The month of September will be remembered as the "month of travel".
I departed the day after Labor Day for Warsaw, Poland for 10 days of work and play. We spent two days working with our customer doing some preparatory work and planning for our mission.
We then spent the weekend in the Krakow area visiting two very different places. First on our list was Auschwitz.
I can say that visiting Auschwitz was definitely skin crawling. I'd never been to a concentration/death camp before. It was eerie walking around the original camp, which was very small. Birkenau, however, was much, much larger, and to me, much more emotional. There were places I had to turn my head away, or sometimes leave the room. It made me wonder how cruel humans can really be to each other. Thinking about the millions of people that passed through the gates of both camps that had no idea what was going to happen to them was hard to think about. I kept thinking to myself, "Never again" as we walked around. Both sites are definitely a must visit if you go to Krakow.
After a relaxing evening at the Pink Panther hostel (highly recommended if you are into that kind of thing) we headed to the Wieliczka Salt mine. It's a semi-retired salt mine on the east side of Krakow. It was definitely worth the visit. We walked through 2 kilometers of tunnels, which was only about 1% of the known tunnels. It was quite interesting to see how they mined, but also how the preserved the mine after they were finished with some of the rooms. The most impressive part, however, was the working church about 300 feet below the surface. Every Sunday they have mass, which people can attend. Pope John Paul II led mass there once. What impressed me the most were the carvings on the walls done by miners of biblical scenes, mostly by hand. It's amazing how talented some people are and what they can do with a simple surface and a few hand tools.
We spent the rest of our week in Warsaw, working, and visiting a few sites locally. We had a tour of the Royal Palace, which was really interesting. Unfortunately most of the artifacts were destroyed in World War II, but a few workers rescued some of the more important ones. The restoration, however, is quite impressive. The Warsaw Uprising museum was somewhat of a letdown to me, though. The exhibits mostly showed what let up to the Uprising, but not so much about the actual uprising. I'm sure a lot of information, records, etc were lost during the war, but the museum just didn't seem to be designed well. It left a lot to be desired, IMO.
The food was nothing short of amazing. I don't think we had a bad meal the entire trip. I had my share of pierogis, cabbage, and beets. Potato pancakes and goulash were also very popular. Apples were the big food though. Russia issued an embargo of Polish produce, and Poland exports most of their apple crop to Russia. So there were social media campaigns asking the Polish population to eat more apples, drink apple cider and juice, etc. So we had a lot of apples during our journey.
We did work while we were there, however. We ran into some unexpected issues while there, so we had to work some long hours and scratch a few heads to get things to work. But we worked through it, completed our mission successfully, and returned home.
My time at home was short lived, however.
8 days after arriving home, I was on a plane back to Europe, although this time to Italy. I spent 3 days in a town south of Rome. We completed our work a few hours early, so we snuck up to Rome for a quick drive by of the important sites. We did a quick walking tour to the Vatican, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, and the Colosseum. I would've liked to go inside the Vatican and Colosseum again, but it was getting late in the day, and we wanted to be sure we got home at a reasonable hour. I did get to enjoy some absolutely amazing Italian food while there, however. I haven't found an Italian restaurant that met some of the places that we visited while in Italy.
Three of the four weeks in September were spent on the road. While I love to travel and see new places, it is definitely nice to come home and sleep in your own bed, not eat every meal in a restaurant, and speak the same language as a majority of people around you! I highly recommend visiting both Poland and Italy, however. Both places have lots of hidden treasures that are just waiting to be unearthed.
I departed the day after Labor Day for Warsaw, Poland for 10 days of work and play. We spent two days working with our customer doing some preparatory work and planning for our mission.
We then spent the weekend in the Krakow area visiting two very different places. First on our list was Auschwitz.
I can say that visiting Auschwitz was definitely skin crawling. I'd never been to a concentration/death camp before. It was eerie walking around the original camp, which was very small. Birkenau, however, was much, much larger, and to me, much more emotional. There were places I had to turn my head away, or sometimes leave the room. It made me wonder how cruel humans can really be to each other. Thinking about the millions of people that passed through the gates of both camps that had no idea what was going to happen to them was hard to think about. I kept thinking to myself, "Never again" as we walked around. Both sites are definitely a must visit if you go to Krakow.
After a relaxing evening at the Pink Panther hostel (highly recommended if you are into that kind of thing) we headed to the Wieliczka Salt mine. It's a semi-retired salt mine on the east side of Krakow. It was definitely worth the visit. We walked through 2 kilometers of tunnels, which was only about 1% of the known tunnels. It was quite interesting to see how they mined, but also how the preserved the mine after they were finished with some of the rooms. The most impressive part, however, was the working church about 300 feet below the surface. Every Sunday they have mass, which people can attend. Pope John Paul II led mass there once. What impressed me the most were the carvings on the walls done by miners of biblical scenes, mostly by hand. It's amazing how talented some people are and what they can do with a simple surface and a few hand tools.
We spent the rest of our week in Warsaw, working, and visiting a few sites locally. We had a tour of the Royal Palace, which was really interesting. Unfortunately most of the artifacts were destroyed in World War II, but a few workers rescued some of the more important ones. The restoration, however, is quite impressive. The Warsaw Uprising museum was somewhat of a letdown to me, though. The exhibits mostly showed what let up to the Uprising, but not so much about the actual uprising. I'm sure a lot of information, records, etc were lost during the war, but the museum just didn't seem to be designed well. It left a lot to be desired, IMO.
The food was nothing short of amazing. I don't think we had a bad meal the entire trip. I had my share of pierogis, cabbage, and beets. Potato pancakes and goulash were also very popular. Apples were the big food though. Russia issued an embargo of Polish produce, and Poland exports most of their apple crop to Russia. So there were social media campaigns asking the Polish population to eat more apples, drink apple cider and juice, etc. So we had a lot of apples during our journey.
We did work while we were there, however. We ran into some unexpected issues while there, so we had to work some long hours and scratch a few heads to get things to work. But we worked through it, completed our mission successfully, and returned home.
My time at home was short lived, however.
8 days after arriving home, I was on a plane back to Europe, although this time to Italy. I spent 3 days in a town south of Rome. We completed our work a few hours early, so we snuck up to Rome for a quick drive by of the important sites. We did a quick walking tour to the Vatican, Pantheon, Spanish Steps, and the Colosseum. I would've liked to go inside the Vatican and Colosseum again, but it was getting late in the day, and we wanted to be sure we got home at a reasonable hour. I did get to enjoy some absolutely amazing Italian food while there, however. I haven't found an Italian restaurant that met some of the places that we visited while in Italy.
Three of the four weeks in September were spent on the road. While I love to travel and see new places, it is definitely nice to come home and sleep in your own bed, not eat every meal in a restaurant, and speak the same language as a majority of people around you! I highly recommend visiting both Poland and Italy, however. Both places have lots of hidden treasures that are just waiting to be unearthed.
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