Katie and Tommy: Around the World

Likely the single best part of the last two weeks has been getting to spend so much time with my family. We joke how long it takes us to get through meals, especially at my grandmothers, because in addition to the enormous heapings of food and seemingly endless number of courses, we end up always spending well over an hour just talking!

On Wednesday, I got to experience just a bit more of this as I traveled to Tarnow, my mother’s hometown, so that I could spend a few hours visiting with my uncle. Katie decided she’d spend the day birding. We were thrilled to discover upon awaking that the temperatures had dropped just enough to turn the morning’s precipitation into snow. During my ride over, I was also a bit surprised at how relatively expensive (16zl) the ticket was to Tarnow, so when no conductor even came around to check it, I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of…disappointment.

Though it has been almost four years since I was last there, I was able to retrace my steps and find the apartment without any trouble. I was hoping to meet with my uncle to, amongst many things, interview him about the history of our family and obtain some details regarding the patent of nobility bestowed upon my French great-great-great grandfather at Lviv (now Ukraine, then Polish) by Napoleon during his siege on Moscow. When my grandfather had to escape Lviv from the oncoming Red Army, he left all of the pertinent documents relating to his great grandfather’s knighthood in the attic. As he learned several months later when he returned, the documents were destroyed by the soldiers in accordance with the Marxist belief that anything which resulted in class difference was unhealthy for society. (My grandfather was amused, however, to see numerous dug-up holes in the yard that the Soviets had left when they were looking for the family’s material values. My grandfather had the insight, however, to not only bury them vertically, but horizontally as well. So, drop as many holes as they wanted, they never did find the gold that he hid because it was left under the house’s foundation.)

After I had sufficiently dried my poor uncle’s throat and taken enough pictures of relevant ancestral portraits we went to the cathedral for daily mass and afterwards got a small lunch. My uncle pointed out to me how so many banks comprised the total number of shops on Tarnow’s main street. Truly, it seemed as though every third store was in fact a bank. He told me that these banks had a reputation for being predatory loaners, posting a profit after having smugly convinced someone (often elderly) to agree to a high-interest loan. Once we had parted and I had boarded my return train I felt as though I simply closed my eyes and when I opened them again, I was pulling into the Krakow train station.

Katie and I had a rather large lunch with grandma and just spent the afternoon hanging out in the apartment before going to Margaret and Peter’s to visit and go for some Chinese food (we didn’t eat much!). It is worth mentioning that Gosia and Peter are quite experienced mountaineers. They have climbed Mt. Blanc and Mt. Elbrus and have plans to climb Lenin’s Peak in Tajikstan in the near future. They had wanted to take us on a day of hiking in the Tatras. When I told them that I had never been to Morskie Oko (The Eye of the Sea), we decided to spend Thursday hiking there in the National Park. I must say, in many ways the scenery was more spectacular than that of Switzerland’s. Since it is a national park, it is protected from the encroachments of civilization. I will let the pictures do most of the talking. Since we arrived late that night and since we had a few things to take care on the internet, Gosia let us sleep the night off in their living room.

During breakfast we watched slideshows of some of their most recent climbs, as well as their wedding. We arrived back at my grandma’s for lunch and afterwards, went out for some coffee at the nearby mall to celebrate my birthday. At one point, she asked me what time it was and I explained to her that I lost my watch in Switzerland. She promptly replied that she had a present she’d be willing to give me if I accepted– my grandfather’s old watch. Though the leather strap should probably be replaced to avoid another loss, it is exciting to be wearing it, even though it is barely even humidity proof and must be wound up every 24 hours.

In addition to getting me a haircut, the night time was also spent out on a final walk around the Rynek as well as stops to two of our most cherished Krakowian establishments– the E. Wedel drinking chocolate cafe and the “kielbasa van,” a small streetside establishment consisting of two men grilling kielbasa for 7zl, near the flea market.

Saturday morning was spent on a rather poor tour of Collegium Maius (“Please, let’s walk quickly through this gallery filled with fascinating, antique scientific instruments and let me instead leave you in this dull room for 15 minutes as I bore with you with trivial details regarding the University’s faculty senate meetings.”). More of the day was spent at my Aunt and Uncle’s apartment as we chatted and ate cake. We had noticed that a number of flower stands had appeared the previous day but we were unsure of their significance, other than they all seemed to be selling tulips. At this small party we learned as Peter brought enough tulips for all the females, as March 8th is traditionally known as “Women’s day.” Katie brought the tulip back and gave it to my grandmother who accepted it, laughing and asking us if we had bought it or acquired it from someone. Once we had explained the circumstances she laughed once more saying that it was a holiday made up by the Communists and she was glad we hadn’t supported it by spending any money! After we said our good bye’s, we walked down the four flights of stairs one final time and caught a taxi to the train station where we boarded our night train to Budapest.

I was sad to be leaving. It was wonderful getting to spend time with Margaret, Adam, and all of my other family members. It was about time we got back into our traveling routine though, so in some ways, we were ready to move on and see the rest of the world!

Pictures added to Krakow album

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 12:25 am and is filed under Poland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.