Monthly Archives: November 2015

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It’s Off to Working in the Salt Mines

20 Friday Nov 2015

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The best thing about a TBT (Throw Back Thursday) post is that I am writing this in Poland and most of my readers are in the USA…which is 6 hours behind in time…so I have extra time to get my thoughts together.

Last week I recounted our adventures driving to Krakow.  One of the biggest tourist attractions is the Wieliczka Salt Mine, which is visited by more than a million tourists each year!  The mine was built in the 13th century and produced table salt continually until 2007 and is one of the oldest working mines in the world.

The first part of the tour (once you’ve gotten your tickets and stood in the “English” tour line) is to descend into the mine….by stairs….wooden stairs….wooden stairs that wind down a shaft….260 stairs to be exact.  (It was a physical therapy workout!).  Once you were down those steps….you entered into a mine full of passageways and tunnels that lead you deeper down into the mine (and yes, there are more stairs…178 more!).  The tour is a 1.9 mile journey….but you only see 2% of the mine!  So you can imagine how HUGE this mine is. Continue reading →

The Dom Cathedral

09 Monday Nov 2015

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Part of my bucket list while we are in Poland (and other parts of Europe) is to see as many churches and cathedrals as I can.  They are so beautiful – and each one is different and they are a real testament to the faith of the people who lived here centuries ago.  When we saw this building on our wandering jaunt to get to the Berlin Tower it seemed like the perfect place to visit.  (Ok, really, we just wanted to see if we could get up to the walkway as the views would be amazing.)  We didn’t realize it was a Cathedral until we got around to the front and read the sign.  Completed in 1905, it’s the largest Protestant Church in Berlin and was patterned after St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  Although technically, it’s not a Cathedral as it’s not the seat for the Bishop (which is what designates a church as a cathedral).  As with most other buildings in Berlin, it too was heavily damaged during World War II, and was closed and not reopened until restoration work was completed in 1993.IMG_5688 Continue reading →

TBT – The Drive to Krakow

05 Thursday Nov 2015

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It’s TBT!  (Throw Back Thursday) Well, I’m not throwing back very far…only to the week-end of August 14-16.  David and I went to Krakow that week-end…our first week-end trip.  There’s soooo much to see and do there that we drove instead of taking the train so we could have a little extra time for sight-seeing.  But it didn’t really work out quite that way.  What our Google Maps and Waze apps said was a 5 1/2 hour drive actually took 9 hours!  First the oil light came on and we had to stop and put oil in the car.  David,  being a good former Boy Scout, was prepared and had a bottle of oil in the car.  But he didn’t count on forgetting that his cell phone was in his lap when he got out of the car.  It fell onto the cobblestone pavement and shattered the screen.  A few choice words that I have never heard David say before in the 37 years we have been married just might have slipped out.  But it was still working! (yeah!).

So now we’re driving along admiring the countryside (and the weird things on the side of the road, like this tank)…IMG_4527 when a strange noise starts coming from the car when we hit little bumps in the road.  Continue reading →

Taking Care of Business

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

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It’s not all fun and games when you live (or are trying to live) overseas.  Sometimes you have to take care of business….visa business to be exact.  I briefly mentioned I had a visa problem in an earlier post and it took a trip to Berlin (well, actually two trips) to get everything straight.

If you have a passport, you can pretty much travel the world, but if you want to actually LIVE somewhere, your passport can only get you so much time….90 days to be exact if you are in Poland (or one of the other Schengen countries).  When David came in January, he applied (in February) and received a temporary resident card (in June).  He’s working here, so he’s allowed to stay the length of his job contract.  My situation was different because I didn’t come to stay until the end of June and then several things complicated matters.  Continue reading →

A Walk in the Park

03 Tuesday Nov 2015

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Today was a very gray and dreary day in Bydgoszcz….it was foggy all day (the perfect day to stay in a do all the laundry that has piled up)….and also the perfect day to regress and go back to the sunny days in August…when I started writing this post about a park that had just re-opened.  So grab a cup of tea if it’s cold where you are and read on….

There are parks of all sizes scattered throughout Bydgoszcz.  It’s not uncommon to go for a walk and pass through a park with people sitting on benches enjoying the day, eating lunch, strolling with babies…just relaxing.  One of the parks had been undergoing a renovation and  re-opened the last week of August, so David and I decided to take an evening stroll to check it out.IMG_5076The park is called the Jan Kochanowski Park and is located in the “Music District” of Bydgoszcz.   Continue reading →