Saturday, February 1, 2014

Gross Rosen Concentration Camp and Dresden, Germany

On Thursday we set out for a day trip to Gross Rosen Concentration camp, one of the largest, imprisoning mostly men and was a holding camp for those in route to Auschwitz. Since I'm not one with words and can't possibly describe how I feel, I will let Laine and Vicki do a much better job of describing to you the feelings one gets when experiencing a concentration camp. I'm glad we went, it was a truly sombering experience that makes me ever grateful for my freedom but also make my stomach churn as I think we as humans are capable of this. I know humans are capable of amazingly wonderful things as well but why must good come with something this horrible?






Friday morning we headed back to Dresden to mail off our pottery and to enjoy some beautiful fall weather in the gorgeous city of Dresden. Dresden is situated on the River Elbe and after the bombings in WWII much of the city was restored with the original buildings in mind. It is a really neat city that I would love to revisit at Christmas time for the Christmas markets :)














It was a wonderful week long trip with some wonderful ladies. Lots of laughs were had and lots of memories made and I have lots of gorgeous pottery to remind me of it all!

Friday, January 31, 2014

#ppwtg (Hashtag Polish Pottery With The Girls)

As expected, now that I'm working, this blog as taken a back seat. With the little down time I have sitting in front of the computer to wait for pictures to upload and think of something to write is really not the top priority. However, my lone reader (my amazing mama), is disappointed that I have not kept it up and even at 31 years old I don't like to disappoint my mother. So,  I am going to make another attempt at keeping this blog updated. I'm only promising to make the attempt no guarantees that the blog will actually get updated :)

In my last post I said "look out for a post on Poland soon" well, 3 months later....here it is. If you want to see a more creative take on our trip visit my friend Vicki's blog....Traveling Simile.

My need want for polish pottery started when I began playing Mahjong and my friend Susan hosted and used all her beautiful pottery to serve the necessary trail mix when playing mahjong as well has the delicious lunch. Susan has now been to Poland 4 times to shop for pottery. After asking several times about the pottery and others oooing and ahhhing over it, Susan said we must make another trip Boleslawiec to the get the true experience. The pottery is sold all over the world but to hop around Boleslawiec in a Land Rover Defender with 5 of your best girls is sooo much better than shopping for it online or anywhere else for that matter.

We arrived in Dresden, Germany on a Monday afternoon, hopped in our rental cars tanks and got on the road headed for Boleslawiec, Poland.


We made all the husbands jealous by getting to cruise around in this all week.

We made a few stops before heading to our BnB to get a taste for what was in store for the rest of the week. It's pretty overwhelming seeing all the pottery and trying to decide on what you want to purchase so getting a little taster and wrapping our mind around the pieces and the patterns was necessary for a successful week of shopping.



We stayed and ate and drank at the Blue Beetroot. The staff was so incredibly nice and I honestly don't think there could be a better place to stay when you visit this region. Not to mention, Andy's (one of the shops), offers a discount if you stay here!

 



Our first full day of shopping was so much fun! Not only did we literally shop til we dropped but we laughed until our stomachs hurt especially while taking this photo. It took about 10 minutes for me to figure out how to take a "selfie" with an ipad while it was dark and so my finger wasn't in the way.
Buried in our polish pottery treasures
In the middle of the day we stopped at the for a traditional Polish meal of pierogis, sausage, schnitzel and sauerkraut. It was so yummy and this is for sure the cutest restaurant I've ever been to.





Wednesday was another full day of shopping...making stops at Borowski Glass Studio and shops in which we saw the beautiful pottery in the painting stage.



We also experienced a concentration camp on this trip as well as spending two days in the beautiful city of Dresden before flying out but I'll save those for another post! Until then you can admire my loot (I promise won't make you stare at it for 3 months ;)




PS: #ppwtg was our Instagram hashtag in case you were wondering :)