Krakow & Oświęcim (Auschwitz), Poland/Berlin, Germany/Boleslawiek, Poland
May 25-May 28, 2007


We left Friday night for Krakow, Poland. Heather picked me up from work with the car packed and what was supposed to be a 5 1/2 hour drive turned out to be much quicker. There are no highways from Budapest to Krkaow, so we expected to be behind a number of trucks on the two lane roads. Fortunately for my skillful driving, we were able to avoid most of that, and pass those that did get in our way. We made it to just outside of Krakow in a little over four hours. We found a hotel on the side of the road where we spent the night. I had to call a Polish collegue from work to translate the room rates and order us some food, but other than that it was pretty easy this first night, particularly versus expectations.
We woke up early, ate breakfast and drove the last few minutes into Krakow. We quickly found the castle complex (Wawel Hill) where the royal palace and cathedral sit above the city and overlooking the Vistula river. This was the Polish royal residence for 500 years until the capital was moved to Warsaw. The nazis overtook it and used it for their local headquarters during World War II. We toured the grounds, including the 14th Century Cathedral, which was home to Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, better known to the world as Pope John Paul II. I walked Katie up to the top of the bell tower (Sigismund Tower), which houses 4 large bells, including the largest in the country.
From the castle complex we made the short walk to the old town square, Europe's largest medievel market square (Rynek Glowny). In the middle of the square is a large indoor marketplace with stalls selling a variety of crafts, most of which seemed to relate to the Pope. On another end of the market square is St. Mary's, a 13th century Gothic church. Every hour at the top of the bell tower of this church is a re-enactment of the bell tower's trumpeteer who plays a broken-off solo, re-enacting the demise of the 13th century trumpeteer who was shot in the throat with an arrow mid-solo while warning the town of a Tatar invasion.
We walked back to the car and decided to drive over to the Jewish quarter where Oskar Schindler's factory used to be located. Unofrtunately, after driving around for a while, we gave up trying to locate it and headed to Oświęcim, a town about 45 minutes West of Krakow, better known by the German name, Auschwitz. We were planning on taking separate tours, first Heather, then me, while one of us waited in the car with the girls. Fortunately for us Ashley fell asleep just a few minutes before we arrived at the concentration camp and we were able to make the tour together while Ashley continued to nap in the stroller. We had an interesting walk around the camp. One of us would go inside a building (no strollers allowed inside) and view the exhibits while the other waited outside with Ashley and Katie. Depending on the exhibit we would allow Katie to go in a few of the buildings, where the visuals were not as disturbing. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the buildings either, but reality is one wouldn't really want to anyway. It's unfathomable to think about what went on there 60 years ago.
From Auschwitz we started out driving towards Boleslawiek, Poland, a small city in western Poland that manufactures polish pottery. Heather was smart enough to think that perhaps the factories would not be open on Saturday evening or Sunday, for that matter, so we had to quickly come up with something to do for a day, until they opened back up on Monday morning. Looking at the map we realized that we were "just" 2 hours from Berlin, so we decided to head up there, spend the night, and then spend Sunday in Berlin before driving to Boleslawiek. We made it very quickly to Berlin, drove all around the city looking for a place to stay (with the holiday weekend and the German cup finals this was not an easy task). We finally called Starwood and made a reservation at the Westin Grand Berlin, which was actually perfect because it resides right downtown just minutes walk from the Brandenburg Gate and the Museum mile. We began the night with all four of us in a queen size bed but once the girls were asleep we laid the hotel bathrobes on the floor for the girls to sleep on (the hotel had nothing extra and we didn't ask) with their own blankies. Katie lasted that way for the night, Ashley only a few hours. We woke up and I went out and found a bakery for some breakfast that I brought back to the hotel. We got ready for church and went to Sacrament Meeting at the Berlin Tiergarten Ward. After church we walked downtown "past" the museums and made our way to the Brandenburg Gate. We passed a number of street perfomers, including a couple of old school US and Soviet guards. I purchased an "original" East/West Berlin visa for 1 Euro, allowing entry into East Berlin. Katie and Ashley got visa stamps on their hands allowing entry and also got a picture of the "silver man" pulling her braids (these silver men pop up all around town squares all over Europe, quite amusing actually). The roads were completely blocked off of all traffic, so it was fun to walk around and witness some of the recent history of this city. We visited some of the remnants of the Berlin wall and Checkpoint Charlie. Again, very crazy to think what went on not so many years ago.
From Berlin we drove to Potsdam, where we visited San Souci, King Friedrich II's royal palace, meaning "without care". We were not able to go in (tours were sold out for the day) but we walked the grounds for a while, again with Ashley asleep in the stroller, so very peacefully. Supposedly this was ment to rival Versailles, and although very ornate, neither the palace nor the grounds come close. Evenstill, it was nice to see. Funny how Versailles is the benchmark for comparison of all castles and castle grounds. The other interesting aspect of Potsdam and San Souci is that this is where the Potsdam conference was held, where in 1945 Churchill (replaced by Clement Atlee mid-conference), Truman, and Stalin divided up Germany after the war (even though most had already been agreed upon earlier that year at Yalta). Makes one wonder how different history would be pending an alternative outcome of this division.
We drove back to Boleslawiek Sunday night, spent the night in a local hotel (where Katie and Ashley watched a movie on the ipod), and spent the next morning shopping for Polish pottery. Heather was in heaven for a few hours, while Katie, Ashley, and I just hung out mostly in the car and drove Heather from store to store. She came home with a number of different items from baking dishes to soap holders. Right as we were leaving the city to make the eight hour drive home our ipod dock burned out the fuse, leaving us alone to entertain the girls (not easy). Suprisingly, the girls were wonderful even without the ipod, and except for Katie having to stop every 30 minutes to go to the bathroom, it was a relatively uneventful and easy drive back to Budapest.

Baby Announcement
May 18, 2007

We couldn't wait any longer to share the news with the girls that we were having another baby. The girls had both been praying to have another brother/sister (or as Ashley would say, "another one baby") so Heather created a small treasure hunt to communicate the news. Katie would read the clues (I was actually quite surprised at how well she was reading them!) that lead to four wrapped baby items. Once they found all four presents and unwrapped them, they had to guess what the surprise was, a la Blues Clues. They didn't get it, so we just had to tell them. They were, of course, thrilled, and jumped around yelling "baby, baby, baby!!!". Anyway, our third child is due end of December and we are excited.

Mother's Day Program - Katie's School
May 14, 2007
Katie had her Mother's day performance at her school, where the kids shared different nursery rhymes that they had memorized and songs about Mothers. Katie sang "Star Light, Star Bright". Then the kids presented the pinch pots that they had made for their moms and heart shaped sugar cookies with M&Ms that they all asked their moms if they could eat them themselves. Heather agreed to split it with Katie.

Singapore & Johor Bahru, Malaysia
April 14-May 12, 2007

I had to go to Singapore for a month for work, by myself. Singapore is a nice country and all, but for four weeks and alone it is not the ideal situation. Fortunately I came home for one weekend, and although it was a long flight and travel time, it was completely worth it and made it a much easier ordeal. Except for the terrible heat, Singapore is a wonderful country. The people are tremendously courteous and helpful and it was overall a very pleasant experience. I visited a functioning Indian temple, Chinatown, the famous Raffle's Hotel, and partook of the "Hawker" food centers (basically large outdoor Asian food courts with numerous different booths of Asian cuisine...although the Thai restaurant in Budapest STILL has the best Pad Thai in the world, ironically enough!)
I did cross the "river" to Malaysia for a day and visited Johor Bahru. This was quite a contrast to Singapore, but fun.
Overall it was a good experience work wise and culturally interesting to see a very western mentality in an Asian setting. It was nice to be back in Budapest, though, once the four weeks were complete!

Venice/Padua/Verona/Vicenza, Italy& Zagreb, Croatia
April 5-9, 2007

We were supposed to leave on Friday for our long Easter weekend in Italy, but at noon on Thursday Aaron called me from work and asked if we wanted to leave at 6 that day! So I quickly got our things packed and the car ready to go. 6 turned into 7:30, then after we got gas and got 20 minutes down the highway we realized that we had forgotten the ipod dock in Aaron's car and HAD to go back and get it because we knew the girls wouldn't last very long in the car without movies to watch... and neither would we! So by 8:45 we were on the road again and made it as far as Austria, just before Graz. Unfortunately this would be a little foreshadowing of things to come the next day for us. We decided to make our way to Venice through the Dolomite Mountains so we could take in the scenery and stop in Cortina D'Ampezzo (Veneto, Italy). It is a gorgeous year-round mountain resort, and we found a great place for pizza (our first of many great pizzas in Italy). We then began the very arduous drive down the mountains through hairpin turns like we had never seen before... for at least 3 hours. It seemed to take forever! Aaron loves road trips, and driving is very relaxing for him, but this was not so much that way. Once we got down we started driving to Bolano (?), which is where we heard Italian pottery and ceramics are made that is sold to places like Williams Sonoma and Lenox, etc. We finally found the place, but it was Good Friday, and close to 5 PM, so most factories weren't opened and I couldn't find anything that appealed to me. So we had to back-track to go to the next town we wanted to see, Asolo (also in Veneto). Robert Browning said that this town was "the most beautiful spot I ever was priveleged to see". It is in the hills of Veneto with a gorgeous view of the Dolomite mountains, and a typical upper class retreat from the cities. In the 15th century the queen of Cypress actually relinquished her rule so she could go and live in Asolo. After A LOT of driving we made our way back down towards Podova, where we had reservation for the following night at the Sheraton. We found out they were booked for that night, so we found a pension down the road a bit. Aaron went out and got some pizza and gelato, and we called it a night... finally! It wasn't our most favorite day of traveling that we've ever had. There was much more driving, and we didn't always find what we were looking for!

The next morning we made our way over to Venice! We parked our car at the Tronchetta and took a waterbus along the Grand Canal to Piazza San Marco. On the eastern end of the plaza is the Basilica di San Marco, which had a line that was forever long so we opted not to wait in it to go inside. We imagine it was beautiful and much like a lot of the basilicas we see on every trip we take. It apparantly is the final resting place of St. Mark, whose body was smuggled out of Alexandria by two merchants in 828. We have never seen a more crowded city center... it was jam packed! Maybe because of the holiday weekend, but if not, I wouldn't want to be here in the middle of the Summer! We walked up and down the back streets, and over the waterways for an hour or so. Most of the stores carried Murano glass, which is made on the island of Murano just a ferry boat ride away. We ate at a restaurant outside, and had wonderful tortellini and spaghetti. Aaron got some linguini with clam. We love Italian food! We went back into the plaza to look for my friend Chrissi, and her family. We were supposed to meet at 12:00 there. By 1:00 we hadn't seen them yet, so we decided to move on and take the ferry over to Murano (we found out later that

we missed them by a 1/2 hour). Murano was a beautiful island and the water was so blue! We watched a demonstration of how they make the glass, and we bought a couple of angel ornaments for the girls to add to their ornament collection. We also got more gelato!

Unfortunately we got on the wrong ferry on the way back to Venice, and what should have taken 20 minutes took 2 1/2 hours, and we had to get off on another island and wait for a different ferry.... and fight the crowds. It seemed par for the course on this trip, though. The girls were tired, we were tired, and we were ready to get back to the hotel. We finally got back to the plaza, we bought an oil painting of Venice to add to our picture collection, and decided to head back to our car. We made one quick stop on the way back to the car at the Rialto area, and took pictures from the Rialto Bridge that straddles the Grand Canal. We also got some pizza that looked too good to pass up, so we had that for dinner!

We stayed at the Padova Sheraton and had a nice rest. The next morning was Easter and the Easter Bunny found the girls in our hotel! He left bags of yummy candy, some of which was confiscated early so it wouldn't cause a mess! The girls were so happy to have a little hunt for the candy, and happy that the Easter Bunny didn't forget them.

Sunday was filled with visits to more beautiful Italian cities. First we went to "fair" Verona and saw Casa di Giulietta (Juliet's House), which the city built for all of the lovelorn who come here to breathe the air that Shakespeare's "star-crossed" lovers once did. There is, of course, a balcony. Katie was fasinated with the story of Romeo and Juliet and wanted us to tell it to her again and again. Verona's plaza was also beautiful, complete with a fountain, and we didn't leave without getting more gelato... I think that was the girls' lunch.

From Venice we drove to Vicenza to see the Teatro Olimpico, which is arguably the greatest work of Andrea Palladio (who helped define Western architecture). It is a theatre much like ancient theatres, with a backdrop representing ancient Thebes. The first production took place there in 1585, and there are still performances today.

Our next stop was back in Padova to see Scrovegni Chapel. This chapel is covered with frescos representing the lives of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. Every inch of the chapel is covered with these brilliant paintings, created by Giotto. It reminded us of St. Peter's Basilica, but this one was unique because they only opened and closed the door at certain times for limited air circulation. So you had to have a ticket with a time on it, and your time also included a 15 minute video, which is not so condusive for Katie and Ashley. Aaron kept Ashley outside for the video, and fortunately they let him enter when we went into the chapel. We had to keep the girls very entertained while inside so they would be quiet and not ruin anyone else's experience. But each group of 15 or so was only allowed in the chapel for 15 minutes and then the next group comes in as our group was escorted out and they provide just enough air at a time for this number of people.

As our day was drawing to a close we decided to spend the night somewhere along the way home. We drove as far as Zagreb, Croatia, and got a room in a Four Points Sheraton. It was a large room, with lots of space for the girls to run around in. Something about so much car travel makes them want to bounce around a bit. We spent Monday morning walking through Zagreb's city center, and had a much more pleasant time here this time than we did last September when we drove through with Penny and Joe and couldn't find the city center. It is not an easy city to navigate, and we just couldn't find anything very interesting when we were there last time. We enjoyed a few hours there, then drove the final 3-4 hours home.

Despite some frustrating experiences, we had a wonderful trip to Italy. The Italian people are so wonderful and hospitable. And we of course could not get enough of the pizza and gelato. I am ready for another trip to Italy anytime!