George Szwender
- Oct 4, 2021
- 3 min read

Family The Place Where Walter was Born

Hard to believe we are leaving Miederzyzec, for now, Walter was there for 7 days, the time flew by.

Walter wanted to visit his parents graves, the Church where he was Christened and visit his nephew and family and for that, all goals were achieved.

On Tuesday I was able to do a side trip for a Business meeting in Germany. I leaving Walter with close family so I felt at ease. Walter stayed with his nephew and family and they were tickled pink. It turns out he is a good house guest because he was asked back, please come back they said and hope we will return and we will.

They sorted out a daily routine and Walter very much enjoyed his visit. We plan to do a return for a day at least.

About the side trip to Frankfurt. It turns out that travel in Europe is not that weird or stressful, the hardest part is planning plus anticipation... In some ways Poland is quite lax about the virus but they do follow hygiene rules and even though cases are rising they are not near some of the worst hit countries. People are generally respectful and the vaccine push is ongoing. Like everywhere.

In Germany you need to show a negative test or full vaccine status to gain access to all restaurants, bars, clubs, museums and pretty well any non-essential public place. And it being Germany they do adhere to these rules.

They are similar to what is now instituted in BC and for the most part you feel safe going out. I thought travel would be more difficult but clearly if you look after your self and follow general rules it feels perfectly comfortable. Once you are in the Schengen Zone of Europe there are some particulars you must follow when going from Country to Country but relatively easy. I had the chance to meet with my business partners who are also friends it turned out to be a super side benefit to our Polish journey.

We had our meeting in Wetzlar and I was lucky enough to go on a day trip after our meeting. We visited the City of Mainz and went to Johannes Guttenburg Museum. I saw the very first book printed on an movable type press, three copies of the first book printed, by Guttenberg, the Bible.1452.

They have three copies of the 49 that survive world wide. It is an interesting museum, very, and covers early years of the development of print presses which of course with multiple books changed the World through expansion of knowledge.

We also visited Kloster Eberbach Monastery which is a 900 year old Cistercian Monastery that has actually been quite well preserved and is a state museum. It is famous for the filming of the The Name of the Rose with Sean Connery in 1986. Had a very cool wine tasting in the old wine rooms of the monastery.

Got back to Miedrzyzec yesterday and Walter was chilling at Ala's house. During the week his routine sleep over at Jareks and then Magdalena would drive him to spend the day with Ala and Januszek.

He went to visit the grave of his Gramparents Leszisz, Alexandra and Walenty, the parents of his mother and where he spent many summer visits when he lived in Baranowicze from age 3 to 15..

They also arranged a visit with the Parish priest who runs St. Nicholas Church. He said he was treated like family at the priests home and thanks to Magdalena got to have a nice chat as Walter was very keen in visiting the Church where he was Christened. Almost 97 years ago!!

We had a nice visit Friday, go away lunch a lovely lunch with family and lots of photos.

After a couple of hour drive we are in Warsaw with a beautiful view of the City. Rest and tomorrow we meet up with our family in Warsaw, more on the next Chapter. More on that later....