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July 31 - This morning I had to get up at 7am in order to make the 8:42am train to Debica. I'm going there to visit the town where my great grandfather was born, and to take pictures for my grandmother since she has never been to Poland. I left around 7:50am and thought I had plenty of time to make it to the train station. But it was raining and I am walking slower with my hurting feet, so I picked up the pace and got there just three minutes before the train would leave. I got the ticket and found out the train was ten minutes late, which was great since I never would have made it to the platform in time. I sat around there waiting and finally decided to ask someone if the train coming in was the right one. The guy I picked spoke English well, and told me he was going to be on the same train, so I said I would just follow him. We talked for a bit and he listened to the announcements and told me we had to switch platforms. There is no way I would have known this otherwise, as it was only in Polish, so it was really fortunate for me that I chose him to ask in the first place. His name is Kryzstof. The train took about 90 minutes and the rain had stopped before we arrived. Then, even more fortunately more me, because our train was late leaving, he missed his connecting train and would have a couple hours of down time in Debica. Even better, he went to high school there, so he offered to show me around. Yes! I really had no more than a simple google map of the town, and he was able to bring me around. We saw the town hall, the old church, the main square and the mall. Much of the town has been rebuilt since it was destroyed in the war, but it was nice to see the beautiful church that would have been there for hundreds of years before my great grandfather, knowing he might even have been baptized there. We had some lunch and then it was back to the train station. Coincidentally, he was on my train back to Krakow for the first ten minutes of the journey, along with a friend he met at the train station. We said good bye and I slept a good deal of the way back to Krakow.

In Krakow I walked around a bit through the main square and then decided to head back for an early night. My feet hurt and I was a bit tired. I picked up some frozen vegetables for dinner and headed home. I had a nice chat with Aga, who works here, and met a few new people at the hostel. One of them ordered an enormous pizza and we all had some. Delicious.

I'm glad I had the chance to see the place where part of my family comes from, and that I am able to bring back pictures for my grandmother, so she can see where her father lived.

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