Author: donhall930

Remember, Only You can Prevent Freedom! (or Forest Fires!)

(Or something like that. Story in a few minutes.)

This entire area has gone through so many political boundary and ideology changes in the last few hundred years that it makes them a card-carrying member of Borders-R-Us. Through it all, Lithuania has tried, with very limited success, to declare its independence from whomever has the yoke around their necks at the time.

Usually, it’s the Russians.

1831 was no different, except that now it also involved the defunct Prussian entity. Men went to war, families stayed home, and men did not return thus.

A small ancient ‘fort’ located on a hill in Lithuania became a memorial of sorts as families who could not locate bodies of their perished rebels, started putting up symbolic crosses at the site of the former hill fort. Over the generations, the place has come to signify the peaceful endurance of Lithuanian people despite the threats they faced throughout history. Loved ones continued bringing crosses to the Hill in memorial.

           The practice grew, the people embraced their idea of a place to erect a cross in memory of someone or in hope of something,,,, the Hill grew too.

All is well and good in The Hill of Crosses country until the Revolution, the big one, the one where the Czars were made candidates for the Hill themselves, the one where Lenin and the Bolsheviks rose to power, and it was the year that Communism became synonymous with Russia…… 1917.

                                Communism and organized religion don’t get along.

                                Fast-forward to the Soviet occupation starting in 1941 which ended the Lithuanian’s brief dally with Independence that it claimed when that 1917 event shook things up for a bit.

Oppressed Catholic Lithuanians and communists don’t get along either.

                                The Hill of Crosses becomes a symbol to both, and to both, was as important as it could be. Three times the Authorities (including the KGB) try and remove it. They used bulldozers, troops, and even thought of flooding the land…. nothing worked. Every night the Faithful would risk punishment severe in order to fulfill what they now considered a Sacred Duty……. Keep the Crosses coming.

                     You all know what happens….. I don’t have to tell you who won, the fact that we went there is proof enough. Pope John Paul II went there in 1993, said that it was “a place for hope, peace, love, and sacrifice.”  If a visit from a Pope and an affirming statement doesn’t solidify your place in the world, I don’t know what does!

                     The Hill has grown into The ‘Field’ as they have now worked their way down the sides and into the fields on either side. There are numerous trails that meander through the plantings making it easier for someone either to visit an old one, or find the perfect place for a new one.

                     The parking lot is across the street; a long walk needs to be accomplished before you may step onto the Hill. Happily, no one has started charging admission although there is the obligatory “Book Shop” (aka souvenir stand.)

That was the second stop of the day.

Yesterday we traveled from Klaipeda in Lithuania to Riga, Latvia. It took all day mainly because we made it so, stopping there at The Hill of Crosses and an old Cold War site.

 Our first stop was at a disassembled ICBM missile site straight out of that Cold War Era. In fact, that was its name….. The Cold War Era Museum and Missile Silo (roughly translated!) Inside we saw what was ‘what’, and where that ‘what’ was located, and how and why the ‘whats’ were there,,,,oh, and plus how many ‘what’s’ there were.

                                Confused?

           Well, all of this was a ‘re-creation’ as nothing was left after the fall of the U.S.S.R. Military posts were abandoned, locals came in and ransacked the place, absconding with anything that could be of value. I wonder how many homes in the area boast electricity upgrades courtesy of the miles and miles of wire pinched from there! Generators, tiles, lumber, desks, pencil sharpeners, 😊you name it and poof! it was gone!

           Apparently, there are only three sites in the world that are now open for public inspection….. this one, one in Arizona, and one in Ukraine. We’ve been to two out of the three and I don’t think we’ll ever get to Ukraine, so we’ll stay put at two. FYI, if you ever go to Tucson (which makes a fabulous get-away anyway!) check out the Titan Missile Museum, it is definitely worth it!

I can tell that your detective skill set is on High Alert as we venture further to the North. Several Captain Obvoius-like observations as to our change in dress shows me that I can’t get anything past you guys! Yes, the temps have plummeted, and those Accoutrements of Activity (Outdoor Department) have found their way out of the suitcases and onto our hands and heads. But have no fear! Neither rain, nor wind, nor snow, or gloom of night can keep us…. Well.…maybe Gloom of Night, no one likes that! And as you will see, there are Tales of Nere-do-Wells afoot, and I can feel them breathing down my neck.

                     There were several activities over the past two days that dealt primarily with old lifestyles and folklore. As the homogenization of our species continues to march forward, folks around the world are scrambling to ensure that their “story” is set down somewhere so that it can be told over and over again in the future. It is the wise culture that has this process already underway and is now just fine-tuning it to meet today’s standards.

                     Someone may ask why this is so important and that answer is not that obvious as the need to know and remember these types of things waxes and wanes with whatever is going on in one’s (or society’s) life at the time. But I think that it’s easy to simplify the answer and make it personal….. who doesn’t like sitting around with your grandparents and listening to stories of the ‘olden days’ and especially those about your parents! It is the wise family that keeps this tradition moving forward, enhanced by the modern ways of documenting these tales before the sources of them wither away forever. There are still questions that I have for my Mom that I wish that I had answered, or photos identified, before she was no longer there to ask.

                     It seems to be a little more important over here than back in the USA. That’s not taking anything away from our stance, it’s just that the stories over here can go back hundreds of years farther than ours do, and when you couple in the fact that in the relatively recent past, individual cultures have sustained incredible attacks on their very existence by overlords of repression…. well, this certainly does help hasten the need for providing vehicles for the survival of their tales.

                     The bulk of the last two days were spent witnessing such efforts. Here in Lithuania, a country whose heritage throws back to Baltic Tribes settled in their own little enclaves, the drives to keep the stories from being obliterated (even during Soviet times) started decades ago and sometimes needed to be disguised in order to survive. For example, unless you are “of” the people you’d have no idea what was being saved by the people because taken out of context, a fable just seems an innocent child’s tale. I am happy to report that these people’s stories and heritages seem to be firmly ensconced within both the actual and virtual walls of their assigned institutions.

                     One of the more enjoyable aspects of listening to these tales is finding out that no matter where you go there is a Princess waiting to find her Prince, a witch looking to thwart anyone’s plans, trolls aplenty just itching for a fight and a Souvenir Shop happily disguised in order to lure you in!

                                Here you go!

The Witch’s Hill

An attempt to keep the Lithuanian Folktales alive (when they were threatened by Soviet repressions) back in the early 1970’s these carvings were commissioned and then rendered. They have been lovingly cared for since then! There are about 80 carvings, here is just a small sample of them……

Folk songs….. folk tales……. there’s no better way to hear and see them than from people integrally involved with their keeping them alive!

I feel like I am back in school.

There is “paying attention” needed on an hourly basis, from geography to history to religion to ethnicity to culinary, if one does not keep up, then, that one gets lost.  

                     Having posted that thought, I will retreat from it and confess that this activity is not a chore! The presentations are an all-encompassing series of events designed to lure that old reluctant student out of retirement and smack them in the face with all things stimulating,,,,, and important.

                     We are still in Vilnius for one more day and that day contained several wildly different aspects that somehow all seem to make sense when combined. I believe that it is that way because learning about people(s) and places needs to have that well-rounded aspect that can only come with all of the boxes being ‘ticked’ that I listed in my first paragraph.

                     So, get ready, I did the “paying attention” for you and I’ll provide you with the Cliff Notes version, and you can feel free to just ‘audit’ this class, no exams needed, but…. I do encourage you to enroll sometime because the Class Trips are something quite extraordinary!  

                     Our day started at the old KGB building right down the road from our hotel. Yes, that dreary, Cold War, Boris and Natasha, Spy vs Spy, James Bond, Man from U.N.C.L.E. experience has a real-world genesis, and its name is Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti or the KGB. And it is as sinister as its hard-consonant name sounds.

                                We had a private tour of this facility which is now dedicated to the Freedom Fighters that helped make the downfall of the old Soviet Union possible. Our Tour was led by a gentleman who had the opportunity to delve through, and bring to the surface, old KGB evidence that spoke to the incredible evils that occurred within the walls of that facility. We saw detention rooms, solitary confinement cells, padded cells, and even the execution room where everything was so planned out that there was a drain in the floor for the blood and a special window chute to hoist the body through.

On one level, the scariest part was a giant map of the U.S.S.R. that showed hundreds of like facilities strewn about that vast area, that accomplished the exact same thing that this one did…. strike relentless fear into the populace with the express intention of keeping everyone contained and controlled. The Guide was very convincing…. as I had mentioned, he had a personal role in this building after the fall.  Anyway, he came across as a cross between Boris Karloff and Rod Serling, an effective communication combination I am sure you’ll agree.

                                The numbers associated with all of the fear and trepidation of the KGB are staggering in their own right. In the initial occupation by the Soviet Union back in ’40 and ’41, over 23, 000 citizens were either imprisoned, deported or killed. The next era, which ended with the death of Stalin, saw close to 400,000 ‘suspects’ being treated to the same fate.  You did not need to go to trial to get convicted, all you needed to do was look suspicious and have someone rat you out for listening to Western music (for example!) and wham! Into this hideous torture chamber you would go! After Stalin died, things got a little more lenient with only about a thousand people being ‘processed’ through this system here in Vilnius. That old building, along with the monsters that worked in there, were quite efficient as you now see. The fear of being ‘eliminated’ had been the most effective implement in their toolbox.

                                We then boarded our bus again for a trip outside of Vilnius to a beautiful lake region town named Trakai. This is where it starts to get interesting…..  there we found a very small enclave of a very small population of a very small religion. We met members of the Karaite community, a ‘sect’ of Judaism that has its own beliefs in how they interpret the Torah. They are not interested in anyone else’s ‘explanation’ or interpretation of the Torah, so they reject the traditional Hebrew study guide (?) of the Talmud. This is the main difference between them and Rabbinical Judaism. Definitely ethnic in origin, they trace their roots back to remote regions of (Crimean) Turkey where in the late 1300’s the Grand Duke of Lithuania persuaded some of them to leave the area and come and be guards for him in Lithuania. Away they went and now six-hundred years later a handful are left, some still 100% Karaite, living in Trakai. We not only met them, but we learned how to make one of their traditional dishes, Kibinai (think empanadas) which was in fact delicious!

                     Again, I could bore you to tears with the historical intertwining of these folks and their journeys out of ancient Egypt and their diaspora up and through Asia Minor and finally into Europe so…. I’m not going to do that! Rest assured it is a fascinating story, one that is worth investigating on your own, and it bears witness to being one of the fundamental traits of traveling with a group who revels in learning about the peoples of the world…. and eating their snacks!

                     “Ok, everyone please point to Vilnius on your maps.”

                                (Crickets)

                     “Hmm, ok how about pointing to the Baltic countries.”

                                (More crickets, and a few Spring Peepers)

                     “Well then, let’s get out that big map and get everyone going in the right direction! Timmy, show me where the Baltic countries are located please.”

                                Timmy points to a definitely veiled area in an attempt to hide what he is sure might not be quite the correct answer…. he doesn’t have a clue. He’s thinking Baltic Avenue.

                                “Congratulations Timmy, you’ve managed to point to the map.”

                                “But did I pass GO and can I get my $200?”

                                “Wrong game Timmy, now go and take your seat back in Marvin Gardens,”

                                Now not only are the crickets and Spring Peepers making noise, but they are joined by the now inordinately loud ticking emanating from the clock on the wall.

                             +++++++++++++++++++++++++

           We had a meeting this morning with our now entire Group. The pre-trip to Poland is behind us, and the Main Trip, The Baltic Capitals, has begun. There were three folks that joined us this morning for the rest of the two weeks of the trip. Our Tour Leader, Aida, (the ‘Phil’ of this trip) went over the various points that she wanted to emphasize to us. One of them was that on this trip we will not be visiting Bosnia.

                                Which is in the Balkans.

                                Not the Baltic.

                     Apparently during one of her past initial group meetings some guy asked when they were getting to Bosnia.

Oops! Wrong trip!

You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to!

So, where is Vilnius anyway?

I will confess that I didn’t know!

This part of the world is a mumbo-jumbo of seemingly alike sounding countries that have boundaries that get moved and swapped with reckless abandon at the whims of geopolitical forces that keep mapmakers as busy as they can possibly be, never mind throwing in those other “B” places….. the Balkans!                                       (Yes, that was one sentence and Mrs. Tee, my 7^th Grade English teacher, is probably not happy!)

           Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and I know that you’re probably sick of me writing this, but it couldn’t be cuter, or nicer if it tried! Old city, new city, medium city, it doesn’t matter, this place is great! English is almost the second language as it is taught from the Second Grade on and they need to pass an exam to continue on in school, so communication is not a large issue. It’s as clean as it can be, no litter, no graffiti….and quaint cobblestone streets (even the newer ones!)  

                     We will be visiting Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Finland. The first three are contiguous, with Finland just a ferry ride across the Baltic Sea. The first three were also part of the old U.S.S.R. and if you don’t think that they are scared to death with what’s going on in Ukraine you would be badly mistaken. There are signs of solidarity with Ukraine wherever we go, and these countries have pledged support, both militarily and financially, to their friends in Ukraine. It’s kind of a ‘All for One, One for All’ situation.

                     They all remember what it was like under the control of Moscow and no one wants to go back there!

           What’s fascinating about these small regions is that they all have their own languages and customs. In reality, they are no larger than a few of our States. For example, Lithuania and Latvia are the size of West Virgina in area but speak a different language than the folks in (Maryland) and (Virginia) and Estonia is around the size of New Hampshire or Vermont. All of this can be traced back to the old pre-Germanic Tribal days with so many different reasons why they were easily kept separate that it would take an entire semester and then some to get familiar with the nuances of the roots and differences of all of them!

                                We’re not going there!

                                We’re just happy that they all have some nifty and delicious regional foods to sample!

                     We had a walking tour of Vilnius yesterday; it could not have been a nicer day as you will soon see. Gorgeous blue skies, great contrast, beautiful colors…. Incredible architecture…. a photo-takers dream!

                                I hope that you enjoy your tour!

Below you will find an assortment of photos, some identified, some not, because in some cases it just doesn’t make any difference!

“Why are we going to Warsaw anyway? All it is, is a modern city. They just cleaned out the rubble and put buildings back up after WWII. New ones! No character! Boy, am I happy that we got to see Krakow! At least that one is all original! I’m glad we really only have a day and a half in Warsaw, any more would be a waste of time.”

                             Don Hall (3:00 PM – April 17, 2026)

“How come we have to leave so soon? Only a day and a half to explore Warsaw? Who planned this mess? An old KGB guy hired by Krakow?  C’mon let’s mutiny! They can’t make us get on the bus!

                                Here we go… War-saw! War-saw! War-saw!”

                                     Don Hall (9:30 AM – April 20, 2026)

                                                

                     “What a difference a day makes….”

                     Holy Smokes was I ever wrong!

                     (For the next few minutes [two minutes and thirteen seconds reading normally to be precise! ] I will bore you with a short history lesson, but it is crucial to what you are about to witness!)

           If there ever was a city that could claim the title of being a Phoenix, this incredibly beautiful city is it. During its long history, Warsaw has seen itself ‘completely’ destroyed and rebuilt not one, not two, not three, not four, but five times! We’ll talk about the two most significant of those sieges, the first being by the Swedes (yes, those Volvo / Ikea loving folks!) in 1655 – 1660, when they destroyed the city to the extent that 90% of the population was decimated and most of the buildings razed. The next are closely related by being contained within the confines of WWII. The first of these was in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland in September. As per the usual modus operandi of the Germans, all the Jews were moved into a ghetto and confined for further processing. Next came the infamous date of April 19^th (check your calendars and note where we were yesterday, and the date). This date marks the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which although ultimately ended in defeat, took almost a month for these incredibly resilient fighters to succumb. After the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up, Nazi forces systematically razed the district, using flamethrowers and explosives to turn the area into a wasteland. This destroyed an additional large part of the city center. Next, during the 63-day Warsaw Uprising by the Polish Home Army, roughly an additional twenty-five percent of the city’s buildings were destroyed in active combat. By now the Germans had had about enough of these strong, challenging people and following the surrender of the uprising, German special units systematically burned and blew up the remaining districts, street by street, building by building, including historical landmarks and residential areas. That operation completed the destruction of what once was one of the most beautiful cities in all of Europe having once been known as the “Paris of the North.”

                                Yesterday was April 19^th, the 83^rd anniversary of the 1943 Ghetto Uprising. We were there for the commemoration, which has turned into a celebration (and rightfully so!) of the heroic resistance of a people that refused to give up. We stood outside the restaurant that we were to have lunch in so that we made sure that at precisely noontime, we could hear the sirens wail for the Minute, reminding all of the sacrifices made by those in the Past for those in the Future. And if those sirens didn’t remind everyone of an air raid siren, I don’t know what would.

                                So, now basically no more Warsaw. The Red Army moved in and ‘liberated’ this area, and I write that with ’tongue in cheek’ because while they may have liberated Poland from the Germans, it would take an additional 45 years for them to ‘leave’. (1989!)

Meanwhile, since Poland was liberated by Stalin and his Russian troops, they were not eligible to be included in the Marshall Plan which helped any of the countries that were freed by the non-Russian Allies. Even West Germany benefitted from this plan to help get Europe back up and running again.

                     (End of History Lesson)

           That was kind of necessary for you to appreciate what will soon be in front of you, a collection of photos that defy explanation except that now you know the makeup of the Polish people and if they won’t let a few fights get in the way, they’re certainly not going to let anything else get in the way of restoring their beloved city! Obviously, everything that you see will be post -WWII but it was reconstructed so well that eventually their efforts were awarded an unprecedented inclusion as a UNESCO World Heritage Site! Yea, there was some controversy there, but hopefully you can agree that after witnessing the outcomes, it is/was well-deserved!

Now for the proof!

I hope that you can see why I was o mistaken in my judgement about Warsaw! That event ended our Pre-Trip to Poland, on to the Baltic capitals, the Main part of this trip. I can say that without a doubt we could go back to Poland and spend an inordinate amount of time!

Our last day in Krakow was spent exploring the old Jewish Quarter and the Ghetto, along with an experience at the site of Oskar Schindler’s factory. The story of the Jewish people is nothing short of fascinating on any scale. For today, this will focus on one small city, Krakow, Poland. The smaller city of Kazimierz, directly adjacent to Krakow, was the site of the newly established Jewish settlement in the 14th century. Eventually assimilated into Krakow proper, it became the Jewish Quarter, and eventually part of the Old Town as the city grew.

Enter the Nazi’s with the invasion of Poland in 1939 (the beginning of WWII) and we find that the planned extermination of the Jews needed a little more ‘organization’. The residents of the Jewish Quarter were then moved to a ghetto on the other side of the Vistula River in the Podgorze district where they were quarantined or, in fact, ‘sealed’ in. They were told that they were to be transported to the East for relocation purposes. They were sent to the East, but we now know what was located there.

The term Ghetto has had several meanings since its genesis in the Venice in the 16th century. Back then, a “gheto” was a foundry and as such, not located in a desirable part of town. In 1516 the Venetian authorities decreed that all Jews must live in this rather confined area. Obviously, we now use the term ghetto to describe just about any segregated, impoverished area of a town where people are ‘confined’, and as a place where they in fact live. The Germans used these locations as a formal area of confinement before transporting the Jewish people to the camps.

Because Krakow was relatively undisturbed (artillery and bombing) during the war, all of the synagogues that were in the old Jewish Quarter were still there after the War and thus became usable again as the Jews started to move back into Poland. The oldest was built around 1494 and is still there, now serving as a museum. We saw several synagogues on our tour and as it was the Sabbath, there was activity surrounding them.

After our walk around the old Jewish Quarter, we went across the river to the Podgorze neighborhood where we visited two important places. One was the square in the middle of the ghetto where the Jews all gathered, waiting to be transported, they brought with them all things important, even furniture. This is symbolized by these random bronze chairs placed in various positions around the square, empty they are, further symbolizing the fact that no one would be home to use them anymore.

We then worked our way out of the Ghetto to the site of Oskar Schindler’s factory. This site is now being used as a full-on experience illustrating the path of what was to happen to Poland after the German invasion of 1939. It was a kind of multi-media production, very well done, that would be hard to show any kind of pieces of as they would need to be taken out of context and thus rendered ineffective, so for that reason you will see only one photo from this experience.

The more time we spend here the more we realize just how resilient these folks are. Tomorrow we will be in Warsaw, a city that was leveled during WWII and while almost everything there is post WWII, it promises to be quite an experience. Report to follow!

                     It was a long, narrow passageway, a tunnel of sorts.

                     The only sound was a muted voice.

                     It was obviously of a Hebrew man; he spoke the names of the victims.

                     Avraham Ostfeld,

                     Elana Eiderman,

                     Jacob Tennenbaum,

                     Motti Lichman…

                      … and six million more.

We walked in silence.

+++++++++++++++++

Auschwitz…

Birkenau…

Obviously German names for obviously Polish places, an attempt by the conquerors to eradicate even the names of places that did not suit their needs.

                     Just like the six million……

This excursion was a significant part of our experience here in Poland. Located just a little over an hour from Krakow, most of the atrocities attached to those two names were committed here on purpose, none were completed in the Fatherland, it was as if they knew even back then they did not want the stains of their actions to be anywhere in Germany.

                     We were not the only ones there.  Experiences like this, emotional ones, I try my best to face by myself. I am not interested in anyone else’s comments. I want and need to come to grips with my thoughts by myself. Except maybe here.

                     I was prepared to be upset by the lack of respect (?) shown by visitors to these sacred grounds…. You know, “selfies” and the like. In fact, I was seriously wrong when I attributed these actions to what I was sure would be from visitors on the younger side…. School Groups, the most feared collection of people to attend anything with. I walked in single file past these younger folks as we switched back and forth through the barracks turned exhibits in Auschwitz. I studied their eyes as we encountered each other, vacant they were not, and amused they definitely were not. Respectful and thoughtful they were. This is when I felt that having others around in moments like these was not a bad thing. Commiseration has its benefits.

                     We filed past the carefully curated collections of photographs, belongings, and intensely personal articles of the victims of hatred and lies. They were told that they were being relocated…. So “bring your most prized possessions with you, bring what is important.” They were filled with the hope of completely being pushed out, that would be alright, wouldn’t it? Finally, getting out from under the stare and control of the Nazi’s. They hadn’t done anything wrong, so why would they expect anything else?

“Just let us go.”

But when the doors of the railcars opened after many days of putrid suffocation, their eyes squinting in either the daylight or the floodlight, their worst nightmares were far behind them as the full realization of what was about to be extracted from them became painfully, on their part, and sinfully on their captors’ part, aware.

Hence the collections of suitcases, combs and brushes, eyeglasses, shoes, and toys and dolls, that were carefully strewn behind protective glass walls in muted light to further protect them. Thousands upon thousands of these ‘relics’ and I use that term with all of the full ecclesiastical meaning behind it, were laid bare for our inspection and introspection. These were the articles that would no longer be needed anymore.

                     Each room, visited in a specific order, became more and more personal until we entered a very dimly lit one….. one that had several thousand pounds of human hair that was shaved from their heads. This hair would have been eventually used for making fabric and the like, just as the over forty tons of the hair found bailed and stored would have been.

                                I heard the names, I saw many, many more. I saw even more photographs of the people murdered here. I read their stories, finished what I thought that I maybe could not have. It was done respectfully as you would expect. We were told that we could take photographs, what better way to promulgate the purpose of this Memorial. We were asked only in two places not to take photos, the rooms in Block 4 that contained the human hair and the basement of Block 11 which was used as a punishment area where prisoners were effectively starved to death, it is now treated as a Memorial. I elected not to take photographs of several other areas, strictly on a gut feeling as we filed past them. It is somewhat of a blur now, so I cannot explain exactly what you may be missing, but rest assured, the neglection of these was done with the highest possible intentions.

                     Now looking back on the photos that I did take, they seem rather ‘innocent’ as it were.

Just buildings and places that could be anywhere.

 But they are not just anywhere.

They are there at Auschwitz and Birkenau……

……..Szmil Oskola

Benzion Eisenbaum

Mosczk Pirovicz

….. and six million more.

 “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.

Winston Churchill quoting George Santayana House of Commons Speech – 1948

                     I want to move here.

                     This city could be one of the nicest and best-preserved ones we’ve ever been to and if it weren’t for a definite language barrier, well…. my initial statement stands. The reasons for the non-destruction are many and varied, but the facts remain that Krakow stayed untouched during WWII, hence its “I Want to be Here” charm index is off the board!

                     One theory is faith-based. There are so many churches in Krakow, and each one has a ‘Guardian Angel’….  so, when danger was looming the angels all opened their spiritual umbrellas and created an impervious cover over the entire city.

                     Another is that the Russian troops advanced quick enough to ward off any bombing necessities as the city was then under Allied control.

                     Don’t know about you, but the first reason is a much nicer remedy! In any event, the buildings and infrastructures around here, dating from the 1300’s, are largely intact. While the population of Krakow (proper) is comparable to San Francisco or Indianapolis, at about 900,000 people, its metropolitan area is more comparable to Austin, Texas or Jacksonville, Florida. Krakow is the second largest city in Poland with Warsaw coming in first.

                     Since the Solidarity movement shook up Poland in 1989, Krakow has sprung forward, embracing its new -found freedoms and celebrating its resilience against the former Soviet Bloc overtures that held it back for those forty or so years.

                     Walking around the city is an absolute pleasure…. the pedestrians have the right-of-way (except for the trams!) and the population exercises this perk to the Nth degree by just stepping out onto the crosswalk where the drivers expect them to do this and stop accordingly. And the Trams are all free to those over 70!

                     Now all that is needed to complete this Nirvana is having the Cukiernies (pastry shops!) also be free to us in the ‘Over 70 Club’!

Stanislaw and Zbigniew were out hunting one day back in 1044. Stan was eying up a nice buck while Z-Big took his turn as the ‘Spotter’. Stan let his arrow fly, but due to the amount of slivovitz consumed the night before (and as a warmer-upper just a few hours prior), his arrow missed his mark and instead buried itself in a small hilly outcropping. Stan grunted to Z-Big to go and do his job as ‘spotter’ and find his arrow. Stan then promptly passed out. Z-Big dutifully found the arrow and when he went to pull it out of the hillside, he noticed that it was a rather wet area with a good amount of crusty white stuff around it. And just like good ol’ Jedd Clampett when he was hunting and missed his mark, and “out from the ground come a’ bubblin’ crude, oil that is…. Texas Tea….  Z-Big had discovered a rather lucrative find, not oil, but salt, which back then was probably way more valuable than a black, greasy liquid that needed several hundred more years to become even useful!

                     Z-Big let his friend sleep and went to the King (Casimir I) and was granted a ‘Privilege’ which he shared with the local monastery, they in turn, began collecting the brine from the area, drying it, and produced some of the first Sodium Chloride (table salt) from what would become one of the world’s oldest and most prolific salt mines…..  the Wieliczka Salt Mine just outside of Krakow, Poland.

                     Well, that’s the story and I’m stickin’ to it!

                     Yesterday we spent the better part of the day at the Salt Mine which had become a central figure in the past commerce of the area to today when it is one of the top tourist attractions, amassing over 1.91 million visitors alone last year. Yesterday was a Wednesday in April and then place was packed! The Guides said the “You should see it in the High Season, July and August!” No Thank you! It was crowded enough yesterday! But it is well worth the visit!

                     This place is about as cool (Fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit all year-round) as it gets! And it is massive! We spent almost two and a half hours down there walking in the endless tunnels and chambers, learning about how they mined this stuff from the old days to the recent past. They really didn’t start digging down until the 1300’s and the process ceased in the late 1990’s because of mine flooding and the price of salt on the market. But not until the mine reached a depth of 1076’ and a total tunnel length of 178 miles!

                     Another feather in its salty cap is that it was one of the first twelve sites from around the world that began the UNESCO World Heritage collection back in 1978. That original list includes such places as Yellowstone National Park and the Galapagos Islands! Now if that’s not a recommendation for a visit I don’t know what is!

Our afternoon concluded with a search for the otherwise ubiquitous Pretzel! Try as we might, finding a place that sells these masterpieces proved harder than it should have. Search we did, walked we did, and finally ate we did, some ‘traditional style’ (but stuffed!) pretzels! Ours was one stuffed with Mozzarella and then sprinkled with sesame seeds. Just enough to hold us over until a nice dinner was had a ‘locals only’ restaurant.

Another recommendation for you to visit Poland…. the food!

                     Well…. to be honest with you, everything (so far) has turned out just fine. If you remember from yesterday, we had our times/flights/airlines/cities/ and psyches all misenjumbled and strewn through the stratosphere, which did not exactly give us any sort of peace of mind, especially when travelling overseas. And…. if you’ve been following or even noticing the stories coming out of this industry of late, even the favs of the peeps have come under fire as of late! Southwest Airlines is a good example.

                     Enter our situation, with no notice that the change was looming and scary situations such as, “I’m sorry, we can’t seem to locate that reservation. Please check that your numbers are correct and try again. Or try back later. Thank you for contacting Austrian Air and have a nice day!”

“What do you mean you can’t find my reservation! You’re the one that gave me the numbers in the first place!” (I screamed at my laptop)

           No reply.

I’d have to say that feeling like an enigma is not a good way to start a relationship!  (Miss Austrian Airlines!)

Ok, I’ll try another way. I found my Ticket Number, so in it went. The screen did that swirly deal like a dog chasing its tail…… “I’m sorry we can’t seem to find that reservation. Please check the numbers and try again later. Thank you for contacting Austrian Air and have a nice day!”

Now I’m really feeling like an orphan. I called Austrian Airlines, got through and even they could not get us checked in!

“Mr. Hall, I can see your reservation here, but the system won’t allow me to acknowledge you. You’ll need to just check in at the airport.”

Not acceptable and that’s all well and good until we get to the airport….. I can hear the nice person at the counter,

 “I’ve never seen anything like this Mr. Hall. I can see your reservation here on my screen, but the system won’t let me proceed any further, and the days of handwritten Boarding Passes are long gone. I’d get my supervisor, but she just left for her lunch hour and is unreachable, we’ll just have to wait until she returns.”

           “But my flight leaves in an hour! Check in starts in ten minutes!”

           “Maybe you should have gotten here a little earlier?”

“I arrived on time, but I failed to account for the 15 million people who apparently need to get to Vienna today! The line was way too long! What is it? Mozart’s birthday or something?”

She just smiled and said with a laugh, “No Mr. Hall, Mozart’s birthday is January 27^th and besides he lived in Salsburg not Vienna” ……  as she indicated with a wave of her hand to a few chairs off to the side apparently reserved expressly for these ‘meetings’… you know, like the ones right outside the Vice-Principal’s office.

“I’m sorry Mr. Hall, I guess, we’ll just have to wait for Miss Sophie to get back from her lunch, now if you don’t mind …….. Next please!”

           And with that I was shuffled off to the Enigma Bench to await our fate as the clock ticked ever closer to that Witching Minute when they close the cabin door that a sound that eerily brings up reminisces like those doors on creaky hinges down in the dungeon.

           The Newark Airport Dungeon.

That was the scenario that was bouncing around in my head with the speed of a pickleball, and I was bound and determined not to let that happen to us!

Question for you…..

Are you one of the folks that are comfortable getting to the airport in enough time to grab a bottled water and hop on board? Or…. do you get panicky if you’re not already on your way to the Airport at 9 AM for a 5PM flight?

           To be honest, I am definitely a card-carrying member of the latter group and in fact, I’d feel much better if we left at 9AM the day before the day we needed to be there. Suffering from this Aeroleftbehindagain Phobia is only compounded by the fact that I also contract a dose of Doomisonthewayitis with every trip. This scenario flies in face of the Conventional Wisdom on this subject, but I can’t help it, so I am not endeared by anyone who possesses a more normal state of mind.    

           All of this is brought about by having an over-active sense of imagining doom descending upon us like the Veils of Armageddon when it comes to having aspects of control issues being pilfered away from us (me!) And in my mind having a need for an abundance of extra time to counteract the Gremlins of Travel who spend all their time conniving against and thwarting the plans of innocent goers-away is the only way to counteract these evil nogoodniks!

                     Hence the need to arrive three days before travel should commence. In this case we had no idea if any of the changed details was, in fact, going to be able to be implemented forthwith. For all I knew, that scenario just painted with the Supervisor out and the lines too long, and the plane whisking away without us was a possibility. Now, mind you, not a probability but for me the only downside was that we’d arrive too early and the counter would not be open yet because all of these flights are in the evening.

                     Oops! Did I say that?

Yup, but it did not stop me from calling our ‘Uber’ Driver Matt (Paula’s son) not once, but twice, upping our arrival time by an additional two hours. This, I believed would take into account any “lunch breaks” etc. that anyone may be on. Well, that’s exactly what happened and when we arrived there wasn’t even a wisp of evidence that an Austrian Airlines even existed! Their only means of identification were these advert poles that get placed in front of the velvet ropes that designate the entrances to their counters and these poles were safely hidden from view by several well-placed vending machines, But first the Air India sahibs needed to finish their check-in process and then vacate that Zone (B) so that the overhead LED signs can be clicked to Lufthansa, Austrian, and Swiss Air.

           But wait! There’s more! The other downside of arriving too early is that we’d be first in line (which we were) to get our ‘situation’ looked into and thereby getting into the First-Class lounge that much earlier! Not bad, right? Our plan was not to say anything to the guards of the Boarding Passes and see what they would come up with. We approached His Highness with a veiled feeling of trepidation and waited for the verdict. I watched his eyes as they glanced furtively back and forth across his screen and I could not tell if he had a nervous condition or was first checking his stock portfolio before he worked on our issues. Minutes went by, he’d glance up at us, study our faces, then quickly avert his eyes and continue examining his stock portfolio or whatever it was, until he just blurted out, “Here ya go!  Just go through those doors and show them that little green dot I put on there, it’ll get you into the Fast Lane for Security. Have a good flight!”

           Ta-Daaa! Not a word was needed from us except the ‘please’ and thank-you’s offered in sincerity. We walked away quickly with our coveted Boarding Passes tucked into one of Paula’s carry-on pockets, AKA, The Pack of Many Zippers.

Now we could start the trip! Early we were, by choice it was not, but the silver lining was that w could spend some more time in the Lufthansa/Austrian Air/Swiss Air First Class Lounge! We’ve been able to do this one only once before (on United) and it was by a Decided Chance that it occurred. In reality, we don’t come even close to be able to afford a First/Business seat, it’s only by that Decided Chance that it can even happen and then the Factors need to be weighted and then weighed, throwing all of the other variables into it. We’d been lucky once before and unfortunately, once you experience that kind of service and amenities, your appetite gets whetted for more when the next opportunity arises. Like this one.

           We were already in what is termed as ‘Premium Economy’ and this category is only available on International/Long Haul flights and in my opinion, is the best ‘value’ on the aircraft. These seats are closer to First Class on a domestic flight than they are to an Economy configuration and with all of the freakin’ issues I have with my legs and brain, getting that kind of room is crucial to my well being and saying crucial is not an exaggeration. I can slip into a Panic Attack in a heartbeat thinking about my legs spasming out and me not having any control over it and then the Air Marshall shows up and I find myself strapped to the wing for the duration of the flight which is actually better because it gets me out of my seat and into a different position!

           Anyway, we did weigh the weights, input the variables, then slid those calculations through the calculator, and then took that number and brought it to the Ultimate Authority of what gets decided on in the Motorhome…… Frank. Frank is our little Sea Otter mascot who sits up front and watches out for us. He has since been joined by Bucc-ee of the Bucc-ee’s Fuel Heaven Stores that we like to frequent. But Frank has the most experience, so we usually defer to him. When the problem was announced, and the situation discussed, Frank promptly fell over (he’s becoming rather ‘not firm’ as most little stuffed animals end up suffering from). We took this as a sign of astonishment and then promptly upped ourselves from Premium Economy to Polaris on United. But we were now on Austrian Air! What kind of seats do they have? How’s the food? What else is different?

           Great! We get into this level of service just once and all of a sudden, we ‘ve become “First Class Snobs” (I know that can be taken two ways, but I don’t know how to fix it!) In reality all is good the in First Cabin, albeit different. The seats were not as good for sleeping according to Paula who was really looking forward to just snoozing her way across the Atlantic, but the food was extraordinary. The Chef came out of the Forward Galley and went to each passenger and discussed what everyone wanted to be served from the available menu. Now let’s not go crazy here, it is a Commercial Flight and is subject to the Rules and Reg’s of Flight Safety and I’m fairly sure that I would not have found a full-blown commercial kitchen up there. But what is able to happen is that instead of having meals assembled elsewhere, chilled, then wrapped for eventual heating and then being served, they have the ingredients ready to go. They do get heated, but then the “chef” gets to plate them individually which assures that everything is equally prepared and presented on a plate that defies the description of something just coming out of a heater apparatus. Plus, he comes out into the Cabin and helps serve the meals. The impression is quite effective, if not downright impressive!

For me, this was the Highlight of the flight on many levels as I did not attempt to do that lay-flat deal with my seat. I pretty much stayed in a dozing seated position watching that little airplane icon work its way across the Atlantic on the seatback monitor in front of me.

           After landing in Vienna all went well, Immigration was easy, waiting the five hours between flights was easy, getting snacks was easy, and getting on our next flight to Krakow was easy, but sitting there for the thirty-five-minute flight was torture. Don’t ask me any questions cuz I don’t got no answers. Lots of theories, however. So as soon as the Fasten Seat Belt sign was jettisoned, I sprang up and went aft to hang around the lavatory/galley/crew area, just to stand and not be constrained in my seat. The Flight Attendants were understanding and when I complimented them on the quality of the little chocolates that they were handing out one of them promptly gave me five more!  😊

                     That made my day better!

We met Sherry and Harold at the hotel and promptly walked out to find a good pierogie place to celebrate our successful arrival in Poland.

           Off to sleep (?) and a few hours later, our first full day is awaiting us tomorrow! Good night!

           Zzzzzz !

The rest of the early morning Photo Shoot!

It’s now getting light out and breakfast and our first full day awaits…..