Reid and Dale's Trip To Poland and Germany: Wroclaw. Because I cannot think of a title to describe today!

In these blogs I try not to be so specific when it comes to my titles. I actually struggled to come up with a them to this blog posting. Let us begin with our adventure today this way...

We began our day by waking up at 7am, which is the time we have been getting up lately, as we usually need to meet with a driver at 9am. Today, we were to have breakfast and then meet with our driver at 8:30am. I had an omelette and some yogurt with some delicious coffee from our Krakow hotel. We met with our driver and headed out of town...

We were driving and then he lead us to an National Park. My mom found that Poland has only been incredibly flat the whole time we were here, but once we made it to this park we found more hills. We saw this a rock that they call "Hercules."

From the backseat of this van, I will admit, was not all that interesting. I was pretty bored by it all. I just wanted to get to the big city and to see what Wroclaw (VRO-SLAV) was like. I had heard beautiful things about it from other people.

Our itinerary said that it was only an hour drive, but really it was a few hours drive. Maybe it was an error. Or maybe I had read it wrong. Nonetheless, by 3:30pm we were in Wroclaw.

BUT OH! I missed the most incredible part. We saw the "Black Madonna" in Chestohowa (CHEST-O-HOVA). We knew that we were going to visit this place from the beginning of our trip. We knew that this was something that we were probably not going to enjoy seeing, but that it was something that we HAD to see. Let us make this clear. Both my mom and I have grown up and have lived in families that do not have strong religious tendencies. Well... My father grew up Catholic, so that was about as religious as we get! I am sure that as I write this blog, I am using the wrong sort of wording. But anyways, we visited the Jasna Gory.

For Catholics across Europe, and I am sure across the world, this is an amazing site. Catholics around the world travel by foot to visit this site. Pilgrimage for example. We knew that, after seeing the words "Black Madonna," that there was an aspect of our trip that was going to be heavy on the religion. We were not expecting what we went through!

Our driver lead us to a car park, where he dropped us off. Already, I began to see people making their "pilgrimage" to the very holy site. We walked in the Castle (is that what you call it?) and Father Roman came to us and gave us a tour. This is where our humiliation and uncomfortability began!

When we got to a giant mass prayer going on in a Cathedral we bypassed many of the people, who were very apparently serious about their prayer, and walked beside them on along this gold hand railing. Some of this may not make sense to you I am sure. Anyways, we got to the front of this very big Mass proceeding (I am sure that some of my capitalization and religious vocabulary are incorrect) and continued to behind the... ummmmm... alter?.... Anyways we continued on. But as we did, Father Roman, our guide, kept kneeling down to pray. My mother, feeling obligated, would do they same. I am note sure what I was supposed to do! And sometimes everyone would kneel and the two of us would stand straight up like two idiots! But we proceeded. I wish there was a picture of us. I am sure there were guards watching us on surveillance.

It was very awkward.

The one instance when where I thought was going to be the most awkward was when we got to this place where there were about 30 confessional booths. When I came down the stairs and saw this, the first thing I thought was, "HOLY F**K! I am going to have to confess my sins!" You do not understand the stress I was feeling when I got to this point in this tour! I saw a line up of people who were about to give their sins in a confessional booth and I thought that Father Roman was going to ask me to do the same. What was I going to confess? How many Hail Mary's was I going to have to say? My mom didn't know this at the time, but I was really freaking out! I was really scared. My heart rate was off the charts, I am sure of it. I would have ran out if he had told me to stand in the queue, I am sure of it.

Anyways, we ended the tour and no confessions needed to be made. No prayers were necessary. And no one saw that we were really out of our elements... I think.

We went to Wroclaw. We had a nice dinner. Saw some beautiful architecture. And we ended the night with many drinks! I had a few one litre beers, and my mom a few glasses of wine, which were definitely needed after today!

Tomorrow we are off to Dresden, Germany. I am really excited. I will make sure that our itinerary has no more Churches in it, because I am not sure I can do that sort of thing again!

But a part of me feels blessed. Thank you Father Roman. You were great!

This is the "Black Madonna."

Tomorrow we are off to Germany. Off to Dresden to be precise.

I needed to make this blog entry more satirical after the previous Auschwitz one. I am not sure that my words truly explain what type of experience I had today. It was uncomfortable. It was satirical. It was slightly enjoyable. It was... Godly?