This time this is James’ post sent by e-mail to Zenon and posted here today.

Day 8. Back in Warsaw for my last day in Poland.   I fly home tomorrow,  7:45 am.  Thunder and rain until about 10:30 am,  then it let up, and I headed to the Old Town Square, to try and finish shopping for some gifts.

The Old Town Square in Warsaw

The Old Town Square in Warsaw

I enjoyed a ( Polish donut ? )  for lunch,  and listened to live music and dancing near the square,  before going back to the hostel.

Almost out of money, so I figured I’ d have,  my last meal at Mc Donalds,  get myself ready for the States.  I couldn’t believe how crowed it was.  There are two floors for the patrons, and I had trouble finding a seat.   Oh,  where are Magda and Sylwia ,  when I need a real  home cooked Polish dinner ??

McDonalds in Warsaw

Took a nap after dinner, and then stayed up most of the night ,  so as to be sure I’d be awake and ready for Zenon, who was going to pick me up at 5:30 am,  and drive me to the airport .

Day 9. My last wake-up in Poland.  Meet Zenon and we drove to the airport.  It was a short, sad good-bye,  to a wonderful friend, and country.  I don’t know if or when , I’ll ever be back, ( Zenon says I’ll be back in 5 years !? ) but the memories will satisfy me for quite a while.

View Larger Map

Map of our tour. Point D is Aleksandrów Kujawski where we stayed.

James

This time this is Zenon only. James should be already back at his home in West Virginia. I am awaiting news from him about his journey back.

Because  James didn’t have Internet access from the hostel where he stayed in Warsaw (the computer was down there) we didn’t post any new articles through the weekend. We apologize for that all readers, especially the one who gave me a call asking  if everything was ok with us, because he hadn’t seen any updates in the blog .

So, a short update below.

On Friday, on our way back to Warsaw, we stopped for a while in Włocławek to meet again with Jozef. He had even more interesting information for James about their common ancestors. Among other things, Jozef  showed us a map with a few settlements in Włocławek where their both family houses where standing long time before! (We new the numbers of houses from other records found before by James and Jozef).  James was especially happy of the map and Polish pottery set given to him as a present by Jozef.

After this meeting we safely arrived to Warsaw. James checked in again in the same hostel he stayed before and I came back to my family to Pruszków.

James' hostel (where he stayed in in Warsaw).

On Sunday early morning (just after 5.00 AM) I picked up James to the airport and just before 6.00 AM we said goodbye….

I know there are new plans now for his and his family arrival in Poland ))). (I hope James will confirm it in writing ).

Most probably we will also add a few more pictures to the previous posts from James camera when he will settle in back at his own home.

Zenon

Update!

I just received e-mail from James that he safely arrived back home and he is trying to answer to 1000′s of questions of his wife and daughters!

Busy day. We met James’ 3rd cousin Jozef, currently living in Włocławek.

First we visited a big Włocławek municipal cemetery, where Jozef showed us several gravestones of Cybulskis. As of now we do not know if they are relatives of James’. However, we took pictures for further reference.

After visiting for a while at a cafe, Jozef took us on a tour of Włocławek.

Among other interesting things for James, Jozef showed us an area where his family were resided before WWII.

We also visited the church of John the Baptist where James and Jozef forefathers worshiped, were baptized and got married.

For James, visiting his cousin was more than an emotional experience because Jozef was born and has lived for his whole life in this town.  Thanks to that he was able to show and tell us a real history of Włocławek and his as well as James’ ancestors.

James was very happy that Jozef was able to help him in finding Polish pottery (knobs). So there was Polish pottery in Włocławek, after all ).

We had many interesting conversations that kept Zenon very busy translating.

James & Zenon

Enough said.

Our plan for today was to visit Toruń. First we headed for State Archives in search of records of Bielawy village which is now part of Toruń. There are numerous Bielawys in this part of Poland, the only clue we have is that the Bielawy we are looking for was somewhere in Western Prussia, 19th century.

The records in the Archives were not in chronological order at all, there were no indexes in the book, what’s more, they were written in German, Polish and Latin, and these were not in any order, either!!! Anyway we looked through 20 years in searching for three specific years 1824-1827.  After all that we still did not find any records with surname we were interested in.

Torun Archives

Before we left the Archives, Zenon asked about the location of the parish church. So we headed out to find the church. On our way we noticed this sign.

Bielawy sign

This was visible confirmation for us, that there was a Bielawy near Torun. But we still do not have confirmation that this is James’ ancestors Bielawy…

After finding the church and talking to the priest, he told us that he had given away all the records to the Bishops Archives. So we stop at the gas station, bought a Toruń map and drove across the town to the Archive. Unfortunately, it was closed until Monday…. But on Monday James will be back in West Virginia!

Having so much free time we visited beautiful Toruń Old Town. Just look at a few pictures below.

Toruń Old Town

Copernicus home

James almost ready for a nap .

After coming back to agritourism and taking naps we played a third chest match. Zenon was not hospitable to his guest this time and he won the third match.

And tomorrow we have an appointment with a far distant relative of James, in Włocławek. We will also explore the cemetery there.

James & Zenon

Once again a good start with scrumptious breakfast. Zenon visited Włocławek Archives again and James went shopping trying to find Polish pottery. No success. Poland (at least Włocławek) is out of Polish pottery.

Wloclawek State Archives

We came back to base camp, James took a nap (because shopping makes him tired) and Zenon took a short trip to a neighboring village Wołuszewo to take pictures for a lady whose ancestors lived there.

Then we had first check-mate competition. After two matches we have a draw. Tune in tomorrow for the tie-breaker.

Second match. This time James check mate.

And below two pictures from today’s dinner.

James & Zenon

We had a good start of the day with a (at least) delicious breakfast (scrambled eggs on bacon, cheese, tomatoes, different cold meats, bread). Writing this down makes us even fuller .

Below a few pictures from the Agritourism where we are staying in.

We spent 4 hours in the Włocławek Archives looking for James’ ancestors’ marriage records, three hours waiting for the records and one hour searching through them.  We would call it a positive/negative search. Even though we didn’t find any marriage records for James’ ancestors, the search eliminated a total of 15 years.

We took a short walk through town, had a light lunch, picked up a few things for the evening a drove back to our base.

In the evening we had deeeeeeeeeeelicious traditional Polish dinner (pictures tomorrow).

And now we are going for second can of beer after having had a good time in front of the computer with wifi access!

Zenon writing post to blog (James is dictating and taking the picture )

James & Zenon

Only two hours sleep (jet lag)…

At 10:30 we (James and Zenon) met at the Oki Doki hostel. It was 2.5 years since we first met (however during this period we were in touch via e-mails, PolishOrigins Forum, etc.). We headed for Żbików.

Żbików is the town where James’ great grandparents were married and his grandfather was baptized. We visited the church and cemetery. After driving around the old sections of Żbików we headed for Pruszków. Pruszków is a town where Zenon and his family lives now and where James’ great grandparents lived. We drove around visiting different sites, old and new.

Żbików parish church 1

Żbików parish church 2

We had a traditional Polish meal (bigos, schabowy and potatoes) with Zenon, Magda and their children. After our meal and chatting we spent more than three hours driving through the Polish countryside going to Aleksandrów Kujawski where we had reservation in an agritourism house.

James & Zenon

Awake by 6:30 AM (jet lag!). The breakfast bar at the hostel doesn’t begin 8:00 AM, so hit the street, looking for coffee. Low and behold, what do I find open for business, a McDonalds! I could have had this back home, but the muffin sandwich was good and the coffee even better.

I walked to the Old Town and the Square, visiting shops and snapping pictures along the way.

An accordion player on a Warsaw street

Palace of Culture and Science

An art festival was being held in the Old Town, so I spend some time there enjoying the different varieties of art work.

In the late afternoon in started raining, so I returned to the hostel, after having a kebab for dinner. I spent time reading and napping, and then was able to place a phone call to my wife back home.

James

After an enjoyable flight to Copenhagen I arrived about a 1/2 hour late causing me to miss my connecting flight to Warsaw. Finally arrived in Warsaw about 3 hrs later than expected.

Checked into a hostel and had my first kebab, before exploring the city.

Warsaw looked and sounded about the same as my first visit in 2006; many cars, buses, trams and pretty women.

It is great to be back.

James