Even When It Hurts

I have been meaning to write about one particular unforgettable experience during my visit to Poland, but have not really sat down to do it. Although I did write a draft of this blog entry while still in Chudow, I never got to finish it there. So after more than four months of having restless sleep because all the words flow in my head while I am lying in bed, I am finally trying to work on this now. And it's the wee hours of the morning on a Friday. I am hoping my caffeine fix will take care of the impending headache later due to lack of sleep.

At the Jasna Góra Monastery in Częstochowa, Poland
with my foster family

Will Work For Travel
If wanderlust were like pixie dusts that accidentally spilled over my head, I am certain I almost got buried underneath lots of it. 

I love going places. The travel bug bit me deep enough to make my desire for globetrotting ridiculously insatiable. If only I could just pack my bags any time and go somewhere instantly! In every place of course, I have had memorable adventures and misadventures. Poland is stunningly unforgettable no doubt. I was expecting to be gobsmacked, and the country did not disappoint. But a misadventure happened to me there. And I put the blame solely on me.

Believe

This is a long-overdue journal about my trip to Poland last July 2016. There's so much to write about to unload my heart, and to bring to recollection all the lessons of that pilgrimage. 

I begin with Auschwitz.

"Arbeit macht frei"means "work sets you free".
This appears on the entrance of Auschwitz,
and other labour camps. (c. July 2016)

I was able to visit the WWII German Nazi Concentration camps, Auschwitz I, and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, located near the industrial town of Oswiecim in Poland, during the Days in the Diocese prior to the World Youth Days in Krakow. It was a most poignant experience, walking on its grounds, touching the barbed-wire fences, taking a peek inside the gas chambers, and seeing first-hand where millions of innocent lives perished. There was a moment I recall when I passed by the Auschwitz gallows ~ I tried to envision myself present in that period of World War II, and wondered how I would have met death had I been one of the prisoners. I could not fathom the cruelty and brutality of the Nazis. The horrifying atrocities of the Holocaust was too much to bear, let alone imagine.