The rest of Poland

Sorry these blogs are so long, but they are also my journal of the trip. I'm trying to update it as much as possible so I don't forget what we've done.

After visiting Auschwitz, we spent 2 days in Krakow. Mark and I did not get much time sightseeing because we had to meet the people at the theatre while the students went downtown. We did got to the main square for lunch and it was very busy. Another holiday. It seems like we have been here for a lot of holidays. 1st we hit May Day and now we are visiting the cities on their celebrated liberation days. We had the one in Plzen and then 2 days later Prague celebrated their liberation day. Then we hit Krakow's liberation day. Our show in Krakow went well on Saturday. Then Sunday we went to church. We weren't able to have church with the members because another group from BYU studying abroad here had to meet with them and there was not enough room in the church so we held our own Sacrament meeting. After church it would have been nice to rest, but instead they took us to another castle. It would have normally been fun, but we were all so tired and they took us on a 2.5 hour tour of the museum there. It was so hard to stay focused. We all just wanted to sit down and there was nowhere to sit. But the castle was pretty and the museum was interesting. They had an armory with weapons from all eras and then paintings and rugs and things from Poland. We are learning a lot about different cultures.
Monday we traveled to Lublin which is about 3 hours from Krakow. We had one night there and just performed on that night. So we didn't see anything in Lublin. We performed with a university group there called Javol. They have performed in festivals together before so they invited us to perform there with them. The director of Javol was so funny. He loves cowboys and thought at the end of the show that both groups should sing Country Roads by John Denver together. He honestly thought that all Americans would know this song. Few of our students have ever heard of John Denver let alone know his songs. So they had to practice and practice Country Roads for the performance. The director of Javol was just singing Country Roads with all of his heart. It was hilarious. I don't have any pictures of Lublin. I really don't have a lot of pictures of the performances or group things. We've had the University photographer with us so none of us have taken any pictures of that kind of stuff. Anyway, here are a few from Krakow.



The church in the square at Krakow.


Mark and I in the castle square. It's more like a palace than a castle.



This is me just on the edge of the old city at the fortification wall. Most of these towns have an old town section surrounded by the old defense walls.


From Lublin we went to Warsaw. Warsaw was an interesting city. It has a lot of history. Poland itself has rarely been independent. It has been fought over between the Russians and Germans forever. Warsaw had a period of brief independence between the 1st world war and the 2nd world war. 20 years. In 1939, Warsaw was the 1st city the Germans invaded on the 1st day of the war. The Poles, whether Jewish or not, were the 1st to be taken to the concentration camps. Over the course of 6 years the Germans infiltrated and destroyed the city. In 1944 the people of Warsaw tried to start an uprising to take back their city and it resulted in a 63 day standoff with the Germans. During that time the Nazi's destroyed as much as they could. At the end of the war 85 percent of the city had been destroyed. The entire city was evacuated during that time. The Nazi's wanted to completely wipe out the city so they destroyed as much as they could. After the war, people returned and started rebuilding the city. It was rebuilt in the Soviet style so there are a lot of square concrete buildings. They rebuilt the old downtown to be like it was before the war. So much history was lost though. It's been sobering to see how much the Nazis destroyed in all of these countries we've been to.
Warsaw has turned into a very modern city. There are a lot of places to eat and movie theatres. A note on food on this trip. I have eaten at more American restaurants than I could have ever imagined. I have eaten at McDonalds in every city (thanks to Mark) and TGI Fridays and Hard Rock Cafe and Pizza Hut. etc. etc. Warsaw had a lot of American restaurants. Most of the time we end up there because we know what there is to eat and we know somebody may speak English. I'm getting really tired of eating out. Here are some pictures of Warsaw. The few that I have.

Me in the rebuilt old town square.


Mark at the fortification wall. Some of it is original but mostly rebuilt.


We went to the Polish army museum to see the tanks and planes and guns. At first we thought it was part of the History museum that was right next door so we spent 20 dollars to go in and after looking at a lot of art and statues, we realized that it wasn't the right museum. We walked next door and found the right (and I must mention free) Polish army museum.


The big huge Stalin building. He built these in a lot of the cities under the iron curtain and they were the tallest buildings in the city. Now it is a museum, office buildings, restaurants, theatre etc.

Auschwitz

On Friday we left Prague for Krakow, Poland. On the way, we stopped at Auschwitz. There are two parts of Auschwitz, Auschwitz 1 and Birkenau. Auschwitz 1 was an old military camp and there are brick buildings lined up. After the Nazi's started bringing more people in, they expanded to Birkenau which is about 2 miles from Auschwitz. This is where they had rows and rows of wooden buildings that housed about 20,000 people at a time. This is also where the big incinerators were. Really the whole experience was quite sobering. I don't think I would want to go there twice. Most of Auschwitz 1 has been converted into a museum. Some of it has been left in the original state. There was one building that shows rooms and rooms of the peoples belongings recovered on the liberation day. One room held all of the hair that had been cut off the people in just those few days before the liberation and had not been destroyed yet. It was an enormous amount of hair. And shoes, and eyeglasses and suitcases. Baby clothes. This was the most disturbing part. They also had one building that had the experimental gas chambers and torture rooms. Birkenau was mostly destroyed by the Nazi's before liberation so that there would be minimal evidence. They have recreated a few buildings to show what the sleeping situation was and what the bathrooms were like. I think that the museum tells something that is necessary and reminds us not to forget those that died that way. But it was very disturbing.


This is the gate into Auschwitz 1. Work makes us free it says.



These are the buildings in Auschwitz 1 where the museum is. They wouldn't let us take pictures inside the buildings.



One of the execution walls where people were lined up and shot.


This is the famous train track leading into Birkenau where people would get off and were sorted.


The only thing remaining of the buildings are the brick chimneys. You can't see all of them but there were just hundreds and hundreds of these spread out over acres.



This is the gate leading right into Birkenau. Sorry for the depressing nature of this blog.

Prague

We were in Prague Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday so we had quite a bit of time to ourselves to explore the city. Tuesday we went to the Prague castle and walked around and went downtown a bit. Mark and I also went to see Ironman. Only with Mark would I waste 2 hours in Prague on a movie. It was good though. In English with Czech subtitles. Wednesday we had a show. The venue was just a couple of blocks from the main square. Our hosts were a Czech folk dance group that actually do dances from all over the world, not just Czech. Most of these countries folk groups just do native dances. This group has learned Mexican dancing from the Living Legends at BYU. They also brought clogging to Prague about 10 years ago. Now there are about 50 clogging groups in or around Prague. It's a clogging revolution in the Czech republic. Who knew. They actually have really good cloggers. There was an older member of the church at the performance that night that brought a picture of her with the folk dancers when they came to Prague in 1997. She was not a member then but her friend brought her to the show and when she found out that the group had religious ties, she was a little annoyed and left. She later met the missionaries and remembered that they were affiliated with our group and heard the discussions and got baptized. She credits her conversion to the folk dance team. On Thursday we had a fireside with the members and she spent all day at the church preparing a dinner for us. Also on Thursday we had more free time in the morning and afternoon so we went shopping and then went to the old Jewish quarter of the city. The most interesting part of that was the Jewish cemetery where they have thousands of graves packed in together. The oldest grave dates from the 1400's. They ran out of room so they started burying people in some places 10 deep and all of their headstones are crammed in next to each other. They wouldn't let us take pictures of this area unless you bought a pass and we didn't. Here are some other pictures though.



This is the church that is in the center of the castle called St. Vitas. It was a huge church.


This is Mark and our bus driver Rolf. They look a little wet because it was downpouring for a lot of the day on Tuesday. Rolf and Mark have become fast friends because Rolf is from Germany and Mark is the only one who speaks German. I have found myself becoming the 3rd wheel to them and I don't understand most of what they're saying.

The inside of St. Vitas church.


We climbed to the top of the church tower, (which seems to be a trend) There were a 287 spiral stairs to the top.



Outside the church. Mark and I are the little people at the bottom.


This is the Charles Bridge, the oldest bridge in Prague, which connects the castle to the city.

The Tyn Church which is in the main square.

This is the famous astronomical clock which is in the main square. Every hour it dings. We had heard that it did some cool things on the hour so we gathered with the throngs of people to watch. The two little doors at the top open and the 12 apostles circle past the door. It was very anti climactic. But I guess in the 15th century it was way ahead of it's time.


A view from the city looking back at the Prague castle.

Plzen

We have not had really consistent internet this week so I'm going to have to quickly do a few entries while I have it. On Monday we left Bratislava and traveled to Plzen, Czech which is about an hour west of Prague. We were only there for the evening so we didn't get to see much. When we first got there we met with the mayor of Plzen. We were there as invited guests to perform for their liberation celebration which is celebrated on May 6th. This was the day the city of Plzen was liberated from the German's by the Americans. They hang American and Czech flags and have festivities all week. Some of the American soldiers that were there in 1945 come and celebrate although there were not as many there as in years past. They had a big stage set up in the middle of the main square and that is where we performed. We had an audience of a 1000 or more. It was a fun performance.


This is a picture of St. Bartholamew's Cathedral. It is the main church in the square. I must admit that I've seen a lot of churches in main squares on this trip and they're all starting to look the same.

We climbed to the top of the tower, which they claim is the highest in Czech. This is the view from the top.


This is the stage where we performed in front of the church. It was such a great backdrop.


After the show, our hosts took us to a restaurant just outside of the square and this is the view we had on the way there.

Vienna, Bratislava

So on Friday we drove from Budapest to Bratislava, Slovakia. We had a joint show in Bratislava with Lucnica, which is a local University dance group similar to ours. The two groups have become friends over the last 10 years or so at various festivals around the world. It was fun to see the Slovakians dance. On Saturday we went to Vienna. It is only about 45 minutes from Bratislava. We only had a few hours to spend because we had to get back for another show in Bratislava. 3 hours is not enough in Vienna. There is so much to see. Here are a few of the highlights.



The first church we went to was a Jesuit church and this is a picture of the dome when you first walk in the door.


Then you walk down the aisle and this is the same dome looking from the other side. We realized that it is an optical illusion painted on the ceiling to look like a dome. It was pretty cool.


We then made our way to the main square to St. Stephens Cathedral. It was so busy that day in Vienna we could hardly make our way into the church. They celebrated May day on Saturday instead of Thursday. They had similar fair type things going on as they did in Budapest. And there were all the locals downtown as well as the tourists.


Inside St. Stephens Cathedral.


Mark and I then got separated because he wanted to go eat Weiner schnitzel. So I went with another group. We went to see the church of the Knights Templar which is the church they talk about in the Davinci Code. It is right around the corner from St. Stephens but we almost missed it because it's just a small church built into the side of a building. We then walked around and came upon the Opera house (pictured above) I think this is the back side.

Behind the opera house is a large palace called Hopfberg Schloss. We didn't really know what it was at the time and had to ask Mark later what it was. It was pretty though. That was about all we had time to do. We had to go back to Bratislava for a small joint show with Sluk, which is the state folk ensemble in Slovakia. They were having an outdoor festival as well. They were amazing dancers.


After the show they fed us bratwurst and cofola. Cofola is a soft drink only found in Slovakia, similar to coca-cola but it has more of a licorice taste. It wasn't that good but we drank it for the cultural experience. Above, some of the dancers eating their bratwurst and cofola.


After eating a very greasy meal, the dancers had to go to a workshop where they learned some slovakian dances and then taught some American dances.


This is a few of the leaders bored to tears in the hall while the dancers were in the workshop for 2 1/2 hours. Boring.


This morning we got up and went to church at the local branch. They only have about 150 total active members in all of Slovakia so our congregation was quite small. Only 15 or so people. We quadrupled their sacrament meeting and they didn't have room to get us all in. They rent a portion of a building and have a small chapel about the size of our relief society rooms. Then they have two smaller rooms for relief society and primary and then the branch president's office. About half the members there today were Americans here studying or working and a few of the Slovakians spoke English. Plus there were probably 8 missionaries there who played the piano and blessed the sacrament. We had fast and testimony meeting and they didn't translate the slovakian into English unless you had a headset and we did not. One lady who got up was quite an elderly lady and they told us her story later on the bus. Her parents were baptized so she grew up in the church which is unusual for this area. She was baptized when she was 8 and the day after she got baptized in 1939 the Germans occupied Slovakia. She literally got baptized on the last possible day. There were no more baptisms allowed after that. She said that at the time the Germans came in there were 500-600 members here. Some left to go west to Germany or other places. The older ones died off. During the occupation, the church membership dwindled to almost nothing. During the occupation they had to meet secretly in peoples homes and they had the secret police watching them at all times. They are just starting to see growth in the church here after 50 years of Soviet occupation. The branch president is Slovakian and his wife taught our Relief Society lesson today. They actually did the lesson in English because there were only 5 sisters that were not part of our group and 3 of them spoke English. So they translated into Slovakian for the other two. It's amazing to me that there are only 150 members here and yet they have a hymnal and the Book of Mormon translated into Slovakian. I laugh back in my Provo ward when the sisters talk about living out in the mission field (anything outside of Utah being the mission field) But this is truly the mission field. These people are pioneers in the gospel. The small number of people must do everything in their little branch. It makes me feel guilty that I walk to church and can walk to see all my Visiting Teachees. And that I complain that sometimes I must do too much for my church callings. It was a humbling experience to attend church with the people in Bratislava.

After church we got to go to the old part of Bratislava and walk around. It is a quaint little old town that doesn't have too much tourist traffic yet.


This is a picture of their large cathedral there. I think it is call St. Matthias. That's Mark at the bottom. Inside they had a poster showing some of the bodies they've recovered out of the catacombs. A little gruesome but interesting.


Mark standing in front of a tower.


Another quaint street shot. We really have gotten way too many pictures of buildings here. There are so many old buildings that you would never see anywhere in America.
Tonight we had a fireside for the members and investigators. And that's been our stay in Bratislava. Tomorrow we travel to the Czech Republic and I can't wait to see Prague.

Budapest, Hungary

So this is the start of documenting our tour to Central Europe with the Folk Dancers. We arrived in Budapest on Tuesday afternoon and immediately went to a reception with the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary. On Wednesday we did a little walking tour up a hill to the Fisherman's Bastion. We then went across the river to the shopping district and did a little shopping. We then had a show that night combined with the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble. They are a professional dance group here in Budapest. Today we had entirely free to sight see. We started out going to the House of Terror which is a museum that honors the people who died under the Nazi and Soviet Regimes. It was very sobering to see the horror they had to endure. From there we went to Heroes Square. Today is a national holiday here, similar to our Labor Day and everybody has it off. They were having a big festival in the square and it was surprisingly similar to American festivals complete with cotton candy, face painting, balloons and food. There was probably hundreds of thousands of people there. We then went back up the hill to where the Fisherman's Bastion is and continued sightseeing. Tonight we are going to a show performed by the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble. We leave for Bratislava tomorrow. Here are a few pictures so far from our trip.


This is the view from our hotel room. We are right on the Danube river and our view is gorgeous. We are staying on the Buda side of the river. The other side is the Pest side. Who knew that Budapest had two sides? This is the Chain Bridge, one of many that connects the two sides.


Another view from our room. This is the Parliament Building.


Mark standing by a statue at the Fisherman's Bastion. There used to be a castle on the top of this hill but it is gone and they have built on top of it. There is still a wall that goes around though.


The view from the Fisherman's Bastion.


Me and the view from the Fisherman's Bastion.


Also on the hill is a palace and this is just outside the palace looking over the wall.


Mark and Jonathon, our tour manager, going across the chain bridge.


Some of the dancers and me at Hero's square. There is a large monument there as well as some museums and a large park.


More of us at Hero's square.


There is an old castle looking building at Hero's square. We couldn't find any info on it but it is now a museum of some sort.


This is the palace up by Fisherman's Bastion. It is also a museum now. There are a lot of museums here.



That is all for now. I will try and update later this week. We are in Bratislava until Monday but we do have a day trip to Vienna on Saturday so I should have some cool pictures.