Relaxing Adventures

After working 60 hour weeks especially during the second semester, I wanted to relax a bit. Torun is perfect for that.

I'm staying at the Petite Fleur Hotel. Actually my room is in an apartment building about one block up the street, and of course on the top floor. It overlooks an interior courtyard full of pigeons. I didn't know that pigeons made so much noise. That must be why my grandparents had the pigeon coop a bit away from the house!!!

The food for breakfast is gourmet. That outweights the inconvenience of the pigeon serandade!

My first evening I basically only went to a sidewalk cafe for an evening meal. I was puzzled by the English translation: sun kotlet -- in other words, sun pork cutlet. I ordered it just to see what it was. It took nearly 40 minutes for the meal to reach my table. I don't think it took that long to cook, just an indication of the pace of life here. It turned out to be a pork cutlet encased in a nalepeski. I realized the next morning when I looked at the breakfast menu that the Polish word for sweet had been translated into the English word, sun, on the menu. Anyway it was very good.

Yesterday I mostly wandered about looking at buildings and visiting churches. The churches I first visited surprised me. They didn't look like Polish churches-- much too plain. Late in the afternoon I visited St. John's Cathedral and at last believed again I was in Poland. This church is amazing. It is parts from the 13th century and is an incredible mix of styles from across the ages. As one faces the amin altar, the stain glass windows on the right side are very subdued in color. I don't think this is because they are dirty, rather a difference in either the style of the time or the available materials. On the left hand side, the windows glow with bright colores. To give another example of the mixture, there is a side altar done with African figures, almost sterotyped African figures. It is obviously more than than 100 years old. Behind it, and almost covered up, is a bright new stain glass window honoring Pope John Paul II.

Yesterday I achieved one other goal. I went shoe shopping. I discoverd in Zakopane that I have Polish feet! At home if I go into a store such as Famous Footwear, I'm lucky to find one pair of shoes that fit. When I go into a comparable store here, everything fits! My greatgrandmother may have considered herself ethinically German, but she certainly gave me genes for Polish feet!

This morning I wandered to the New Town, named New Town in something like the 13th century. The buildings there make me think of L'Viv, complete with a Pod Lwem Apetka. Found a church there that looks like a Polish church, ironically one that spent about 200 years being a Protestant Church.

I went back to the area of my hotel, love how easy it is to get there, stopped at a piekarnia and bought an orange and did some gingerbread shopping. Then I went to the Copernicus museum for the light and sound show. My final goals for the day are to go to a planetarium show and then eat an evening meal in the restaurant of my hotel. The food is supposed to me a fusion of Polish and French food. Since breakfast is so good, I'm truly anticipating an evening meal.

Tomorrow I'll have a slow morning and then take an afternoon train back to Warsaw. On Saturday morning I'll be the Warsaw airport meeting the new volunteers coming in -- helping out Dorota while she traveling from Zakopane to Warsaw. Then we will head out to Reymontowka, near Siedlce, for two weeks. One thing I'm looking forward to is the washng machine. I'm getting tired of hand laundry!