Highlights of May part 1: Parks and Eagle's Nest

It's the middle of June already and I've posted nothing from May! How does that happen? I can't believe we only have 15 months left here in Poland. I am loving it!

There are beautiful parks in Warszawa. The largest is Łazienki Park where the summer palace of the last king sits in the middle of small lake. The palace is being renovated at the moment, but we thoroughly enjoyed the patio and the surrounding gardens.

 

How's this for a patio? Can you find Siostra R at the edge of the lake?

 

 

We sat on a bench along the side of a garden path with a swan and a peackock for our view...

People who walked by would try to get close to him, and he would gracefully keep a wary distance by walking around the tree and the foliage, but he was pretty focused on something in the bushes. Once all of the human visitors had moved on down the path, we soon found out what that was when he put on this display...

 

 

 

I was able to try out a little of my Polish language with the next family that walked by and admired our handsome friend, although he'd already ended his strut. I showed them the pictures I'd taken and said, 'piękny' (beautiful). They agreed.

We enjoyed a lovely trip to Szczyrk, a ski resort in the 'mountains' in the south of Poland. Szczyrk reminds me of the villages in our National Parks like Waterton and Banff - 30 years ago. Poland's YSA are hosting the Eastern European YSA Conference in Szczyrk this August and we were checking out the facilities with the mission president and the YSA Confernce committee.

View of the 'mountain' from the hotel. Not the Rockies, but splendid for Poland!

Starzy i Siostra R on the front steps of the hotel 'Orle Gniazdo' (Aerie or Eagle's Nest) with some of the YSA Conference committee (Agnieszka, Patrycja, Czarek, Brat Turek, Łukasz & Wojciech).

Planning meeting over lunch with Brat Turek, Prezydent & Siostra Edgren, the Durrants & some YSA committee.

 

We had a chance to check out the surroundings.

 There are a lot of old churches in Poland, some older than others.

We found some of the locals to be very 'wooden'...

 

 

These 'Polish Bagpipes' were a hit with this Irish lad. The earliest records of bagpipes - a few hundred years before they were known in Scotland - come from Eastern Europe!

We look forward to returning here later this summer with YSA from all over Eastern Europe.