Auntie came to visit!!!

When my sister said she was ready to book her flights to come visit us in Poland, I was pumped! She wanted to book her flights in advance (March 2017) and at the time, I was not pregnant, so we planned a Fall trip and I was so excited that when I left at the end of summer, that we would have a visitor shortly after! 

We had multiple emails back and forth about what she wanted to do and see while in Warsaw and I started planning out the trip.  Somehow I got the dates a little confused and thought she was leaving the US on Sunday, Sept 24, arriving on Monday, Sept 25, so when she told me she was visiting the pumpkin patch with her family on Sunday, I thought she was just squeezing in a little extra family time before her flight at night.  THANKFULLY we talked to my mom and dad on Sunday night (their Sunday morning) and while discussing what time Rebecca would be heading to the airport that day, we were informed that she wasn't arriving until Tuesday.  Ha! She wasn't leaving until Monday night, arriving Tuesday at noonish.  I know that we would have figured it out at some point, but I am sure our shock - correction, my shock - was hilarious to see! Andy just shook his head!

Auntie has arrived!!! Before we picked up the kiddos from school, we grabbed a coffee!

Kids excited to see what Auntie brought them!

I was happy with my delivery!
The oreos were a surprise and oh so good!

And Beckett got his Halloween costume!

SO for most people, the first night they arrive in Poland is a rough night to stay awake for, so when I booked ballet tickets on Tuesday night, it was supposed to be her second night here.  Oops! She was a trooper though and we headed out to the Teatr Wielki - Opera Narodowa to see Black Swan.  It was a beautiful performance and after multiple head nods, we decided to head home after the second set. 

We had a slow start on Wednesday, with some story telling, trip to the Wilanòw area and then decided to pack a picnic lunch and head to Łazienki Park.  There are great walking trails along the water and beautiful buildings to check out.  And my sister brought the sun with her, so we actually had a sunny day to enjoy the views! More on Łazienki Park here.

Scooting around like he owned the place!

Goof ball!

That night we headed to Stary Dom, a traditional Polish restaurant, and sat upstairs for the first time. It was fun to show Rebecca some of the more traditional Polish cuisine as we don't cook any of it at home. 

Checking out how big B's belly is after a big bowl of noodle

Thursday was a school day for the kiddos, so we did a little Polish pottery shopping (hitting up Anko and Kim's) and then Wilanòw Palace to explore.  Even though we have seen these sights multiple times with various visitors, it is still so fun to explore Poland and see something new each time we go.  OR people watch!

A new design that I added to my collection!

Nutella and bread in the car - why haven't I done this sooner!?!

Wilanòw Palace with my beautiful sister

We then snuck in a quick hospital tour at Medicover Wilanòw to show Rebecca where the baby will be born.  

You get a second apartment type room if you sign up for the VIP package!

Thursday night, we left the kids at home with a babysitter and headed out to Hala Koszyki for dinner.  We ate at the Italian restaurant there, Semolino! 

We headed north to Gdańsk via train! 

Getting breakfast at the train station!

SO nice to have another hand to help with the kiddos!

A fun street sign that displayed various cities all
over the world - including Cleveland!

Our humble abode for the weekend!

Heading out to see the sights!

Auntie and Reesie dancing in the streets!

We received some balloons from a random group of guys on the street...

...which led to some drama. 
Nothing like a tantrum on the streets of Europe!

We found this little shop that only featured pieces from the Polish artists!
I was in heaven!!! We find so many cheap items, made in China,
in so many of the shops that we go in to. 
This was a gem of a find and I loaded up!

I even made the crew go to the second location, a couple blocks away!

Funny story about our dinner reservations for the first night - Andy made reservations for a restaurant called Familia and sent the link to me to check out.  I am an Italian food lover, so I didn't even open the link, knowing that I would love the food.  We found a restaurant named La Famiglia, while walking around that day, and celebrated how close it was to our apartment.  After naps, we headed to the restaurant and told them that we had a reservation.  We sat down, after receiving a confused look from the hostess, and started to look at the menu.  I was in heaven, but Andy said that he thought that there were pasta options on the online menu.  He pulled up the link that he had sent to me and realized we were at the wrong place - we were at Pizzeria La Famiglia, not Familia Bistro (where we had reservations).  We decided to get up and head to the correct place since we hadn't ordered any food and I was still under the assumption that we were heading to another Italian restaurant.  

When we arrived at Familia Bistro, it was a quiet, hole in the wall restaurant, that clearly was not Italian.  We received the menu and quickly started laughing as the food was traditional Lithuanian/Vilnius/Eastern European cuisine and none of us had a clue as what to order.  As we giggled behind our menus with thoughts of vacating our second restaurant (my mind was so set on Italian food), we decided to stay and give it a try.  Turns out, it was delicious!!! We tried various dishes, but the crowd pleaser was the Kibins - a shortcrust pastry dumpling with meat/veggie filling that is baked in the oven.  We were happy that we stayed!

We managed to only eat 1/3 of this cheese plate!

Saturday, we headed to Sopot, which was just a quick train ride away from Gdańsk.  

We have arrived!
Isn't there something so wonderful about train station signs!!

Post office

Excited to head to the beach!
He literally took off running when he saw the water!

Another cold day by the water, but these kiddos didn't care!

We knew this would happen! 

European style bathrooms!
Just after this picture, she fell bare butt back into the sand with
a wet bottom, while I was putting her dry undies on. 
Nothing like a cold, wet bottom, now fully covered with sand. 
She was not a happy camper!

Back in Gdańsk, bathed and ready to head out to dinner!  And of course, I was still thinking about the menu from the first restaurant we went to on Friday night, so we decided to give it a try! It was SO worth it!

We topped off the night with ice cream - of course!

Here were my lovely finds from the Gdańsk/Sopot trip!

This was a neat felt and craft store that we also found in Gdańsk.

Multiple items for the baby's room and for Christmas!

I am not a huge fan of Amber, fossilized tree resin found in Poland, as I personally do not wear colors that would go well with the brown/yellow color.  We have mainly seen Amber in jewelry pieces, which I wouldn't find myself wearing often, so when I saw this Amber tree, I knew we had to get it as a momento from our time in Poland.

Other finds from the Polish artist shop - some gifts, but mostly for us!

We booked the Off the Beaten Path tour with Adventure Warsaw on Monday morning.  It was a four hour tour that included sights of pre-war Warsaw and how it connected to modern day Warsaw.  It was a fun tour!

Street corner showing the various stages of street signs in Warsaw.

Palace of Culture and Science - a gift from Russia during the Communism time

Traditional Polish lunch in a milk bar

Our Nysa van needed a little push start after lunch!

“Charm of the People's Republic of Poland” Museum -
a view into the typical living quarters during the Communism era

Vodka shots to end the tour

We saw a lot of worn down buildings that were reclaimed by individuals/families after Communism fell and haven't been restored for one of many reasons - the family doesn't have the money to restore the building, OR the family wants to tear it down to build a more modern building, but the building is protected and until it falls down on its own, the property cannot be torn down, OR the property is still in legal ownership conflict.  Right across the street from these buildings were new high rises.

When Communism started in Warsaw, all decorative facades and patios on existing buildings
were taken off to make all buildings look the same and to help everyone feel equal. 
It would have been great to see what these buildings originally looked like.

There are a lot of bullet holes in the sides of buildings around Warsaw.  We saw this piece of street art in the form of two band aids and the Kotwica emblem of the Polish underground covering multiple holes on our tour.

Monday night we headed back to Wilanòw for some outdoor play and Mexican food at one of our fav restaurants, Ye Ye's.

Cuddles from our little cuddle bug.

Tuesday morning, Rebecca and I headed to the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw.  It is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe - 83 acres of land.  The cemetery contains over 250,000 marked graves, as well as mass graves from the Warsaw Ghettos.  A lot of the graves are overgrown, as most were abandoned during WWII, with only an small section still active.  I find it hard to describe the cemetery in words, as none seem appropriate, so I will just say that it was very interesting to see and I would recommend a visit to anyone in Warsaw.

Map of the cemetery

Some of the broken headstones repurposed only a wall in the cemetery.

It felt as if the cemetery went on and on for as far as we could see.

Pieces of broken headstones.

Replica of the original cemetery gate entrance.

We then headed to Old Town Warsaw and stopped at this cool chimney cake shop - 

they bake them in a large oven below the street level.

We stopped at this cute restaurant in Old Town so Rebecca could try the traditional Polish soup, żurek.

One last night of books before Rebecca headed out in the early am.

We are so glad that Rebecca was able to come and visit and we will forever cherish the memories we made! She was a small piece of home that was here for a week and boy did I need that. Not sure how we will make it to June without seeing her and the family again, but thankfully we have FaceTime, which helps a little bit!