We were up early to visit the Sisters of Divine Mercy center. It was only about a block from our hotel, but we had to carry our bags there of course. I believe Sister Faustia lived there and is buried there. We went inside the Basilica and I snuck a few photos by positioning myself behind a pillar so the security guard couldn't see me.
It was large and beautiful. There were probably 8 confessionals and they weren't very private. You just had to talk quietly to the priest. That's okay, though, I don't speak Polish.
Next we went up the tower of the Basilica and had a great view of the surroundings.
Here you can see that they are building Pope John Paul II's Basilica just across the way.
After the Basilica, we went below it to see the various chapels. There were about 6 different chapels with different art styles and focuses. It was really neat to see this variety because they are right next to each other.
We said goodbye to Krakow and took another hot bus ride this time to Czestochowa. I don't know much of the history, but apparently when the Swedes invaded in the early 1700s they managed to capture everything in the city except for the castle/monastery despite heavy attacks. It helped inspire the people to take back the city. This monastery houses the very old, famous icon called the Black Madonna. The history of it is contested, but in the 1430s when the Hussites invaded, the slashed the painting on Mary's cheek twice. No matter how the tried, the painting could not be removed from the site and was left in Poland. The slashes still remain on the painting today. It is a pilgrimage site for many Poles in the summer. I asked Emil if we were cheating by taking a bus and then waking the 25 minutes to the monastery. He said plenty of people bus in, but he has in fact made the pilgrimage. We had another tasty Polish lunch in the cafeteria. A skinny, messy looking lady was going around all the tables asking people for what I thought was food. When she got to us, Emil told me she was asking for money. Yeah, probably not going to happen in a cafeteria despite the religious significance.
The grounds were very pretty and all of course devoted to mysteries of the rosary and stations of the cross. We went inside and were lucky enough to see the icon uncovered. Apparently it is usually covered throughout the day. There were TONS of people there and the chapel was lined with old crutches and canes and rosaries from people I assumed had been healed by this experience. There were quite a few families (or maybe just moms) with their loud, mentally challenged children hoping for a blessing. Emil and I stood in line to process around the image and behind it. It is tradition to walk on your knees and it hurt a lot, but I enjoyed it because I knew so many had done just this before me. Here is the crowd around the icon followed by my best picture of it.
We then went to the Basilica there and it was much more lavish but was way more empty.
Next we went up the tower, and this picture shows all the seating on the lawn for the masses held from the balcony. Also, you can see the long street leading to the monastery that is the final stretch for the pilgrims.
Up at the top of the tower, people had carved various things in the old bricks and I really like the way it all looked despite the fact that it was essentially just graffiti.
Here is the tower from the outside. We only went about 2/3 of the way up as the rest is reserved for the bell tower and such.
We walked around the edges of the maybe 35 foot wall and saw each of the stations of the cross. They were tucked away in the trees. Emil kept talking about the Swedes storming these very walls and it was neat to walk this path.
We walked back to the train station were we had stored our bags, I said a hurried goodbye to Emil as his train was leaving and boom... I was alone in Poland. My train to Warsaw was late on track 2, but it seemed there were two track 2's. I asked the conductor of the train that pulled in on time into the other track 2 if this was the correct train to Warsaw. Through very broken English he said over a huge handlebar mustache "20 ... minutes ... more..." Ah ok, yes, just as the sign said, my train was 20 minutes late. When it arrived, I found I was in the car that had two rows of seats in each cabin facing each other. There was only one girl in the cabin and she was sitting in my window seat. I let her stay there, I didn't care. I was just happy to be on the right train going to Warsaw... my final destination.
I asked her about getting to Warsaw and her English was fairly broken and heavily accented, but I understood her. She was super trendy and slim with short blonde hair under a Michael Jackson black hat. She never took off her big black sunglasses. She had a bunch of bracelets and jewelry and was reading a magazine like Cosmopolitan. It was in Polish, though. I blogged for a little while and just enjoyed being on an old school train. Again, the countryside was beautiful and serene. Finally after one announcement, I ask her what they said and she described to me that I needed to go the second Warsaw stop. There was Warsaw east and then my stop, Warsaw central. I said they talk so quickly and she said "Yes, yes!" and then imitated the announcement with a flurry of Polish. It was funny. So we got to talking and she goes to school somewhere in the east as a dietitian. I didn't fully understand why she was going back because her English wasn't great. She was stumble for words and get pretty embarrassed and it was super cute. I think she was going back to visit her family and have some work service stamped off for her program. But the way she was talking made it seem like she was kinda just going to phone it in and get a stamp for not doing much. She asked about my travels and I gave her a very short explanation. She said her sister was always asking her to travel, but she had so little money because "I need to stop buying this and this" as she pointed to her bracelets and jewelry and laughed. I laughed a lot because it's super funny to hear someone in a hella thick accent tease themselves. She started packing up all her shopping bags and stuff before any announcement was made. She told me she gets very nervous that she's going to miss her stop or not make the doors before they close. I reassured her that she has plenty of time, but she was still a little nervous. Finally, her stop came, she nicely said goodbye and good travels and left the cabin. I didn't see her down on the train station, but I was sure she got off. A bit later though, I heard someone running down the car and ZOOM! she went by holding her hat running and smiling. I laughed because sure enough, she had gone the wrong way and stayed on the train longer than she wanted. She made it off and everything was fine, but it cracked me up to see her running past the cabin she had left a minute before.
I stupidly forgot to write down the name of my hotel for the night in Warsaw, so I had to seek out a quick sandwich shop that had wifi. It took me probably an hour to walk to the hotel because I kept getting turned around and mixed up and lost. When I finally got to the hotel, I was shocked. It was the nicest place I stayed in the whole trip. It was called the Platinum Residence and it seemed like it was meant for longer term business travelers. It had a little hallway table, a living room with a sofa and a chair, a kitchen table, a fridge and stove and microwave, a big balcony and a separate bedroom. It was crazy for just over $60 a night! That was a heck of a deal.
I went down to a pizza place that was in the mall next to the hotel (the hotel had two towers and this mall was between them). I was eating my fried egg and sausage pizza when these two incredibly drunk, super slutty looking girls came in with slightly older, fatter, nearly sober guys. One girl knocked over this big planter and the plant and dirt went all over the floor. The other girl had huge heels on and her shorts were so short I was looking at the bottom of her small butt. They wandered around for a bit and then went back out the way they came. The one that knocked the planter over was staggering so bad that she did the classic drunk girl thing and knelt down by another planter. It was funny and embarrassing and I was REALLY hoping for a nice big puke, but I didn't get it. Her friend helped her up. I considered the possibility they were working girls. I ended up staying up too late watching TV, but it was a busy day and I was glad I didn't need to be up early on Friday.
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