It's begun:

 Gdansk


Well, I am here!  Before you start reading I have to say: I am extremely tired.  Like running on very little sleep for the last 48 hours tired, so I am not going to review this for punctuation, spelling and idh;io errroijiuohs,

Thank you for understanding :)

I'm going to break this down so you can skip or know where to go back to:

What I Packed:
For those of you who are concerned about my constant losing or forgetting here is my list.  You may tell me what I forgot or what I am likely to lose, but I think you will be impressed by the light yet effective packing...It's all in two carry-ons...and smaller ones too!

coat

long underwear

2 pair smart wool socks

snacks - milky way, special k bars, fruit strips

Emergen-C

face warmer

hat

outer gloves

umbrella

hand/foot warmers

stocking

passport

journal

pens, pencils, sticky notes

camera

deodorant

small toothpaste

lotion

toothbrush

cherry blossom spritz 

razor

advil PM

excedrin tension headache

brush

face wipes

pj pants

pj shirt

blue bra

SMU long sleeved shirt**

navy long sleeved shirt**

folded backpack

inner gloves

camera charger/bryan's pill

everything I brought...

camera case

slippers

3 jeans

white fleece

camera case

eye cover

cough drops

detergent 

phone

phone charger

3 hair bands

converter

padded sports bra

2 t-shirts + white long sleeved shirt

brown shirt

make-up

discman

computer charger

9 pairs of underwear

bananagrams

swimsuit

bug spray

Traveling
After saying goodbye to Bryan and going through security with no problems (even though I forgot to remove my liquids from my backpack!) I headed to my gate.  The American Airlines flight to Frankfurt, Germany was to start boarding at 2:40 and I was almost three hours early.  I sat down to work on stuff-or play on facebook-and was sad to see DFW still has no free wifi.  This is silly.  I called my parents, sister and brother (HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUSTIN!) and then sat and watched sky chef load the food onto the aircraft.  It was about 2:15 when the voice came on the intercom and told us our plane was broken and to stand by.  This is where the story could end tragically, but I have great news--American found us a new plane, removed all the food and luggage already loaded from the first and taxied it to the next plane and got us in 5 minutes early to Frankfurt.  Sure the plane was crappy and only had a couple TV's and didn't serve us free wine like all my friends on the Lufthansa flight, but boy did they make up for it.

On the flight I was seated next to an army guy who was being sent to Germany instead of Afghanistan where he will take care of our injured soldiers.  He is not thrilled about this change of plans.  He was very kind but had extremely large elbows and I felt a bit cramped between them and the window.  Our meals were excellent, Cars II was not as good and with about 6 1/2 hours to go I popped half a sleeping pill and dozed off.  I woke up to the smell of coffee and croissants and we had just an hour and a half left.

When we (I should mention I was traveling with only two other people from the trip, the rest travelled lufthansa or went to Berlin earlier) got into Frankfurt we began by waiting in multiple wrong lines.  Unable to read the signs and without any tickets to our next flight we scurried around the airport looking for customs and where we were supposed to be.  Many people laughed at us but eventually we made it to our gate and met up with the rest of the group.

About the group:
We are a group of 21-
9 students (mix of graduate and undergraduate)
4 SMU professors
2 SMU administrators
3 Dallas Professors
The head of the Dallas Holocaust Museum
An interested community member
A father of a student

back to traveling...

My Polish Snack

So we had to go outside and take a bus to our tiny plane and finally we were off.  The final lap of the trip...sort of.  The plane ride was fun. My seat was next to one of the SMU professors whose son graduated from the theatre program the year before I got there.  I know of him and could probably recognize him on the street though he would have no idea of my identity, but I enjoyed speaking as if we had some kind of decent friendship and had spoken to each other.  I then turned on my Polish CD and worked a bit on that.  The man behind me fell asleep and snored extremely loud.  Eventually we were given snacks and a drink.  I had water (wodah sounds like VOH-dah) to drink and the snack was this peculiar sandwich with a yellow butter but not butter spread and two slices of cucumber.  In the United States this would have been insulting, but in Poland it was delicious.

Gdansk, Poland
Okay, so we got to Gdansk Poland safe and sound and with all the wheels on our plane.  The airport is undergoing some major renovation and is going to be absolutely stunning.  Prettiest airport I think I have ever seen.  We were picked up by a bus driver and tour guide who have been working with our group for a number of years.  The guide was so excited to see us.

On our way to the hotel, we had a talk about Gdansk and the history of Poland.  Poland's history is very complicated and Gdansk's is even more so.  She said young people don't want to study about either because it is too complicated.  So we only got a brief study of it and then we were at our hotel, right near the old part of Gdansk where the ghetto was.  We passed the SS house from the war and the hospital where the Germans removed all the patients and sent them to camps.  We walked around this area and looked at the shops full of amber and the beautiful Catholic Church's all around.  We made it to the Motlawa River, which was the cause for much of Gdansk's darker history and decided we were starving for dinner.  It looked and felt like 9:30 pm but it was only 4:00.  Eventually we found a place that was open and went in.

Dinner

Our very Polish Restaurant

Dinner was incredible.  The inside looked like a mix of a castle and my grandpa's elephant room completely decorated in Polish historical things.  I saw a samovar my mom would have died for.  We were in our whole group and were extremely early to be eating dinner but the staff was extremely pleasant and fit us all at two round tables.  For dinner I had hot borscht.  My goodness.  It was good.  I can't wait for more.  At the end of our meal a woman came and played the accordion and sang "Somewhere my Love" from Dr. Schivago.  My dad would have loved it.

Tomorrow
Tomorrow we are off to Stutthof camp and then we will take a train to Warsaw in the afternoon.  After today the trip is all Holocaust sites, that is the majority of what I will be writing about from now on.

***Thanks for reading!!!