God is better than I realized.
We who are in Poland (eight of us) with the exception of Alan woke up to go to an early Mass at St. Peter's at the altar of John Paul II to pray for intercession for our trip. The guard told us there was a Mass in French at eight; we took what we could get. Curtains that I haven't seen up before were set up around the side altars , don't know why they were there- maybe because of tourist season.
We said a rosary before the Baldicchino then went to the altar to wait. We waited 45 minutes for the French priest, who never arrived, and instead Mass was celebrated by an American priest who gave us relics of JP2 after the mass. Afterward we went to the 30 cent pastry shop and then returned to pack. Our flight was smooth and our bus into the city came quickly. It as dark when we arrived at our first church, where Chopin's heart was encased in a column. We also went to the Cathedral and the student church, a Mass was being celebrated in every single one.
It was beautiful, lit by streetlights, with saxophone street performers and mist around the church steeples. We were lucky; we got lost and got to explore beautiful Warsaw by night. We couldn't find our bus, or anyone who spoke English, and wandered in a circle until we realized where we started was where we had to be and squeezed onto a very crowded bus. It took three tries for the door to close; I had to hold my bag on my shoulder. Then the doors opened again, and in an act of blessed serendipity a friend of Corinne's who we had no plan to meet squeezed onto the bus with us. He and Corinne burst out laughing and he offered to walk us to our host family's house.
He called Marta and she met us halfway to the house and drove us in two trips. The girls went first, so we were the first to meet her husband Caesar, son Andrew, and dog Lizzy, a huge, howling Alaskan malamute. He made us tea and we ate a late dinner, followed by cake made by Andrew and the fanciest donuts I've ever had, stuffed with rose jam and topped with candied orange. A new man (who I thought was Caesar in a different sweater; there is a very distinct Polish look) drove Corinne, Mary B, and I to the house where we'd sleep.
The most high-pitched woman I'd ever met met us at the door, dressed in pajamas, a bathrobe, and an off-kilter sleep mask. She pulled us through the threshold and kissed us three times on the cheek, half-singing in Polish as she pulled us up the stairs. When she showed us our room she called out, "You are in Poland, you must learn Polish!", showed us the bathroom, and told us her son would wake us. Then she darted out of the room, resembling a sleepy rocket, and disappeared.
Her son came in and told us he'd wake us at six thirty, an awkward and very kind gesture (awkward because we were all in our pajamas) then apologized because "his English isn't so good". I apologized because my Polish doesn't exist. "Last time I saw, English is international language, Polish is only in Poland," he said.
These are the most hospitable, humane people I've yet to meet.
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