The Poland Journal

Kasprowy Wierch (Kasprowy Peak) - Tatras National Park, Zakopane, Poland

Last week, I wrote a post about the day in Guatemala that started with a bus ride and ended with a colon resection.  Thinking about that made me think of other travel adventures, including a very crazy bus ride in the mountains of Poland.  Five years ago, we took our children on a trip to Poland to visit my husband's parents.  The kids were eleven, nine and six years old at the time.  I knew we'd take a lot of photos, and we did.  But I also wanted to document our trip in a more immediate and in-depth way.  I committed to writing in a journal every day of our trip.  At the end of the day, I was tired.  This wasn't a relaxing trip to the beach or lake cottage, but rather a meaningful visit to my husband's parents and my children's grandparents in their home country.  Traveling abroad with three young children, living out of two suitcases for two weeks in my in-laws' apartment - that was already going to be a bit of work.  Why not keep a journal, too!?

Five years later, we really enjoy looking at our photos and reading the journal.  The journal gives an account of our day-to-day travels and activities, but it also includes so many little details about the kids and their experience of the trip.  Stapled into the journal are bus and train tickets, brochures, postcards and other little bits and pieces that we collected.  The writing isn't particularly careful or eloquent.  The idea was just to get down some notes about our days.  Some pages are just lists of what we did on a particular day.  But there are funny little quotes.  Upon boarding the airplane in Chicago: "Of course J. had to explore his environment by trying every button and checking out all of the items in the seat pocket."  I doubt I'd remember the various sleeping positions the children attempted on the plane, including one of the kids who sat on the floor and slept with his head on the seat.  Or that A. listened to Jim Weiss' "Good Night" on my iPod to help her fall asleep.  Or that she grabbed my hand for reassurance when we landed in Krakow.

On the plane to Krakow, two days before her sixth birthday.

We celebrated A.'s sixth birthday the day we arrived, and she was serenaded with both "Happy Birthday" and "Sto Lat."  In the journal, I wrote about our struggles with jet lag.  That it took a few days to adjust and that Anna read me a Henry and Mudge book as sat awake in bed.  I wrote about the little park nearby that we enjoyed visiting because it had a great playground with lots of fun things to do AND a lovely pond inhabited by a graceful white swan.  About how much our kids enjoyed taking the bus to the community pool.  How they had to wear swim caps, and that the lifeguard kept yelling at J. in Polish when he tried to take it off.  That my husband and sons looked out of place with their knee-length swim shorts, while most of the local men and boys wore Speedo-style briefs or short shorts.  It would be hard to forget our visit to the mountain village of Zakopane.  Such a beautiful place.  But I might not recall how excited the kids' were about the hotel bathroom's heated floor and towel rack.  Not to mention - the pool!  Traveling with young children gives you a different perspective of the environment you're visiting.  You still do the traditional tourist stuff, but you also know where to find the parks, playgrounds and pools.  Souvenirs are of special interest, too. 

When traveling with young children, you may spend some time at the hotel pool.

In Zakopane, I wrote:  "...J. and M. almost immediately started identifying various wooden souvenirs (mostly axes, swords, maces, etc. - see a theme?) that they wanted to buy."  In Zakopane, one of our children - who used to be a habitual wanderer - walked off without us noticing.  We could not see him anywhere!  He was fairly quickly located looking at some souvenir carts.  It was then forcefully explained that nine year olds do not wander off from their parents in an unknown place, particularly in a country where they do not speak the language!  Reading my journal, I also remember how much fun we had at a restaurant in the mountains.  There was live music, and A. and M. danced enthusiastically.   They loved the hotel pool that had a fish tank in the wall at one end, and they fought about sleeping arrangements when we had to fit five people in two beds.  Also, they learned that sometimes you have to pay for the toilets.  At a lodge on the mountains, I quote A. as saying:  "These are really nice bathrooms, but I don't get why you have to pay for them."  The memorable bus ride I mentioned at the beginning of this post was on our return trip from Zakopane to Krakow.  In the journal, I describe it as a "roller-coast-like, vomit-inducing bus ride" and mention "being packed like sardines on a small, stifling shuttle bus while holding a bag of puke for three hours."  We were traveling on a two-lane highway through mountainous or hilly terrain.  The driver was speeding and passing other cars in situations where there was no possibility that he could see around the curve.  The windows could not be opened, and I was holding a plastic bag of my child's puke and sitting behind the driver who reeked of cigarettes.  I was pretty desperate to get off the bus in the middle of nowhere, any farmer's field would do.  Thankfully the driver did stop once - to smoke, of course - and my husband quickly got off and disposed of the bags of vomit we'd been holding.  Without a doubt, that was the worst bus ride of my life.  We would never have boarded that bus if we knew! 

Besides Zakopane, we also made a trip to Krakow for a few days.  Our friend Celeste, who lived in Ireland at the time, joined us in there.  From Krakow, we took a trip to the salt mines of Wieliczka.  The tour guide said that if we didn't believe that statues were made of salt, that we could lick them.  I unwisely conveyed that joke to my children, who hadn't been paying attention.  One of our kids then proceeded to lick the walls repeatedly to make sure they were salt.  I tried to just not to think about the dirt.  He didn't get sick, thankfully.  The buying of souvenirs was also a very exciting event in Krakow.  There is the Sukiennice, a beautiful historic building which is now a souvenir market.  We also had some wonderful meals, took a horse and carriage ride around the town square and visited various historic sites, including Wawel castle.  The kids marveled at the street performers in Krakow at all times of day and night.  I wrote in the journal about how they danced in the street one night after dinner and wondered if they could make money as street performers themselves.

The journal also is full of random humorous moments captured in words.  About how I kept the kids busy in lines or on buses or trains by playing I-spy or reciting the names of all forty-four presidents.  (The president thing was a little project we had been working on in our homeschool at the time.)  About how they watched "Tom and Jerry" and "Scooby Doo" in Polish with as much attention and laughter as if it were in English.  At the end of our trip, the tone of my journal reflects our sadness at leaving my husband's parents and not knowing when we would get back to Poland again or see them here in the states.  There were also observations about packing us all back up into those two suitcases.  I wrote:  "There was the challenge of packing the long wooden sword and the bulky wooden mace.  But you can't find cheap wooden medieval weapons everywhere, so it's all worth it!"

When traveling with young children, you may also spend some time looking at souvenirs.

Back home, I finished up the journal by stapling in additional memorabilia and by writing a page of each family member's favorite places, foods, experiences and memories.  This trip was a treasure to us, and I'm so glad we have our photos and the journal to help us remember all those special moments and experiences.