Sunday, November 2, 2014

Fancy's 'development' in Warsaw, Poland

One of the benefits to Fancy's contract at the American International School is each year she receives a stipend for 'professional development'.

There are countless conferences and courses a teacher can take all over Europe and I was excited to explore the different cities we might go for Nancy to develop professional. I am in the midst of a glorious mini-retirement so wherever Fancy ends up, I plan to join.

There were options for Croatia in the spring, Nice, France in the summer -- so, you can imagine my disappointment when Fancy tells me one afternoon that she thinks the best conference for her will be a long weekend in Warsaw, Poland in November. Despite my best attempts, she was excited about this conference above all others (who knows why?).

Yay! Poland. Grey. Winter. Cold. Gloomy.

I actually love Poland and appreciate it for enduring an extremely violent, tragic and ofter overlooked history.  It's Old Town was completely decimated during WWII by the Nazis that were, at one point, were killing 3,000 Polish per day. It's a very sad history to learn.  The photos of their decimated city are almost unimaginable.

I would spend my days wandering the streets of Warsaw while Fancy was mostly in her classes - not a terrible tradeoff.  Eventually, Fancy's classes ended and we were able to eat their famous pierogis and happily explore together.






The photo shows an entire section of old town Warsaw was purposely destroyed by the Nazis.
All that remained was the church, which was only saved so Nazi snipers could have an elevated position in the city.





The nuns were giddy over their sweets. 


Hot wine comes with a shot of vodka.


I don't think this is the translation they were going for.




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