Prepping for Poland

It's hard to believe we are really going to Poland later this month. We have been talking and dreaming about doing this trip for years. As a kid I was vaguely curious about my Polish heritage but I didn't think I would ever go there, or even want to go there. Poland was behind the Iron Curtain and had been for at least a generation, and the Soviet empire seemed likely to last a few hundred years. Going to Poland was about as plausible as going to the moon. Air travel was expensive and all my vacations growing up had been to places we could drive, so it seemed like something extravagant that only rich people would consider doing. And besides, why would we want to go there? It was just some flat farmland with drab, communist cities and a few distant cousins that Dad had corresponded with briefly in the '80s.

My aunt Christine Moore has been corresponding with the cousins in Poland for years now in her genealogy efforts and she actually visited there once. They are my Grandpa Szymanski's cousins and their families and they still live on the ancestral farm. It seems odd that they are so aware of a branch of their family that broke off and moved to the US, while most of us know nothing about them. I wonder if we will be like celebrities when we go there. I am looking forward to seeing what their life is like and staying with them for a few days.

There are a few things I'm nervous about. I will be the only male on the trip with Chris, her daughter Cathy, Chris' cousin Jacqueline Demes and her daughter plus Rachelle, Brita and Leah. I hope we all get along being in close quarters for 2 weeks. I'm nervous about navigating around a country where nobody speaks the language. I have been studying Polish with an internet site called Babbel for about a year now, but I have zero confidence that I could actually understand anything spoken to me. Google translate is great for short phrases, and in places with Wifi, but a little frustrating for real conversations. I'm also nervous about our itinerary, wondering if it's too ambitious with not enough down time. We are also a little nervous about our lodging because we are renting flats using Air BNB and VRBO. I hope we like the places. Whatever happens it will be an unforgettable adventure.