South Carolina Holocaust Council Trip

June 30

We were worried that our flight would not make the Charlotte connection but we did but without any extra time. The Charlotte airport was very crowded, hard weaving  through crowds but we found Leah, Rebecca, and Cheryl at our gate and soon boarded easily for our 8 hour flight to Frankfurt. Not much sleep for anyone.

1 July

Arrived in Frankfurt and walked and walked and walked. We had to go through passport control, getting a stamp on our passports, and then moving slowly through a long line and a very thorough security check. Both Rebecca and Kevin had a body check. Cheryl had her backpack inspected. The handle on Leah's bag broke.

At the gate before boarding the Lot plane, we had a nice brunch--Kevin and I split a meat and tomato sandwich, a cappuccino, and a Pellegrino mineral water. Frankfurt weather sunny and bright and perfect temperature in the 70s.

The Lot plane was comfortable and served tasty cheese and pimento (but not quite pimento cheese) sandwiches and chocolate wafer candy bars. Kevin and I enjoyed hearing the swishy Polish announcements and practicing our very meager Polish. Lovely memories from our 1988-89 year in Krakow are coming back to us. We once rode a Lot plane with armed guards in the front and the back--that was during the time of hijackings.

  

Our guide Marcelina and Rachel met us as we came out of Warsaw airport named for Chopin. 

A bus driven by Votek picked us up and took us to Radisson Sobieski Hotel. Marcelina is from Krakow, speaks English well, and told us all about Chopin who died in exile and Poland was then part of Russia so only his heart is here in a church in Warsaw while his body is in Paris.

We passed beautiful linden trees which are slow in blooming this year because of cool spring. Weather though today is perfect!

Our room is very nice with a small balcony and view.