Poland

Right now we’re sitting on a bench in the park, enjoying the sun and warmth after returning from our Poland adventure, ready to let let you know all about it. The country had never been on our list of places to travel to, as it had never come to mind as an exotic or romantic place to visit. But, we have to say, for those of you who haven’t been there, it is a must-see. We chose Poland because of our small summer travel budget and had heard that eastern Europe was the place to travel on the cheap, and boy was it cheap. A lunch for two, consisting of two meals at Burger King, came to a grand total of about 7 Euros. Our romantic dinner restaurant at a place called Mama Mia was even better. The dinner, where we had a pizza, two beers, a cola, and a tip, rang up at 13 Euros. Nice, huh?

Upon arriving in Krakow, we were just overwhelmed at the beauty of the

old town. It was full of big churches and cobblestone streets. Supposedly the city has the biggest market square in all of Europe.

Amy posing for a picture in the Old Town of Krakow.

Castle in Krakow

We stayed in a hostel, which was a first for Amy. Despite her worries, she survived and actually enjoyed the community feel of the place. While in Krakow, we took two tours. The first was of the old Jewish quarter and Jewish Ghetto. It was a sobering experience. Before World War 2, at least 68,000 Jewish people lived in Krakow.

Now there’s 150.

The walls around the Jewish Ghetto are in the shape of tombstones.

We were told that these chairs were set up as

a memorial. When the Jews were forced to live here there were so many of them and not enough places for their furniture, so they were forced to leave their furniture on the street. All of the chairs face a certain way to represent the walk the Jews had to take to the concentration camp.

We also got to see Schindler’s factory, where we learned that Oskar Schindler saved at least 1,000 Jews from the concentration camps. However, we also found out that his wife isn’t too happy with how glorified his character was in the movie. Apparently, he was quite the ladies man.

Schindler's Factory

During this first tour, our guide, who was a psychology major, introduced us to the King of the old Jewish Quarter. Turns out, after the war ended and there were no more people living there, the government moved all the poor people in. Thus, crime ran rampant. And, of course, someone has to come out as some sort of leader, and this man was apparently it. This (homeless) man gave up some of his precious time for a brief interview with us. During this interview, our guide had to translate and we’re pretty certain the guide did not translate everything because we heard the word “American” thrown in by the king, but this particular sentence was not relayed to us.

In much more colorful language than we’re comfortable typing here, he told us how attractive all of the girls were in our group. He also told us how disappointed he is with today’s generation of ‘hoodlums’. Apparently, they have no honor. In the old days, just two people fought. Nowadays, he said, it might be five or so against one. By the way, he spent 15 years in jail. Amy and Craig decided during the interview that if they were to see this man outside of the tour, they would quickly walk the other way.

Our tour guide with "The King."

The second tour we took was 135 meters beneath the earth into a salt mine. The salt mine outside of Krakow is listed on the UNESCO World Heritage list. Amy was pretty nervous about this adventure because of her fear of tight spaces. However, once underground she was amazed at how open everything was.

The mine has 300 kilometres of tunnels, many chapels, a few lakes, and a room that is currently being used for Sunday worship and weddings. Yes, that’s correct, every Sunday people travel underground to attend worship service in the subterranean cathedral.

We learned that everything there was made out of salt, including the chandeliers. There were places where instead of salt there was wood. This was to keep the mine from collapsing. We also learned that they kept the horses underground for their entire lives. The reason for this is that some of the horses would have heart attacks and die when being transported down into the mine. As it turns out, the horses generally lived longer inside the mine than outside the mine. This may be due to the clean air.

Speaking of clean air, at 125 metres underground there is a center where people will go to spend 7 weeks for 8 hours a day. Apparently, this alleviates the symptoms of allergies and asthma. We saw lots of people with young children attending this center.

The church located in the salt mine. They hold weekly services here and weddings.

So Craig, are those walls really made of salt?

Next stop: Warsaw. We were a bit apprehensive about Warsaw due to what we had heard while in Krakow. However, as it turns out, we had no need to fear because Warsaw is a wonderful place. The buildings are much newer than in Krakow because 80% of Warsaw was flattened by the Nazi’s during WWII.

These buildings look old, but they are actually pretty new.

One of the few remaining buildings from WWII. This was a bank. You can see the holes in it from where it was hit during the war.

While in Warsaw, we had the opportunity to visit a museum that highlighted the struggle of the Polish citizens fighting against the Nazis who had taken over. It was very sad to see what the people of Poland have endured over the past 60 years.

We learned that not only was the Polish army fighting, but the President of Poland called upon the citizens of Poland to fight against the Nazis. Imagine that if our President got on the radio and tv and asked you to fight against some invading army, wouldn’t that be crazy?

Their houses were destroyed, so they had to retreat to tunnels underground. Many of them fought with homemade weapons.

Recently the Polish suffered another blow when their President, and much of their government, died in a plane crash.

Despite of, or because of all these hardships, we found the Polish to be very friendly and willing to chat with the person next to them (whether you understood them or not).

All in all we enjoyed our Poland trip and would recommend it to anyone who is thinking about going.

Learn to speak Polish -- just add the long e to the end of English words :).

Actually, Polish is an extremely hard language and we weren't able to pick up any of it.

If you would like to see all of our pictures from Poland, please check out our site on shutterfly:

http://amygoodwin.shutterfly.com/

I Think It's PAST Time for an Update

Since our Austria adventure we've been busy with our life here in Germany. The winter was pretty brutal, especially for Amy’s southern roots. More than once we went two weeks without seeing the sun! For Easter break we escaped the dreariness of Leipzig and found a last minute trip to the Turkish Riviera. There we enjoyed a week of sunshine, ocean, free drinks, and the wonderful Turkish hospitality we’ve come to love. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and we left the sun and warmth for the remaining few months of German winter. There was actually a collective groan from the plane passengers upon landing in Leipzig when the pilot announced the current temperature and weather.

Craig and Amy on the beach in Turkey

We managed to keep ourselves busy during the dark months. Amy performed in the school’s Fame musical and took night classes to receive a certificate for teaching ESL in the mainstream classroom. Craig finished up with his German classes and is still awaiting the results from his final exam.

Amy in her FAME costume.

We also had some visitors brave the cold and spend some time with us in Germany. Craig’s brother Mark and his girlfriend Taryn made a quick trip over from France (where they were visiting Taryn's sister). We hope they come back for a warm weather visit, when Leipzig is at it’s best. They brought Craig Triscuit crackers and made him very happy.

Craig and Amy in front of the Berlin Wall.

Mark, Taryn and Craig relaxing at a bed bar in Leipzig.

Sometime around June the sun finally won his battle with the dreary winter and came out to stay.

Amy and Craig enjoying a nice day on the lake.

Craig managed to train for a marathon during the cold winter months.

In June, Craig and Amy headed off to camp with the Grade 5 students from LIS.

Camp lasted five days and was situated in the beautiful Harz Mountains in northern Germany. It was a great time, everyone had fun, but it was nice to get back home at the end of the week and actually get a full night’s sleep.

The next exciting time in our life came at the end of June, when Craig’s parents and sisters came to visit us here in Leipzig. They had a wonderful time, enjoying the food, sights, and sunny weather. The parents headed off on their own little romantic holiday in the romantic Tuscan region of Italy while Amy and Craig took the girls on our own little adventure to the south of Germany. There we saw Neuschwanstein castle and Rothenberg ob der Tauber, two of Germany’s best historical sights. We also ate the best pizza in Germany. It was made by Italians. Germans can’t make pizza. The girls got to experience the difference between American and German accommodations. Germans don’t really worry too much about the extra comforts we’re used to in the states. Here you get a room, a bed, a blanket for each person and a pillow. Not much else. It was a lot of traveling by train in a short period of time, at least 20 hours over the course of 3 days, but it was fun and a great chance for the girls to see the contrast between east and west Germany. It was a wonderful time having the family here to visit and experience the beautiful city we live in.

Craig and Taylor enjoy some ice cream in Fussen.

Checking out the Alps from the train.

Craig, Kate and Taylor with the Alps in the background.

Königsschloss Hohenschwangau.

Neuschwanstein Castle. This castle might look familiar. Walt Disney based the Disney castle off of this.

Rothenburg.

For those of you who don't know Amy very well, this was the first place she visited when she made her journey to Germany at age 15. This was the city that made her fall in love with Germany and determined to live here someday.

The Goodwins

Aww

Now, you may be wondering where our four-legged childre

n are during all of our little adventures. They go to ‘camp’, too. Here in Germany, kennels are called tierpensions and this is where the dogs st

ay while we’re away. They always come back to us dirty and tired, which is exactly how you want y

our chi

ldren to return from camp.

That was a very brief summary just to bring you up to date on our lives right now.

Austrian Holiday

Day 1



We left at 9:00 a.m. from Leipzig headed to Malta, a town in the Austrian Alps. It was a long drive, including some issues with the rental car. It was dark by the time we reached the Alps, so we were unable to see the mountains our first day.



We finally arrived at 7:45 p.m. We were greeted by the non-English speaking hostess/owner and were promptly shown to the dining room. Our hotel package included all our meals and drinks. So, naturally we did the most important thing first and ate our five course dinner. It was a tasty traditionaly Austrian meal.

After dinner we settled into our beautiful room. The room was much larger than we expected. It was a family apartment with a small bedroom (with bunk beds) and a large living room/main bedroom. In addition to the large room we had the best balcony in the hotel.

At 11:30 p.m. we discovered the most likely reason as to our wonderful luck. This was when a bus load of adolscents arrived and, we believe, took up residence in almost every other room in the hotel.

Shortly after they arrived they quieted down and we were able to get back to sleep.

Craig punching in the address for our hotel in Malta.


Car #1.

The dogs take a break.

Craig filling the car up with gas in Austria.

First night at dinner.

Day 2

Day 2 began with our first view of the Alps--from our balcony. We woke up, walked out onto the balcony, and were able to see the mountains in front of us, across the valley, and the taller peaks down the valley. We got over our initial awe, went down to eat some breakfast, then grabbed the dogs and headed out.

Our first stop was the national park/tourism office in town. There we recieved advice and pamphlets about what our activity options were. They were very informative, helping us decide what we would be doing the rest of the week.

Next we went to Gmund, two towns over. We saw the preperations for the day's Fasching festivities that included Halloween-like costumes and a parade. The parade began at two, so after walking around Gmund's castle and seeing the narrow streets and small shops, we left in the car to find some lunch.

After driving for a little while, we found ourselves in the town of Spittal an der Drau. It was another small-ish town that may or may not have had a lake nearby. Because of ice and snow, everything looked like fields. We only stayed long enough for lunch, which consisted of Amy's very first doner kebap. The sandwiches were chicken, on a good bun, with lettuce, onions, and sauce, and were delicious. We finished and left, returning to Gmund in time to get a good spot for the parade.

We waited around for a little while before it started and were able to watch the Austrians walking around in costume and the children create mischief. The outfits ranged from elaborate (such as an entire kindergarten class dressed as frogs) to the quick and easy (some people did no more than dye their hair or put on a big hat). More interesting than the costumes were 4 boys, determined to be mishceivious.

Armed with silly string, a toy gun, and a smoke bomb, they went to work. The silly string was mainly aimed at each other, landing a short string in one boy's little green mohawk. His friends, the good, honest ones they were, felt it unneccesary to inform him of this and it was still there upon our departure. They finished off the cans of silly string, then rolled some of it up into balls and threw them off the bridge at people below. Next, the toy gun (which fired nothing) was used to shoot at people from the bridge. Finally, as the marching band was approaching, the boys lit the smoke bomb at rolled it at the approaching parade, causing the band members to walk through a gray cloud. All of this provided us with endless amusement.

As the band approached and passed (playing a version of YMCA, which was very appropriate, given the number of cowboys and indians present), and the first float blaring AC/DC rolled up, it became obvious the dogs were scared of the loud noises so we left.

Back at the hotel we ate a snack, then relaxed until dinner. We ate another good, long meal and went to bed early.




Pictures from the balcony:

Amy and Bella, matching

In Gmund:

The Hotel Malteinerhof (our balcony is top right):

Amy loving her first doner kebap

Where we got our doner kebaps

Our pups

A pony outside Gmund, just before running off when a float passed

The float is passing. Apparently Austrian ponies don't like AC/DC.

Back in Gmund for the parade:

A portion of our amusement (note the silly string decorated mohawk)

Bella would be enjoying the parade, but she seems to be facing the wrong direction.

The frog children

The rolling stones (get it?)

Day 3

Skiing Day (a.k.a. The day we hoped not to die or break anything of importance). Thanks to the help of the nice people at the tourist office, we decided upon Katschi mountain to try out skiing in the Alps. The drive was short, maybe half an hour, and ended with a steep climb to our destination of Kastchberg. After wandering around for about an hour, trying to get a lift pass and rent some gear, we found ourselves at the top of a very steep hill that skiing down seemed to be the only way to get to the 'easy' run.

Ten minutes passed and we were still there, watching unbelievingly at people flying by us, even leaving the established slope for the more exciting shortcut down the steeper hill near the trees. Finally, doing the only thing we could, we tried. Did we stay upright? Of course not. Did we fall into the ditch next to the hill? Thankfully no. Standing out of everyone's way where this little hill met up with the 'beginner' slope, we stood for another fifteen or so minutes watching people ski by us. Apparently, 'beginners' from the states don't go skiing in the Alps. In the states, we call beginner slopes the bunny slope, or maybe the baby slope. This was, according to the woman at the ticket counter, one of the easiest slopes on the mountain. This struck us as sickly amusing while we watched people go over the little jumps and carve quickly down the mountain. How many people did we see fall? None.

Somehow we managed to get ourselves going, made it alive to the bottom and rode the lift to the top to do it again. We got better with practice and before too long were both able to ski from the top to the bottom without falling. The most astounding things about the day were the little kids who seemed to have been placed on skis at birth. Lines of them would carve down the slope, once nearly going in a complete circle around Craig. The youngest ski demon we saw seemed to be around four. The craziest little kid was saw was maybe 6 and cut in line for the lift. This sound like a typical little kid thing, right? No. He spotted a slot in line that could just barely fit his skis and, without slowing from coming down the mountian, aimed for it, skidding to a stop abruptly once he had safely cut in.

We also met a well spoken little boy named Harry from England. We learned about his travels, his skiing experience, and how Americans and Canadians speak funny and butcher his name from 'Hahry' to something odd that resembles the sound one makes just before they spit.

The shadows began to lean over the slopes and the skiing day came to a close. We turned in our gear and headed back to hotel, joyous for our lack of injuries. Next came dinner, followed by scrabble and an early bedtime. After about two hours of sleep our friends the teens returned from their night skiing excursion. How do we know this? They were loud. Obviously.

Amy was the first to wake up, giving them time to settle down and head to bed. She's the nice one, figuring the kids would quiet down. Then, about an hour later came screaming, running, and the slamming of doors. This is when Craig woke up. Amy left the room, Craig followed. Amy asked the kids to be quiet, they said okay. They didn't see Craig. Craig and Amy returned to the room. Five minutes later, the boys were loud again. Craig said to Amy 'You stay here, I'll take care of it.' There's just something about Craig's "you're in trouble voice" that encourages children to listen.

The rest of the night was quiet.

The ski mountain:

Ready? Nope.

Maybe.

Despite the new angle, this is where Craig was standing in the last picture, wondering "How the heck do they turn?"

Looking at the 'beginner' slope, still wondering how to turn. And stop. And stand up.

The view from side of the 'beginner' slope.

Craig's action shot, taken (unfortunately) long moments after he had already

landed his doubled backflip

Where we got lunch

The 'beginner' slope. Note the jump on the right.

Amy, confident and ready to go.

Little speed demons. Don't be fooled by the cuteness. Notice no one's holding their hands.

Amy's action shot. What a pro.

Day 4

The day began with breakfast, as every good day should. Following the quick meal, we went exploring by car. We had read online that Austria's highest dam was down the valley from us and decided to head that way. The driving was easy until we reached signs and a checkpoint. Not being able to understand these signs, our minds were not made up on what to do until we saw a picture of a car tire with chains on it. We turned our little rental VW around and looked for easier destinations.

After exploring the valley a bit more, we borrowed some snowshoes from the hotel and took to higher elevations. We drove halfway up Malta mountain and got out. After strapping on the snowshoes, the four of us headed uphill towards a scenic viewpoint. The mountain dropped off sharply to our left heading up so Bella, who sometimes (mostly) does things without thinking, stayed on the leash lest some low cruising bird convinces her to try out those little wings she has yet to grow. Mika needed to be reminded occasionally not to play on cliffs. The view from the bench was wonderful. We snapped some pictures and headed back down.

Snowshoeing had built up an appetite in us, so we headed to Gmund. Gmund restuarants, however, considered this particular Thursday a great day for a Ruhetag (day of rest). At least that's what all the signs on the doors said. We ate cold sandwiches and pringles from one of the local grocery stores, then drove back to the hotel.

The rest of the afternoon consisted of walking the dogs and resting on the balcony, soaking up the sun. We hadn't seen our friend the warm sun in a while and wanted to spend as much quality time together as we could. Then came a snack of pastries and dinner about an hour after that. Dinner was great. As in, eat-until-it-hurts-then-take-another-bite great. Big, thick pork steaks with cheese melted on top, with a side of steamed veggies and potato wedges. This is after appetizer, salad, and soup and before desert. Craig had a painful evening.

Once again early to bed and once again woken up around 11:30. This time: kids' leaders in the hallway speaking loudly, kids slamming doors. Leaders screaming at kids for being too loud. Makes perfect sense. Once the staff left, things quieted. Our neighbors (teens) decided then it was a good time to play loud music.

Craig knocks on door. Door opens.

"Music?" says the adolescent boy.

"Yep," says Craig.

"Sorry."

Music turns off. Door closes.

Craig returns to bed. To be continued.

If you look closely you can see people climbing this frozen waterfall. Ice climbing is a big sport in this area during the winter.

Don't they look fully prepared for snowshoeing?

(NOT the island)

Day 5

5:26am.

The sound of girls running and yelling through the hallway and into the room next door. Loudness continues.

Craig gets up, opens door out into the dark hallway. Craig turns on the light, knocks on the offending room's door. Talking, but no answer. Craig opens door. Two teen girls are standing there.

"Knock it off."

Girls leave, quiet resumes.

We officially woke up about an hour afterwards to pack, eat, and leave. We packed up the car, ate a quick meal, and left. It was another long drive, but this time we were able to see the massive Alps as we drove through them. Oh, and in case anyone is planning to, or might, or doesn't care to, drive in Austria, you're supposed to buy a sticker to put on your windshield. These are available at gas stations near the main highways, where there are signs. If you come into the country through back roads and have no idea these stickers even exist, it doesn't matter to the police that work the checkpoint at the highway. They will give you a fine.

Eventually, we made it back safely and had chinese food for dinner.

The end.

The bus the teens rode in on:

Views from the car: