An excursion to Poland

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Europe is so great for travelling. My host dad took me today to Poland for a day trip. The trip was about an hour and a half by train and cost about 10 € per ticket. It was pretty fascinating. I decided to only bring my disposable camera so the only pictures I have won't be seen on here. You'll just have to ask for them when I get back.

It was a pretty fascinating trip. We met, on the train, a very interesting girl about my age from poland. She was studying PoliSci and Baltic Languages at a University in Berlin, but was from Poland. She had taught herself nearly perfect German just by watching tv from Germany. She spoke about 7 other languages, though unfortunately, only a tiny bit of English. I could not follow all of her conversation with my host Dad, but it seemed pretty interesting. She apparentl had lived all over Poland and a little in Germany and was very interested in the rebuilding of The former East Bloc countries.

To get to there, we took the train to Frankfurt Oder (not the big one that everyone knows, this is another Frankfurt). It is just on the border. It is fascintating to see how the DDR worked. They built a ridiculously huge skyscraper town hall for this tiny little town and yet near the trainstation was a house that had been bombed in the second world war and never rebuilt. No wonder that people wanted out of that system. Its remarkable actually that it lasted as long as it did. Even just across the border to Seelow (the polish town on the other side of the river) Things were markedly different from Germany. It is obviously a much poorer country that used to be much nicer. The town has a beautiful old down town with brightly colored houses and a market, but also run-down mass produced commuinist-style housing. (Though even that is really, really colorful. Houseing in general in europe seems to be more colorful than in the U.S..) The town has a bazaar that is rather large, though on Sunday, the only things you could buy were Cigarettes, candy and flowers. It seems that they smoke quite a bit in Poland. Actually, my host dad said that as you go further East, many more people smoke.

It was a bit sad there and yet there is a lesson for us too. The city was obviously very poor. Even the police cars were run down and old. But the people also know how to enjoy life. The pathway along the river that is the border of POland and Germany was covered with people walking their dogs or just sitting enjoying hte day. These people, especially the older ones have seen more hardships than I can barely imagine. And yet I feel that in a sense, they enjoy life more. This is not to say that they do not want to become better off or that they do not now suffer hardships, but they make the most of what they have. This is something that I think we do not do enough of. In the states, and especially at Amherst, we are so blessed. Do we even come close to making the most out of what we have?

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