Jubilee Pilgrimage Part 2: Prague and Poland

On Saturday, May 27 we arrived in Prague in the Czech Republic.  When the Communists left Czechoslovakia (which peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993), Prague completely turned itself around and embraced capitalism, in an effort to join the Western world and draw people there.  Ten years later, it is clear that their efforts have succeeded--tourism is the city's number one industry, the city is very clean and picturesque, almost everyone speaks some English, and the American dollar goes a long way.  Upon arriving we received a tour of the Czech National Palace, which contained within it St. Vitus Cathedral, a clearly Gothic church where we sang for Mass and gave a concert afterward on Sunday morning.  Saturday night we attended an orchestra concert; the performance was fabulous and featured a virtuoso violinist but I was exhausted and found it quite difficult to stay awake.  A tour of Prague's nightlife followed; it was interesting to see the European dance clubs (also boats on the Voltava river blared European techno music) and stroll through the narrow streets, just trying to take it all in.  Most of our free time in Prague was spent doing just that: looking at the old structures, enjoying the majestic views, and searching for the perfect souvenirs.  Prague is well-known for its fabulous, reasonably-priced glassware.  All in all it was a nice change from the hectic pace we kept in Rome; I would've liked to have spent a couple more days in Prague.  Our hotel was quite nice but needed to cook its breakfast sausage a little more (I found this out the hard way).  Sunday night we toured a medieval torture museum--it was pretty cool, albeit a bit creepy.
  Monday was another day of traveling.  We hopped a bus early in the morning bound for Auschwitz, but got stuck at the Czech-Polish border for a few hours.  Why, you may ask?  Well, it was a troublesome Canadian as always.  We had a Canadian citizen travelling with us, and apparently Canadians need some kind of special visa to get into Poland.  Well, he claimed to have contacted the Canadian consulate in San Francisco, and they said that he wouldn't need anything.  Wrong.  Normally he would've had to go to Germany to get what he needed (quite a detour) but fortunately they let him do it at the border since we were such a big group; it still took us quite a while to get through there.  Unfortunately this majorly cut into the time we were able to spend at Auschwitz.  We were given a quick tour, including such sites as the "Arbeit macht frei" (work makes one free) gate, the dormitories for guards and such, and were even taken inside the gas chambers and crematoria--that was more than a little disturbing.  After Auschwitz we headed for Krakow, a city of 800,000 in southern Poland that was our first stop.  Poland has also turned itself around since the fall of Communism, although maybe not quite as much as Prague, as least from my viewpoint.  Krakow, the home diocese of John Paul II, had a nice tourist district, filled with neat shops and relatively inexpensive restaurants.  We sang at St. Mary's there and then on Wednesday moved on to Czestochowa (ches tah HO va), a town that contains a famous painting of Mary and the Christ child that is said to have miraculous powers.  We went to Mass in the church it is contained in and saw many crutches tacked to the wall of the church, apparently belonging to people who have been healed by it.  The Mass was by far the most crowded I have ever attended; standing room only and Poles kept pushing past us like there was a whole bunch of room up front that we just weren't moving to for some reason.  Add the fact that the service was in Polish and I didn't get very much out of it.  Shortly thereafter we had what I can honestly say was the worst meal of the whole trip, at a hotel in Czestochowa.  The main course looked to be a chicken breast at first inspection, and appeared tasty...until you cut it open and discovered that it was actually an egg sac contained hundreds of mushrooms (which I can sometimes tolerate but absolutely not in this appearance).  Only one person at my table at it, and he was a freak that I swear would eat anything (during the course of this meal he talked about how in the Phillipines they eat aborted duck fetuses).  After that lovely meal we had another long drive to Warsaw.
  It was a long drive through the city to the hotel where we were to meet our host families, and after that egg sac any sign of American fast food made our mouths water.  We stayed with members of the University of Warsaw's choir, and my roommate and I were originally supposed to stay with a girl who spoke no English, only Polish and German (given that German's my major I would have survived, but also would have had to constantly translate for my roommate, poor guy).  Some switching was made for reasons that I don't really understand and we ended up with a pretty nice guy who spoke English quite well.  He lived with his mom in a fairly nice flat; my roommate and I each got our own rooms.  His mom was a very sweet old lady who didn't speak English but fed us quite well.  I think we really rated compared to some of the other choristers.   An interesting note about my host is that he had hundreds upon hundreds of model airplane kits--not constructed, just the kits, factory sealed boxes.  Apparently he used to build them but quit, and yet kept buying the kits for some reason.  And his mom tolerates them filling his room, his sister's room (who doesn't live with them anymore), and parts of the foyer.  Anyway, on Thursday morning we were given a tour of the Polish National Palace, and then had some time to explore Warsaw on our own.  It was similar to Krakow--nice tourist district, definite turn-around since the destruction of WWII and the departure of the Communists.  Thursday night we performed at St. John's Cathedral as part of Warsaw's Sacred Music Festival, and finally here I was able to play my clarinet and sound well (trust me, I received quite a few compliments).  After the concert our host took us to a little party held with a few other hosts (at the German-speaking girl's apartment); that was an interesting experience.  Why?  Simple: Choir member vs. big Polish guy trading shots of vodka.  Me, I stayed sober (but of course) and just watched in amusement (and a bit of amazement when I saw our host down a shot himself).
  On Friday morning our host took us to a memorial for the composer Chopin (who is pretty much Poland's national hero).  Behind it was a nice garden with a pond that had both a palace and an Ancient Greek-style theater on it.  We had Mass at St. Anne's Cathedral in the early afternoon and spent a few more hours exploring the city, before departing for our joint concert with the university choir.  Their choir was quite fantastic, fully intimidating us but we managed to go up there and show them Americans can sing well too.  I also played my clarinet there.  After the concert we had a final reception, which was nice but I managed to sneak out early with a few hours and get back to our hotel so I could get a few hours of sleep before our early morning departure.
  Saturday, June 3.  What an interesting time we had getting back to the States (me in particular, get to that in a minute).  We were supposed to load the buses at 4 AM (9 PM Friday night for those of you back in America).  Unfortunately only one bus showed up, and the supporters quickly claimed it, leaving the choristers pretty much stranded.  So the bus driver agreed to run the supporters to the airport and then come back and get us.  Well, while we were sitting there waiting our director, whose heart is always in the right place but sometimes loses track of common sense, decided to go get us some rolls for breakfast.  So she and another lady in the choir jumped in a cab, searching for breakfast rolls at 4:30 AM in Warsaw.  Apparently they got to a grocery store, but the food section was not open yet (only the liquor section was, hmmm).  Finally they found a hot dog stand, and ordered 30 hot dogs for us (the perfect breakfast food...and Poles put everything on their hot dogs).  Meanwhile back at the hotel (I might prefer to say "back in reality") the bus showed back up but we were minus two people that needed to get on it.  We loaded our luggage, waited for a few minutes and then agreed that we had a plane to catch at 6:55 and couldn't wait any longer (it was around 5:15 now).  We departed from the hotel but only made it a few blocks before a guy in the back of the bus yelled "I see them!"  So we stopped, got our hot dogs, and continued on to the airport.  Because of this delay I had to run through Warsaw's airport after getting checked in, not a very pleasant experience (think of the scene in Home Alone, only in Poland).  It was only to get worse.
  After switching planes in Amsterdam we boarded our trans-Atlantic flight, bound for Minneapolis.  I had bought some Swiss chocolate in Amsterdam (could not find good Dutch chocolate in the few minutes I had to look) and spent the latter part of the flight wondering if I had to declare that as food or not when going through customs (the irony of this will become evident in a minute).  Upon arriving in Minneapolis (8 hours flight time but we got there about an hour and a half after we left, around 12:30 CST), I walked right up to a Customs officer and asked him if I needed to count the chocolate as food; he said no.  Well, I was waiting to get my luggage to go through customs when the drug dog started to take a liking to me.  I didn't think anything of it really the first time he sniffed me, and the second time he did it I didn't really have time to think before I was being hauled off to be searched for drugs.  Fortunately my director saw this and followed; at this point I was terrified and was grateful to have her along, although she was not allowed to get close to me, suspected drug smuggler that I was.  They tried to calm me down, with little success, and searched my book bag while worst-case scenarios of someone planting drugs in my luggage flashed through my head.  Eventually I think they realized that if I were a professional smuggler I might have a little more poise; I was allowed to go after a brief look into one of my two suitcases.  The only explanation they offered as to what triggered the dog was that marijuana is legal in some forms in the Netherlands and during my brief stop in Amsterdam I could have been in some kind of contact with someone that had used it recently.  Needless to say I got out of there and didn't look back; I hate U.S. customs now, by the way.
  Our flight to Kansas City from Minneapolis was delayed about 2 hours, so I had plenty of time to get over my ordeal, and now can easily laugh about it while relating it.  Also high on my list was some fast food; Burger King never sounded so good in my life.  Our flight finally left sometime after 5, getting into KCI at 6:30.  I met my parents there and left as quickly as possible; I had thorougly enjoyed Europe but was ready to go home.
  That just about gets me through all of it.  If you have any questions or comments I'd love to hear them, just email me.

Back to Part 1 of the trip.

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