On Our Way to Poland

Summer is here and it's time for another adventure. This weekend I'm leaving for an 18 day trip through Poland. The kids and I are going to be guests of a friend who grew up in the country when it was under communist rule, and claims that despite its storied past, it is "The Greatest Country in the World!"

Now mind you that this friend is a rather colorful character himself...We met when I visited  his monastery in New Mexico two years ago and then sent him a frequent flyer airline ticket so that he could come and see what "a real American family is like."  After the initial shock of hearing that our houseguest would be a monk and a Catholic priest, the kids warmed up to him as soon as he walked off the plane complaining that they had run out of beer in First Class.  Since then he has made several visits to our home sharing his love of chess "In five more moves, I will have you in Checkmate!!", his penchant for provocative political discussions at the dinner table of which our informed kids are only too happy to take the opposing side, and his abiding love of all things European.  

So we have decided to go and find out what the fuss is all about.  Together we'll see Poland's two great cities Warsaw and Krakow, stay on a family farm in the countryside, see the birth place of Pope John Paul II, visit a concentration camp, make a pilgrimage to some of the holiest sites in the country, meet the parents and see the boyhood home of our friend Fr. Symeon, tour an underground salt mine, visit castles, learn a little more history, eat and drink like the locals, walk along the Baltic coast, and finally return home with new friends and lots of stories about our amazing time in Central Europe.  

Won't you come along?!!