Arriving in Gdansk, I was terribly eager to process the data from the Jewish Historical Institute. On my rainy walk from the train station to the hostel, I took note of the beautiful architecture. I told myself that I can work on genealogy until the rain stops, then I must walk around the town. I would do the walking tour the next morning…
Read MoreCiechanow, Przasnysz, Mlawa, Glinojeck
These are Grandpa’s towns. They are in the Masovia województwo. I spent a long weekend with Pawel and his wife Kasia touring around the region. Pawel and I had may chats in 2010-2011. He contacted me on JewishGen in 2010 where I uploaded my family tree back in 2004. The story is fascinating…
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First picture in Warsaw.
Warsaw
I had such confusing feelings about arriving in Warsaw. As with every new destination I’ve landed in, I felt a level of excitement. Grandpa visited Poland in 1999. He is the only person in my family to have visited his hometown since the beginning of World War II. Knowing I would be visiting these towns as well, I felt nervous. My grandparents fled Poland to survive. They left everything behind…
Read MoreCroatia and Montenegro
Backpacking for me has been an incredible journey of peeling off layers of stress, confused identity, reclaiming confidence, and creating a vision of my long term future. Before backpacking, I had not felt free enough to create a vision of what a future home might be for me. As an example, when my lease was ending in November 2018, before I lost my job, I experienced a rare complete mental block when coming to a decision about where to move next…
Read MoreBratislava
I took a quick day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia from Vienna, Austria with my Viennese buddy Gilbert. We met up with a local friend of his too. We did not do an in depth historical tour of Bratislava but, instead, we kept it simple. We walked through the lovely market, went for a hike up the hill to the castle, fortress and gardens…
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