Journal

 

~Ginny's Journal~

                        Notes on trip to Poland,  Nov. 2001

 

Day 1 Nov 2nd 2001

The day started at 3:40am at the Microtel Inn. The alarm went off and the  journey began. 

Reid and I drove down to Sacramento on Nov 1st so I would be able to get some sleep before 

hitting the airport. We got to the Sacramento  International airport at 4:15am!  

Found my group right off and we commenced to wait in line for 45 minutes then we got to the 

gate and waited to board. I had a seat next to my room-mate Carol Boch. It was her first plane 

ride ever. It was pretty crowded and warm, of course I had worn a sweater which made it worse. 

The movie was Americas Sweethearts with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Julia Roberts. Got to 

Chicago 10:30 am our time which was 12:30 their time. Then our next flight  was delayed 1 hour 

so I wrote a couple of postcards and mailed them. I hung out with Ladel, Gayleen and Carol B. 

for lunch. I broke down and bought a Chicago T shirt so I could get out of my hot sweater for the 

next leg of the trip.

I am sitting in the plane waiting for all to board so we can get to Frankfurt Germany. The Germans 

have got me surrounded, so there’s not a whole lot of English going on. I guess I’ll have plenty of 

sleep time. The first 3½ hours  went by uneventful. There were four different movies and I couldn’t 

get into any of them. Felt quite lonely for a time and I had to ask myself, “what in the  world am I 

doing here?” I don’t know ANYONE and talking to others is NOT my forte! Well, I made a run to the 

bathroom and stood for a while in the corridor. I ended up talking to Fred’s wife (can’t seem to 

remember her name).  Anyhow, I don’t feel so lonely anymore.

DAY 2 Nov 3rd, 2001

Got to Frankfurt, then we hopped a plane to Warsaw. Sat at that airport for four hours. So, I got more 

post cards, wrote on them and mailed them. These  people don’t take American money so we had to 

get it exchanged. I found a couple of neat gifts.

Got on a prop job airplane, it was an experience! None of our carry-ons were carry-on size for this 

airplane so we had to check them through to Poznan. A most interesting thing that I noticed was that 

they even had real knives along with the rest of the silverware, unlike in the U.S. where they put plastic

 knives along with the spoons and forks made of metal. That flight was 1 ½ hours long. I slept through 

most of it. Then we arrived in Poznan. We had to get our luggage and load it on the bus for the forty 

minute bus ride to Gniezno,  (I slept through half of it). Wish I could have slept longer on the 

transcontinental flight!

Got to Gniezno at 4:30 pm their time. We got our rooms and I promptly took a shower and then we had 

dinner at 6pm. By 7:30pm I was in bed and slept for almost 12 hours! Finally SLEEP! YEAH!! The beds 

are very cute! About the size of a long skinny table and only a foot off the ground. Two small chairs low 

to the ground were also in the room. I thought I was sleeping in one of the seven dwarves bed, ha ha!

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