More Nuns than You Have Ever Seen in One Place
Krakow, Poland - June 10, 2004
This is Lawrence
Poland really is a Catholic country. Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi and therefore a national holiday. Frankly, this feast goes mostly unnoticed by American Catholics and most Americans have never heard of it and may wonder why a feast day is named for a city in Texas. Poland is NOT America. We figured that the shops at the Cloth Hall would be open for the tourists, but only places to buy food were open. That’s it.
The hotel is packed mostly with people traveling on tour busses. We were very happy to have had breakfast before the majority of them sprang to action. After breakfast, we went for a very nice walk along cobblestone streets and were not surprised that none of the shops were open. We saw many nicely dressed people streaming towards the Market Square. Many of these were groups of nuns in habits of several different colors and styles.
In addition, there is some VIP staying at the Sheraton. This has shut down some of the streets and there are Police officers everywhere. So, I figured that this was about the best time possible to get cash from the ATM. Everywhere you could see at least four policemen. Might as well take advantage of the situation.
Around 9:30, we caught a taxi up to the Market Square area that includes the Cloth Hall and Saint Mary’s church. When we had visited this area on the Feast of Saint Stanislaus it was packed with people. You may remember that “M” was so freaked out that he kept climbing Lawrence like a tree. Therefore, we were pleased to see far fewer people today. Unlike the previous visit, all of the stores and shops were closed. We went on a 30-minute sightseeing tour via horse and carriage and when we returned to the square, we were amazed to see that thousands and thousands of people had arrived for religious services while we were gone. Nuns, novices, brothers, and priests numbered over 1,000 of this crowd. I couldn’t help but wonder if there were more nuns in that square today than in the whole of America. We enjoyed watching the festival and being part of it.
This whole thing would be like Quincy Market and Government Center in Boston filling up with Catholics on a Thursday to celebrate a feast day. Imagine all of the stores, offices, and schools closing. Poland is a country united by its religion. We only have such crowds gather if one of our sports teams wins something.
We had a leisurely lunch of pizza (not a Polish specialty), found a good Internet café, and did a little more sightseeing. There was a movie theatre and we had hoped to see the new Harry Potter movie, figuring that it would be in English with Polish sub-titles. However, we were told that it is in Polish. If we had already seen it, we may have gone to see it again, but we skipped it and headed back to the hotel. I think that the huge crowds tired us out.
As we re-charge our batteries for the second half of this trip, I cannot tell you how wonderful it has been to have the hotel pool at our disposal. Ross will stay in a pool as long as you let him. He just doesn’t seem to ever tire of it. We let him stay in for well over an hour today. He loved it and we all needed it.
Other than playing chess, having dinner, studying our language books, and writing, we really didn’t do much for the rest of the day. It seems that we are still more tired than I wish we were at this point. I am hopeful that we are feeling more energetic by the time we pick up the children on Saturday. Although we are waiting in a nice place, waiting is what we are doing. We are waiting for the passports and court papers to be ready. However, that day is coming and we are only a week away from home.
We won’t be able to post again until late Sunday night (Polish time) about our reunion with the children. We know that you are all eager to hear about that and what happens when the children meet their new drugi brat and Babchi Grammy. We are quite eager to experience it ourselves.
This is Lawrence
Poland really is a Catholic country. Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi and therefore a national holiday. Frankly, this feast goes mostly unnoticed by American Catholics and most Americans have never heard of it and may wonder why a feast day is named for a city in Texas. Poland is NOT America. We figured that the shops at the Cloth Hall would be open for the tourists, but only places to buy food were open. That’s it.
The hotel is packed mostly with people traveling on tour busses. We were very happy to have had breakfast before the majority of them sprang to action. After breakfast, we went for a very nice walk along cobblestone streets and were not surprised that none of the shops were open. We saw many nicely dressed people streaming towards the Market Square. Many of these were groups of nuns in habits of several different colors and styles.
In addition, there is some VIP staying at the Sheraton. This has shut down some of the streets and there are Police officers everywhere. So, I figured that this was about the best time possible to get cash from the ATM. Everywhere you could see at least four policemen. Might as well take advantage of the situation.
Around 9:30, we caught a taxi up to the Market Square area that includes the Cloth Hall and Saint Mary’s church. When we had visited this area on the Feast of Saint Stanislaus it was packed with people. You may remember that “M” was so freaked out that he kept climbing Lawrence like a tree. Therefore, we were pleased to see far fewer people today. Unlike the previous visit, all of the stores and shops were closed. We went on a 30-minute sightseeing tour via horse and carriage and when we returned to the square, we were amazed to see that thousands and thousands of people had arrived for religious services while we were gone. Nuns, novices, brothers, and priests numbered over 1,000 of this crowd. I couldn’t help but wonder if there were more nuns in that square today than in the whole of America. We enjoyed watching the festival and being part of it.
This whole thing would be like Quincy Market and Government Center in Boston filling up with Catholics on a Thursday to celebrate a feast day. Imagine all of the stores, offices, and schools closing. Poland is a country united by its religion. We only have such crowds gather if one of our sports teams wins something.
We had a leisurely lunch of pizza (not a Polish specialty), found a good Internet café, and did a little more sightseeing. There was a movie theatre and we had hoped to see the new Harry Potter movie, figuring that it would be in English with Polish sub-titles. However, we were told that it is in Polish. If we had already seen it, we may have gone to see it again, but we skipped it and headed back to the hotel. I think that the huge crowds tired us out.
As we re-charge our batteries for the second half of this trip, I cannot tell you how wonderful it has been to have the hotel pool at our disposal. Ross will stay in a pool as long as you let him. He just doesn’t seem to ever tire of it. We let him stay in for well over an hour today. He loved it and we all needed it.
Other than playing chess, having dinner, studying our language books, and writing, we really didn’t do much for the rest of the day. It seems that we are still more tired than I wish we were at this point. I am hopeful that we are feeling more energetic by the time we pick up the children on Saturday. Although we are waiting in a nice place, waiting is what we are doing. We are waiting for the passports and court papers to be ready. However, that day is coming and we are only a week away from home.
We won’t be able to post again until late Sunday night (Polish time) about our reunion with the children. We know that you are all eager to hear about that and what happens when the children meet their new drugi brat and Babchi Grammy. We are quite eager to experience it ourselves.