Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007 - Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007

My darling mother (aka Amy O) drove me to the airport. We left about 10, because I was taking my sweet time getting the finals ready for leaving, and got to LAX about 1-130ish (we stopped for lunch). LAX is a miserable hole, and the international terminal - specifically the Lufthansa counters - was packed. I waited in line for long whiles. I was kind of impatient about it, because I wanted to be set and going already, but I managed to entertain myself by playing "spot the fellow traveler." I picked out four of the other people in my group while waiting in line. I checked in and asked the lady for an emergency row seat or somewhere with extra legroom, and she told me there weren't any. She also told me I was second to last to check in (as it turns out, Olivia was last, and she was moved to a legroom spot).

At the gate, I met Sylvia and Sandy, then Dan, Olivia, Al, Christina, Tracy, Millie & Bob, and Rena. There was lots of chit chat, and we actually boarded fairly soon after we all got to the gate. Our plane was humongous. Lufthansa is wonderful; fly them always. It was split-level, with bathrooms and kitchens downstairs (excellent for walking around and taking a stretch). There were 8 seats across (2 aisle 4 aisle 2), and I had two to myself, which was lovely. I popped a couple PMs as soon as we got on the plane, and shortly thereafter the flight attendants came around with free booze. (Fly Lufthansa! All you can drink for free! ... Lufthansa, call me: I'll do your marketing.) We took off over LA about 4pm west coast time (1am central Europe time) and into the sunset (v. dramatic).

I wiped out very quickly after snackage (see above - hooray for Coke Light and smiling crackers). I had intended to watch The Simpsons Movie, but I fell asleep. Magical! Actually, before I fell asleep, I got the Official Dan Musical Tour because I fail at knowing Christian rock. Dan was really kind of hilarious about making sure to share the music in his iPod Shuffle with everyone. No joke. It was awesome. But I did sleep. And I woke up - I don't know how many hours in... probably not very many. Early enough for sunrise, half of Mr. Bean's Holiday (which, I'm sure I don't need to tell you, was horrible), and plenty of flight time remaining. I busted out my iPod and started shuffling through tons of classical & gospel music with the sunrise. It was quite lovely.

We flew over Iceland, Ireland, and England before hitting major cloud cover over the mainland of Europe. I took a bunch of pictures so I could try to figure out where we were. The clouds lifted as we came in over Germany, which is a really beautiful country.

I decided this was Ireland, but it very well could be Iceland.

I think this is England. All those 'lands are hard to identify from 35,000+ feet.

I know this is Germany!

Flying in was beautiful. Germany (as you can see) has the lovely patchwork going with its farms, but it also has these dark, thick forests all over the wheres. We landed in Munich on Wednesday at about 12:30p central Europe time (3:30a PST). We wandered through the airport a bit - it was very empty seeming. I attribute that to the Germans' efficiency (we saw a lot of that - not always good). Tracy and I wandered through some of the shops. Everyone sat around a bit, chatting. We took off from Munich to Krakow around 2(?)... I don't know. The plane was packed. Thankfully, it wasn't a very long flight, but it was mightily uncomfortable. Poland from above looked surprisingly different from Germany. (I'm naive sometimes, it's ok.)

Krakow, especially, looked very industrial. Lots of huge buildings and factories. Probably a testament to the long-term Communist rule, which enslaved the Poles for years and years. Time out: let's research this good and properly because I know the Commies came in basically after the Nazis left, and I think they were around until the Solidarity movement in the early '80s. Ah, yes. 1952-1989. This is a pretty informative Wiki. Anyway. We landed in Krakow at about 4:30p CET (7:30a PST). We didn't do much in the way of customs or anything (didn't in Germany either), which was very interesting. I changed some US dollars into Polish Zloty (which was kind of fantastic, because 1zl is about $0.40), we met up with Fr. Stan, Maryland Mary, and Manchester Mary, and went out to load up into the van & drive to Czestochowa.

Ours is the front bus. It was cozy. Our driver's name is Mark (or Marek), he was from Oswiecim, he has a 16 year old son, he likes to drive fast (also, likes to interrupt when Fr. Stan is talking... hee). We went from JPII International Airport in Krakow straight out to Czestochowa, about a 2-2 1/2 hour drive. Tracy and I sat up front with Christina. My knees didn't fit, so they were helping me figure out how to best position myself. Christina was a genius and recommended a little wrap-around to the (emptyish) seat in front of me. I did get stuck at one point, with my left knee beneath that seat. Good times. Very pretty sunset though!

We stayed at the John Paul II Pilgrim House just outside of the Jasna Gora Monastery in Czestochowa. We arrived at nearly 7. It was quite large. Olivia and I were roommates for the entire trip, which was quite lovely, so we went and started to settle in before our dinner. We had to go for a bit of a trek to find the right dining facility - they had actually set us up at a restaurant between the pilgrim house and the monastery - but it was tasty! I don't remember what we ate exactly. Soup. Pickled veg. Some sort of meat. After dinner, Olivia and I walked through the big church and the Black Madonna chapel. It was very pretty and very crowded. I didn't go, but every night at 9 they have a big prayer service - probably why it was more crowded than I would have expected. We went back up and talked and read for a bit, and then we went to bed.