euroSlurve

It’s been interesting hearing different perspectives on World War II as we travel through Europe. In England, they spoke of the Blitz. In Denmark, it was all about occupation and resistance. In Austria, they talked about being forced to play along with the Nazis. In Germany it was shame, embarrassment and rebuilding.

The Polish people I’ve met have some of the most intense stories. One of them, Marek (a church planter in Gryfow) talked about how his father was sent to Siberia to work in a labor camp. Another guy talked about how his family fled to Yugoslavia and couldn’t return home until the late 1940s. The area we just came from (Gryfow) is in the southwest corner of Poland. Between WWI and WWII it was actually annexed to Germany. The Germans expanded their territory and most Poles fled. They didn’t return until the war ended. Then the borders were redrawn and it became Poland again. Crazy stuff.

We heard of ton of these stories yesterday at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp here in Poland. The tour was pretty intense and it’s still hard to comprehend the stuff we saw.

OK, enough history lessons. Let’s lighten it up a bit. We arrived in Krakow last night after a long, five hour journey from Gryfow. We packed eight people in a small van and journeyed across this fair land. At one point (at Auschwitz) it actually started snowing. Just a few flurries, but it was real snow. Anyway, we had dinner (pierogis and beer) at a cafe in Krakow last night with about 10 other Americans who were here for the conference in Gryfow. We stood out a little, but it was a good time.

The old town square here in Krakow is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in Europe. It was untouched during the war and is absolutely beautiful. We’re going to explore a bit more in a couple hours so I’ll post some photos on Flickr. I’m now using Jamie’s MacBook since it appears that my hard drive has failed. I’m really, really, really, really, really hoping that isn’t the case (since all of my photos are on that hard drive) and that I can fix it when I get home. Scott, Josh and I have already laid hands on it. So hopefully it’ll be ok.

We’ll be spending the day in Krakow today and then Jamie and I will board on overnight train to Prague.  So we’ll talk to you later from the Czech Republic.

We’ve had some pretty good times over the past month, but I have to say, an easy highlight of the trip was walking through a suburban Polish supermarket with Scott Pursley (our pastor), a guy from Cleveland and a couple from Brazil. The Brazilians didn’t speak English and none of us spoke Polish. And Scott was there with a funny hat on. It was awesome. We stood out, but oddly, nobody stared at us.

We had just come from a church youth group meeting, where Josh, Jamie, Scott and I spoke to a group of about 30 kids. We each shared a bit about what God has been doing in our lives. It was translated into Polish for the kids, even though a handful of them spoke broken English. They smiled and nodded at us, so hopefully there wasn’t much lost in translation.

OK, we need to go eat some breakfast and then go to a Polish church meeting. More later.

I knew it was going to be a good day when I heard “The Final Countdown” by Europe playing in the cabin next door to us on the train from Vienna. I kid you not. Someone was actually listening to that song for pleasure. In 2007. I love this continent. I wanted to stick around to hear if they played Wham or REO Speedwagon, but the train was pulling into the Dresden Hbf and it was time to move on.

Today was a great day. Well, it started out great and ended great. The stuff in the middle was interesting and a bit trying. Traveling into Poland without a car is apparently more challenging that we originally thought. We took a comfortable overnight train to Germany late last night (Thursday) after eating dinner with Anette in Vienna. (She was staying another day in Austria and then flying back home to Denmark on Friday.) We pulled into Dresden, Germany at 6:30 am, ate a quick breakfast and took a quick look around the city. Dresden was firebombed by US and British planes during WWII and then built up by the Soviets in the 1950s and 60s. Many buildings from the Soviet era have since been demolished and rebuilt in the old German, classic style. It’s quite a beautiful city. We walked past Frauenkirche, a church that was demolished during the war and rebuilt again on the 1990s (mostly with money from the US and UK). It was apparently a beautiful city before the war and is still being developed. It would be interesting to see Dresden in 20 years.

OK, back to our trip to Poland. We (Jamie, Josh and I) received faulty intelligence from the Germans and ended up traveling on a handful of Soviet era trains and buses through small Polish towns that probably don’t see a lot of tourists. The Polish people were extremely helpful and pleasant. Their English was really choppy, but hey, their English was much better than my Polish. So they win. But yeah, there was a lot of gesturing and pointing and panicking at times. Especially as we waited for a bus at a rustic station in a small border town called Zgorzelec. We were (sort of) relieved when a 30-year-old bus rolled up and the driver nodded when I tried to pronounce the name of our destination. After winding through country roads for about 30 minutes, the bus (which was packed with Poles — people were sitting on the steps at the front of the bus) pulled up to yet another rustic train station, where we boarded a train bound for Gryfow. This was our third train of the day.

The next challenge was getting off at the right station, since the Polish version of a “station” is a bit different from ours. Often the train would stop in the middle of a field in front of small brick shelters that were, well, rustic. (I know, I’m being nice here.) By the grace of God, we got off at Gryfow and found Scott Pursley (our pastor) waiting on the side of the tracks with Eddy, a fellow from the local church. I can’t tell you the relief I felt. I contemplated jumping into Scott’s arms but that probably would have been awkward.

Anyway, we’re here in Gryfow at an amazing ministry center that has a couple dozen rooms. There are rolling hills and horses and Polish people all over the place. It’s great. This country really is beautiful and the people are amazing. I’ll have to check in again tomorrow and talk more about the conference, but now it’s time for bed. Laters.