Our last stop on our two week long trip was in the Southeastern part of the Czech Republic at my relatives' house. We made one vital stop on our way through the Czech Republic at the Plzensky Prazdroj (Pilsner Urquell) brewery in the town of Plzen. While German and American breweries are often associated with Pilsner styles of beer, it was the Czechs who originally developed it and in my opinion, continue to produce the best (and of course the style of beer is derived from the name of the town). We arrived at the brewery in time for supper and [View Full Entry]

---

---

After leaving Germany, we headed Northwest to visit one of Sylvia's good friends in Rotterdam. On our way, I made Sylvia stop in the city of Arnhem so I could track down some World War II history. The city of Arnhem, as well as the nearby cities of Nijmegen and Eindhoven, contained bridges that were important Rhine river crossings. The allies attempted to capture these bridges in Operation Market Garden. This attack was the plot of the movie "A Bridge Too Far." After our time in Arnhem, we arrived at our destination. Rotterdam is famous for being the busiest seaport in [View Full Entry]

---

---

Our next stop on the trip through Germany was to the town of Lennestadt to see my friend Martin. He was an exchange student in Harvard during my senior year and we became good friends. He and I played a lot of table tennis together and even won gold medals as doubles partners at the Cornhusker State Games. I last saw him two years ago when I was in the Czech Republic and we met in Prague. As we drove towards Lennestadt, we made an unexpected, but very interesting stop. I noticed that Frankenstein castle was only 4km off of the [View Full Entry]

---

---

The main purpose of our trip to Germany was to visit Sylvia's good friend Janka. She and Sylvia were the only two Slovaks at the University of Nebraska Kearney, which is where I met both of them. They have known each other for 12 years and went to high school together in Kosice. Janka is recently married to Fred, and they live in Ludwigsburg which is very near Stuttgart. The one idea I had about this region of Germany was expensive cars, and it became clear quickly that it is very true. Germans in this region take their cars seriously. Stuttgart [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sylvia and I set out on a two week long trip through Germany, Holland, and the Czech Republic. Our first stop, and one I had been looking forward to for a long time, was in the village of Furth im Wald, which is the town where some of my ancestors on my mother's side (Webers) emigrated from over 100 years ago. The village is situated just a few kilometers away from the Czech border in the region of Bavaria. Furth im Wald is beautiful old walled city that is famous for its summer fesitval that recreates a legend about the slaying [View Full Entry]

---

---

Today Sylvia, her cousin Marian, and I went to Detva for one of the best known and largest Slovak folk festivals. Think of it as Czech Days in Wilber, NE, but with some authenticity. The festival features authentic Slovak crafts, music, and folk performances. It is encouraging to see that these traditions are being valued once again and that younger people are willing to learn them, especially since many of the folk skills would be lost forever if not passed on. It was also encouraging to see there is a growing audience for such demonstration [View Full Entry]

---

---

On Friday, we drove to Kosice to attend the graduation of Sylvia's cousin Ka. She has been studying in vet school for the last six years at a bilingual Slovak/English program. The graduation was held in the town theatre which has been very well restored. The graduation ceremony was rather short, but it might have been half as long if everything was not repeated in English. It is quite common for flowers to be given to graduates (and on just about every other imaginable occasion in Slovakia), so most everyone in the theatre held flowers. After the ceremony we met outside [View Full Entry]

---

---

The last day of our trip through Poland, we stopped in the town of Oscwiecim, which in German is Auschwitz. It is of course home to the famous Nazi concentration camps. It is not always clear from the information seen in a TV documentary or read in a book, but there are actually three Auschwitz camps close to one another. The main camp has been preserved and turned into the Auschwitz museum. It was the sight of approximately 70,000 deaths, while the nearby Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was the sight of several hundred thousand. The camp is not a happy place to [View Full Entry]

---

---

After Gdansk, we started back south toward Slovakia. Our first stop was the city of Kolobrzeg, which is one of the most popular health resorts on the Baltic coast. It is also a favorite place for Germans to vacation because of its proximity to Germany. The city is known for its famous lighthouse and also for some of its World War II history. Traditionally, Kolobrzeg has been the sight of Poland's "wedding to the sea" which was a ceremony originally performed in 1920 to celebrate Polands' restored access to the ocean which had been lost after the partitioning of Poland. The [View Full Entry]

---

---

Our next stop on the Poland trip took us all the way to the northern coast and the city of Gdansk. The city is an important Polish port and is the location of the famous Lenin shipyards where the Solidarity movement began. Lech Walesa worked here as an electrician in the 1970s and in 1980, he helped form Solidarnosc as a trade union to combat communism in Poland. We had nice weather and walked throughout the old part of the city which, like a lot of the larger ones in Poland, was bombed and suffered a lot of damage. It is [View Full Entry]

---

---