Sunday, July 4 Budapest

This morning the kids showed up for breakfast (a feast!) dressed to impress - they forgot to notify the adults that it was "accessories day" so the adults were largely sans accessories.

After breakfast a city tour was scheduled, starting with the beautiful parliament building - the third largest in the world. Our tour guide, a wonderfully humorous woman with excellent English, described the different areas of the building and the furnishings including the crown jewels. After leaving the Parliament building, we toured more of the city stopping at the Royal Palace, where the Matyas Church, where Mozart's Coronation Requiem was first performed. Although the church is largely wrapped in canvas because of the on-going restoration, there were beautiful views of the city and the Danube River, which divides the city.

The city tour continued through old town, where in addition to viewing the oldest building in the town dating from the 13th century, many in the choir participated in an ancient (or maybe not so ancient?) ritual of touching one of the many statues for good luck. Most were, of course, thinking that they wanted their performance this evening, the last of the tour, to be exceptional.

The city tour ended at the Szechenyi Baths, where most wanted to enjoy the spa-like pools at different temperatures. Budapest is known for it's baths and natural hot springs. This was a great relief as the temperatures soared to near 100 (or so they said). Those who chose not to go to the baths continued to tour the city on their own.

The evening performance, the last of the tour, was at St Anne's Church, a beautiful church dating from the 18th century era. The church has a magnificent Baroque facade and lavish alter and pulpit. The choir sang for the mass and performed exceptionally for the concert following the mass. The church was the perfect backdrop for an almost flawless performance. Although it was raining after the concert, the choir stayed for an encore performance in front of the chuch for those reluctant to leave.

Our final evening dinner was at a Hungarian restaurant, where performers entertained the crowd from England, Japan and the US during dinner. Several choir members participated in the performance on stage and then entertained the remaining crowd with several of the non-secular numbers.

Reluctantly, we packed for our return to the US tomorrow morning. Wake-up calls are scheduled for 3:15AM with a 4AM departure for the airport.

It was a wonderful tour. The choir was exceptional and we are hoping to get everyone to regroup before leaving for school in the fall for a recording session.

Saturday, July 4 On the way to Budapest

This morning we left Cracow (pronounced "Crack ooof") for Budapest. It is approximately a 6 hour drive through Slovakia. They say 'approximately' because the roads in Poland and Slovakia are not as up-to-date as in the larger cities and there is much construction. The first 50 miles took us about 2 hours. There was a lot of 2 lane roads full of pot-holes and much construction as they try to update their roads. We stopped before leaving Poland for a rest stop and anyone entering the little store attached to the gas station would have thought that there was an American feeding frenzy! We all loaded up on the appropriate junk food and got back on the road for another two hours. We entered Slovakia and found it's terrain to be much like Oregon's - mountainous and very green. It was beautiful. We stopped in Slovakia for lunch (another gas station/store/restaurant) and found that the Polish hospitality did not exactly extend into Slovakia. But after our break, we were back on the road and on to Budapest. Our tour guide, Peter, gave several lectures on the history of Slovakia & Hungary as well as the effects of communism in those countries.

After a few more hours, we entered Hungary and drove through rural areas to a small village, (Bartura Osveny?) a World Heritage Site, that has retained the architecture of it's founding village with the exception of the roofs - the thatched roofs have been replaced by tiles to avoid fires. We also hiked up to Ravenstone Castle, however because of our extended time on the road, it was closed. Everyone however, was glad to get out and hike for a little while after being on the bus for so long.

We entered Budapest at dusk but could see that it was a beautiful city. Budapest is sometimes described as "The Little Paris of Central Europe". We arrived at our hotel in time for a wonderful dinner in a dining room that one of the choir members said reminded them of the dining room on the Titanic. We ate dinner to the piano accompaniment of show tunes but included American Christmas carols. (?)

Although we had been on the bus all day, most were tired from the hike up to the castle and were glad to go to our rooms. Some checked out the pool and hotel work-out rooms.

Update - Friday night

We are adding photos as we have time. There are new photos added to the first posts.....will try and catch up with the text by the time we leave for home....

Friday, July 3 Auschwitz & Birkenau

This morning we boarded the bus for what was supposed to be a little over an hour drive to Auschwitz. However, the traffic - same as in the US - and the poor condition of Polish communist-era roads resulted in a two hour bus ride. No matter. It gave Peter, our tour guide, a chance to talk to us about the history of Poland and the events leading up to the Holocaust. Peter is a very interesting speaker and the bus was quiet; he had all ears.

We arrived at Auschwitz and were given head phones by which we could clearly hear our tour guide, who walked us through the main gate (with the overhead sign Arbeit Macht Frei - "Freedom Through Work"), the barracks which now house artifacts from the camp, and the gas chambers. It was very quiet and as our tour guide mentioned "...hard to get your brain around."

Birkenau was about 2k away and we stopped there briefly -some of the movie Shindler's List was shot here. It was truly a death camp and was about 15 times larger than Auschwitz. Here families deboarded the train and were immediately divided into "those fit to work" and those who would march directly to the gas chambers. Whereas at Auschwitz there were trees and shade, there were none at Birkenau, which on top of all the other devastating conditions, must have been hot and humid in the summer - with no relief. It was a sobering day.

We returned to Krakow at about 4PM and had free time until now, when we leave for a 'dress-up dinner' with the possibility of a Chopin concert or tour through the Jewish ghetto or....?

Krakow is a beautiful town. On the way back to the hotel, there was a trio of accordian players - playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. They were very, very talented, if not a little strange.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Budapest. We will travel through Slovakia and it is a long trip so we will not be there until late tomorrow night. There may be no post tomorrow.

Thursday, July 2 Krakow

Today we toured Krakow, another beautiful city of history and culture, on foot with local guide Eva. It's a very young city and we see very talented street musicians wherever we go (stundents?). Krakow has about a million people yet has 17 universities! Some of the sites we saw were Wawel Hill (pronounced Vavel), the old city walls, and the bell tower of the old palace cathedral. In fact, the kids sang directly under the giant bell of the tower high above the city.

After lunch on our own and a little free time, the choir members headed off for a rehearsal and another mass and concert in the evening.

For the mass the church was about full. Hardly anyone left after the mass, staying for the concert. The Polish have loved the choir the whole trip but the people of Krakow LOVED the choir members, giving them an encore. Whenever the choir begins singing the Polish national anthem the crowd jumps to its feet - the people's national pride is evident everywhere we go. After the choir had finished the concert and left the church the crowd's applause refused to die down, so the choir came back to sing an encore performance of I Want Jesus to Walk With Me. One man in the audience was seen recording the encore performance on his cell phone!

The weather has cooled and we had a little free time in the square, which comes alive at night. Some kids took a tour of the square in a horse-drawn carriage, some enjoyed the souvenir shopping within the old cloth trade building in the middle of the main square, and others found cafes in which to relax and enjoy some ice cream.

Tomorrow morning we are off to Auschwitz.

Wednesday, July 1

After breakfast this morning, we again boarded the bus which is starting to feel like home, and departed for Krakow (which, according to our tour guide, is pronounced "Crack-oof"). Polish is a difficult language to decipher and almost certainly to pronounce. It's probably closest to Russian, which one of our chaperons is able to translate for us. He is also our walking history book and is able to relate most of the history of the places that we are visiting. Our hired ACIS guide, Peter, is also a bottomless reservoir of knowledge about Germany, Poland, Europe and World War II. We have enjoyed many lively conversations in the evening hours about the events leading up to and Europeans' feelings about the war.

After stopping for a break, we stopped at Czestochowa, which is "the place where the country's heart beats" - the home of Our Lady the Black Madonna. 90% of Poland is Catholic and the monastery and stronghold of Jasna Gora is a principal center of Catholic life in Poland. According to the guide, only Lourdes, France and Guadeloupe, Mexico receive more pilgrims. Some of our group managed circling the alter on their knees, but it was not for the weak-kneed. The painting of the Black Madonna was beautiful, as was the adjoining cathedral. It was also very crowded as tourists and pilgrims continually flooded in through the gates.

An hour later we arrived in Krakow, which is a very beautiful, quaint city. We had dinner at 'Amadeus', a beautiful old building which has been restored. The food was some of the most excellent of the trip. Many walked to the square and into old town which is only a block away and enjoyed the very warm evening. The kids enjoyed a long evening off in small groups exploring the Old Town of Krakow.

Our hotel does not have air conditioning so we are hoping for cooler weather tomorrow, which is forcast. However, the hotel is so nicely renovated and the staff so helpful that we will enjoy our stay here anyway.

Tuesday, June 30

This morning we took a guided tour of Warsaw - a beautiful city. We could not help but feel the historical angst as we visited the Jewish ghetto, Old Town, New Town, the palace and even the huge, beautiful park which had been destroyed and rebuilt in the middle of the city. According to our tour guide, 75% of Warsaw and 99% of the Old Town and New Town were destroyed by the bombing during WWII. Only 8 buildings were left standing in Old Town/New Town after the war.


Warsaw, however, is known as the "Phoenix City" because it rose from the ashes after the war. Its citizens rebuilt the city brick by brick to look exactly as it had before the war.

After the tour we explored Old Town with it's many cafes, shops and historical sites. Many tried different Polish foods with a couple of brave souls sampling the blood sausage. They said they found it quite tasty. And some worked during lunch!



It's getting hot! As we headed back to our meeting place, the thunderstorms and torrential rains returned but only lasted a short while. The choir members changed into their performance clothes and rehearsed for the evening church service and concert at St Anne's in Warsaw.








The church service was sung from the organ loft. It was beautiful. They descended from the loft to the front of the church for a concert, which the crowd loved.


They got a standing ovation as they left the church and performed Loch Lomen for the crowd that had assembled outside the church, in the square.





We enjoyed a delicious dinner at a small restaurant on the square. Lightening storms again filled the night sky as we walked home from an eventful and educational day.