind! 

The remains of Polish children who died in the uprising.  Too sad. 

I was more than happy to eat a pulled pork sandwich and onion rings at the Hard Rock Cafe

And my favorite thing about Warsaw… Live Chopin concerts in the park on Sunday afternoons. 

Finally on our way home… Em was enthused to take the train again.  Here is a montage of her goofy excitement.