Our next stop was Poznan, Poland, the hometown of Sarah's paternal great grandfather. It's a pretty large city, but we spent most of our time there in the city square, where there were lots of shops and restaurants.

Above and below: brightly colored row houses surrounding the square.


Above and below: some more row houses.


Above: apartment buildings more typical of where the locals live.

Below: a very disappointing Polish pastry. I was hoping to find some traditional Paczki (filled doughnuts made on the eve of Lent every year to get rid of any remaining lard, sugar, eggs, and fruit--extremely tasty--if you've never had one, you've wasted your life), but as it turns out, they save all their fat and sugar for Fat Tuesday, and this Paczek (the singular of Paczki) was only a regular Polish doughnut. Unfortunate.


Up for tomorrow: Wroclaw, Poland.

Our trip through Poland helped me realize how much of Michigan culture has been influenced by Polish culture and the Eastern European immigrants who have settled in the Detroit area in the last 200 years or so. Below are some authentic pierogies, a type of dumpling that I ate frequently as a child.


Above: Europe's longest wooden pier. Located in a town called Sopot, Poland, on the Bay of Gdansk in the Baltic, which we just happened upon, but which ended up being a big tourist destination and a great place to stay.

Below: the view opposite the pier.


Above: local pigeon in Gdansk.

Below: "Lody" is the Polish word for ice cream, and there were stands EVERYWHERE in Gdansk selling Lody Amerykanskie: 'American-style' soft serve in towering cones. I hadn't ever seen anything quite like it, but I'll take their word for it.


Above: rustic pharmacy sign.

Below: those sunflowers were the size of large dinner plates. They were being sold at a farmer's stand for about a dollar, and people were buying them, carrying them around, and picking out the seeds one by one to eat as they walked.


Above: we saw lots of multi-colored row houses.

Below: lots of tourists.


Above: part of the harbor in Gdansk. The tall building in the back that sticks out above the water is actually a Medieval port crane built centuries ago that's a symbol for the city.

Below: waiting in line for pictures.



Above: this is actually a working mechanical calendar that we happened upon in a cathedral. It would have been incredible technology when in was installed hundreds of years ago--and amazingly, it's still working.

Next up: central Poland.

Today's installment brings us to Warnemunde, Germany, a Baltic Sea hotspot that began as a fishing village around the year 1200. Today, it's sandy beaches are by tourists and northern European cruise ships.


Above: boardwalk to the beach.

Below: lighthouse waiting for a storm.


Above: some of the many tourists.

Below: the crowded harbor.


Above: Sarah's dream dinner.

Below: feeding/scaring the pigeons.


Above: not as many tourists in town.

Up next: Gdansk, Poland.

Here's a sampling of what we saw in Berlin. I'll post more pictures from other locales at a later time.


Above: The 'last' Cremlin flag (the fine print on the sign notes that it's a replica).

Below: Part of the Berlin wall. We were standing on the East German (communist) side.


Above: Sarah at "Checkpoint Charlie" (the former border between East and West Germany).

Below: the entrance to the Reichstag (the German parliment building, built in 1894).


Above: the line at the Reichstag (where's Waldo?)

Below: the Brandenburg Gate (symbol of Berlin, built 1788; where JFK said he was a Berliner/Jelly Doughnut; where Regan said, "Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall!").


Above: Symbolic stones at the Holocaust memorial.

For quite some time, Sarah and I have both been promising to post pictures. Today is not that day, but there's a good probability that I'll be able to upload some in the next 24 hours. So that's something to look forward to.

Yesterday evening we made it back to France without any major traveling hiccups. I even got to add another new country to my list, as our route back took us across (in 15 minutes) the width of the tiny principality of Lichtenstein, a country known primarily for nothing. And also for being a tax haven.

Pictures soon!

Sarah and I are in our hotel room outside Poznan, Poland, and I was finally able to wrestle the laptop away from all interested parties. (I think we probably should have brought 5 or 6 of them). Sarah told you all about our trip to Berlin, so I won't bore you with any more of the details. We've been traveling in Poland for the last few days (before that, we were on Germany's Baltic coast, towns called Rostock and Warnemunde), and it's been pretty interesting so far. A few things have surprised me:

1. The roads: pretty nice quality pavement, but many the highways/freeways/expressways are curvy, two-lane country roads with 43 mile-per-hour (70 k/h) speed limits and lots of construction stops that cause major traffic back ups. (I guess there's no getting around summer construction projects).

2. The scenery: much of Poland's countryside is dominated with grain fields covering rolling hills. Very bucolic. Very midwestern.

3. The exchange rate: very favorable to the dollar. Last night, we stayed in the nicest hotel room in which I've ever stayed--total cost: about $65.

4. The tourists: I think we're the only American's I've come across, but there have been lots of non-native Polish people and Northern Europeans wandering around. A few nights ago, we were in Gdansk, Poland, and Sopot, Poland (two touristy areas on Poland's Baltic coast), and there were 100's or maybe 1,000's of people milling on every street.

Later this morning, we're going to head to Wroclaw, Poland, and after spending the night there, we'll go on to Bratislava, Slovakia and then finally back to France. I just heard an ominous knock on the door signaling that it's time to go, so I'll post more (including pictures at some point) when I get a chance.

Thursday morning, we made it to the Detroit airport without any hassle. After we found our gate, we were able to board a flight that left about an hour earlier than our original one, so we ended up in Philadelphia a bit earlier than we'd originally planned.

We ate overpriced hamburgers in the food court ($1.09! What is this, Russia?!) and then settled in at our new gate to wait for our flight to Frankfurt. A few minutes after we sat down, two guys about our age sat within earshot of us and chatted loudly about current events (their drug use, sexual conquests, etc.) as they listened to explicit music videos on their laptop.

Thanks for sharing guys!

At first, Sarah and I just rolled our eyes every once in a while, but the fellas seemed to get only louder and more explicit as they continued. So when one of them clicked his tongue at me, said "Hey Buddy," and thrust his laptop chord at me (presumably so I would plug it into the plug that just so happened to be on the wall by my head), I decided that I'd had enough. The conversation went something like this:

Me: (Smiling) First of all, I'm not a horse. Also, it would be great if you guys could tone it down just a little bit.

Fella A: (Flabbergasted) Are you serious?
Fella B: (Angry) No, he's serious?

Me: (Still smiling) No, I'm serious.

Fella B: You $%&$ &%Fella B: You $%&$ &%$&! I'll *$%^ your *(*& with my *&^% if you don't *!@#^ plug in the chord.
amp;! I'll *$%^ your *(*& with my *&^% if you don't *!@#^ plug in the chord.

Me: (No longer smiling)

Fella B: Fine! Give me the *&^&*&% chord, I'll plug it in. (Walks toward me, and reaches around my neck to plug in the chord).

Me: (Pushes his hand away).

Fella B: You *$% what the %%$# are you doing!!! (Reaches toward my neck several more times).

Me: (Pushes his hand away several more times). I'm in an airport, let's not escalate this any farther by punching this guy in the crotch.

Fella B: Security!!!!

Me: Wait, you're calling security? That's sounds great. Yes, let's get them over here.

Fella A: No! Let's just get move somewhere else.
Fella B: (Moving even closer to my face) You're lucky my friend is here, or I'd punch you right now.

Me: Not unless you've got a cannon in that gut you're sticking in my face. Get away from me.

Fella B: (Not moving) You ignorant &%%$%. I'll **&$ your *$#@#@!!!!
Fella A: Common, let's go!

Me: He's right, I would hurt you very badly with my fists because I know you aren't armed because this is an airport. Get away from me right now!
Fella B: (Walking away) I bet the only reason your girlfriend stays with you is because you beat her. Yeah, you probably beat her! You do don't you!

At this point, I decided that putting him in a time out would probably serve to extinguish his behavior most quickly, so Sarah and I stopped looking and refused to acknowledge them further. He yelled a little more across the concourse but quieted down within a few minutes.

About an hour later, Fella A came over an apologized, but I don't really think he meant it because about an hour after that, he moved 'discretely' to a position about 1o feet away from us while Fella B 'discretely' took his picture with us in the background.

I'm sure he's probably blogging about us right now. Small world.

There hasn't been much fodder for the blog as of late. Vacation has been filled with paperwork for the transition to the South, and it's really not quite as much fun as you might imagine. Here's a synopsis:

Trip to the South: hot; lots of driving; tiresome.
Moving out of the apartment: packing; lots of cat snot; not packing cat snot.
Paperwork: repetitious; annoying; tiresome.
Golf: 82, 84, 79, 81; one eagle on a par four.
Stress level: pretty high; looking forward to a vacation from the vacation.

Sarah and I leave for Europe in the morning. I'll try and post pictures and commentary if we can find Internet connections.

We're still doing lots of packing and cleaning. We tackled the kitchen and bathroom today. Sounds like fun, right? Well, have you ever considered the possibility that

As it turns out, when it comes to the mortgage and house purchase, we have a little less to worry about than we were initially thought. The looming deadline that worried us so fervently was actually one for our protection and gives no power to the seller to cancel the deal (as we thought it did). Oops.

What's really going on is that we have until July 11 (renegotiated to July 16) to see if we're actually going to be approved for our loan. If it turns out that we're not going to get approved, we can back out of the deal with no penalty to us. After the deadline, if it turns out that we can't get financing for some odd reason (e.g., Sarah's ISD ceases to exist), then we will forfeit our deposit ($2,000). The seller, on the other hand, is stuck with us until closing.

Now all we need is for the ISD to verify that Sarah is actually employed. You wouldn't think it would be all that difficult.