Gydnia, Poland

My mom talked this morning at CFNI (Christ for the Nations International), which is a school that has been planted here in Gydnia, Poland. The original one is in Dallas, TX. She did an excellent job. I was proud of her. Afterwards, we meet some of the staff members and students. I met one guy named Gary who is from Camden, AR. Yeah that is right I typed Camden. There was also another missionary couple who were there and they have some friends who live in Texarkana. I am telling you the world really is a small place, even if it looks huge.


After mom's talk, we had tea with the directors of the school. Dennis and Linda, the directors, are from Illinois and were farmers before becoming missionaries. They are really nice people. Dennis had to go teach a class but Linda had a free afternoon so she was willing to take us to the Baltic Sea b/c I wanted to just see it. We walked around, chatted with Linda, and took photos. It is just a huge body of water, but it is still cool to say you were at the Baltic Sea. When it is a clear day, you can see Hel. Yes there is really a city called Hel, Poland.



The Hel Peninsula, a narrow strip of
land in northern Poland, is just 34 kilometers long, and at some points less than 200 meters wide. They even sale postcards, shirts, and many other kinds of things that say "I traveled from Hel and back". Clever I know! I just thought I would let you all know that there is a place on earth called Hel.




After seeing the Baltic Sea, it was time to catch our train headed back to Krakow. Instead of going straight home we made a quick pit stop at a city called Malbrock.


Malbork, Poland

Malbrock is the home of the largest brick castle in the world and a place where mom has been wanting to stop and has never had the time to do so. We only had about 45 minutes to roam around the castle but we just wanted to jump off the train and see it up close. This place is HUGE! It was built in 1276. Malbork is actually three castles nested in one another. The High, Middle and Low Castles are separated by additional dry moats and towers. It housed some 3,000 "brothers in arms". The Low Castle walls enclose 52 acres (210,000 m²), four times the area of Windsor Castle, England. (And that is just the Low Castle) Dude, this place is huge! We would have had to have atleast a full day to tour and explore this castle maybe even two days.



It was neat to be able to jump off the train and get to see this place. We just walked around the outside of it and across the bridge to get a better view. They had tents all around it selling medival stuff, like swords, arrows, a knight's armor, ect.

We walked around for those 45 minutes until we had to catch our train again. It was a really cool side trip before we had another 6 hours on the train to Krakow. We arrived home around 9pm and relaxed by watching The Terminal.



I will leave you with one fun, stupid, and typical photo of me at the castle. I was just having fun, goofing off, and wanted to do something crazy in mom's photo as she snapped it. Of course she had to take another one since this one didn't turn out the way she was thinking it would!



Well until next time....good riddance and God bless! :-)