Skull Chapel et al

So we need to start this post on an orthographic note. The Żapka of the previous post should in fact read Żabka. (Kitten aside: That’s what happens when you don’t have Kitten edits.)

So skulls.

We woke up, and from the day before knew where to get breakfast, this time fortifying ourselves with protein and other bizarre American ideas about morning eating. Okay, that’s not really fair. Polish breakfast contains lots of protein, this town just didn’t serve breakfast. Except one place. Which we found. Then off to the Skull Chapel.

It was a short walk through town, and Meghann first needed a fill-up of dirty water. (Kitten aside: Ahhhhhh… Dirty water… I miss it.) After her fill-up, which C--- declined, and which J—went along with half-heartedly, we walked to the Skull Chapel in earnest. We took the short route and arrived when a large group of small children were leaving. Perhaps we would luck out and have a tour of the Chapel to ourselves! But no. A group of surly teenagers arrived. It seemed school groups arrived on the half-hours in order to get a tour of the one-room chapel encrusted in skulls. What a field trip!

But since we weren’t from a school, and we weren’t surly teenagers, we got preferential treatment, and were allowed in first. (Kitten aside: Indeed, I believe pani liked us.) So in we go to this chapel made from regular plaster on the outside, but lined with skulls and bones on the inside. Oddly, this wasn’t creepy. (kitten aside: Indeed, it’s a celebration of life.) In fact, I’d say it’s a celebration of life. (kitten aside: It made me think, “What you are now we once were; what we are now, you shall be!” Actually, not that cheery.) It made me think, “Wow. Bones.” No, it made me think, “Better enjoy this flesh while I’ve got it.” The nun spoke in Polish at length into a microphone. I didn’t really understand, but M—and C--- did. So I guess they should be writing this, but they’re not. (Kitten aside: No.) I do know the Nun said some kind of prayer at the end, and all the surly teenagers immediately bowed their heads and chanted back the response, proving that even surly Polish teenagers have Catholicism drilled into their bones. Perhaps by field trips like this one! (Kitten aside: One thing they say about Catholics, they’ll get you before you’re warm.) (Lamb aside: I have no idea what that means.)

So it was cool, this chapel. Check out the pictures on their website; we weren’t allowed to take any.

Then there was another death march, but shorter, and I want to write about Finland, so I’m not really going to go into detail. (Kitten aside: It ended with blisters.)

I suppose I do need to mention that the next day we pressed on to some shit hole town that I can’t remember the name of (Kitten aside: Wałbrzych.). It was terrifying. Worse than the Skull Chapel because the inhabitants wanted to make us skulls. We took a taxi to this castle which was the whole point of us going to this town, and they refused to let us tour the Nazi tunnels under the castle. Indeed, as we stood in line trying to figure out what kind of tickets to buy since we couldn’t get the ones we came for, a large, oafish Polish man said horrible things about Meghann in Polish thinking we wouldn’t understand. Meghann slunk away, and I got in his grill, saying, “PROSZĘ! PROSZĘ!” – which means, “PLEASE! PLEASE!” I may have even pushed him. I don’t actually remember. I was very angry. He turned greasy and sycophantic and said, in Polish, “Okay, it’s good, everything’s good.” C--- bought our tickets, and a pani, who until now hadn’t been particularly helpful, or nice, went to Meghann and said, in Polish, “Oh, you speak Polish,” and then was nice. Nicer, anyway. So that was fun.

We turned the castle with Germans who complained about how there was no furniture and everything was sort of ruined. I don’t know who stole the furniture or ruined the castle in the 1940s. (Kitten aside: Such a mystery!) Though, to be fair, the castle could be turned into a better tourist attraction, by, say, allowing us to see what we came to see, not insulting us, and, yes, not having halls literally full of empty hooks where paintings were. (Kitten aside: It was unfortunate.) This castle, which had a Nazi slave camp underneath it in a series of tunnels, was far creepier than the Skull Chapel. It felt haunted. It felt unhappy. The people working there were unhappy. The old, blind cat staring at the door we opened to the outside, was unhappy. (Kitten aside: It was truly a house of horrors.) The best part was the grilled sausage, and then we got the hell out of Wałbrzych. I had memorized the taxi phone number when we got in it at the train station figuring this would come in handy. And it did. (Kitten aside: Proof! The lamb when properly motivated has a memory.) We got to the train station and, in a spectacular European cliché ran for the train and got on it just before it pulled out. (Kitten aside: Thank God! The sun did not set on us in Wałbrzych!) The train, it turned out, was going to Poznań. Slowly, cautiously, stopping at every haystack, but it got us home. C—stayed a few more days, we saw oaks from which the brothers Lech, Rus, and Czech founded the Slavic states, we ate, we went outside the city and took a hike on a trail of wooden churches, and then C— left. But not before making us a delightful tort. Yum. French cooking!