Adventures in Eastern Europe Part 2: Krakow

I arrived in Krakow Saturday night. Because my hotel was about a 60 minute walk from the train station, and I was now on the University's dime, I splurged and took a taxi to my hotel. It cost me a whopping $15.

The next day, Sunday, I went to church. I hadn't figured out public transportation yet, and my hotel was located about a 45 minute walk from church. Fortunately, my hotel had a free shuttle that went to old town 3 times a day, and the timing of the first shuttle was perfect. That put me about a 10 minute walk from church. The branch in Krakow was really, really small and met on the third floor of some office building. Only 9 people were there, including the missionaries and me. The branch was an interesting mix of people. It was just....individual people. There were no families, no couples, and no children. (Although I think 2 people behind me were sitting next to each other, maybe they were together?) People were friendly, and one of the elders translated the meetings for me. Because the branch is so small, they only have Sacrament meeting and Sunday School. No Priesthood/Relief Society meetings.

Because church was very close to old town, I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around old town. Unfortunately, the battery in my phone/camera had died (probably because I was using the scriptures on my phone during church?), so I don't have any pictures. It was also raining, though it did let up after an hour or two. Eventually I decided to head back. The hotel's return shuttle wasn't leaving for over an hour, and so I just ended up walking back to my hotel.

The conference started on Monday and went through Friday. It was nice to catch up with friends and colleagues and hear about what people in our research community are working on. I gave a talk Wednesday morning, which I think went pretty well. Especially given how much I was still working on the data processing right up to the last minute! (Yikes!)

One of the excursions that the conference organizers took us on was to the nearby Wieliczka salt mines. These mines were in operation for hundreds of years, but aren't active anymore. It sounds kind of random, but this place was totally cool. The man made tunnel system is deep underground (over 100 m) and very extensive. We went on a tour of some of it, and were able to see many of the salt carvings that have been done.

To descend into the mine, we had to climb down 400 steps. (Don't worry, they let us take the elevator back up.) This is a view looking up the stairway.

Copernicus statue, made of salt:

They call these "cauliflowers," but they are clusters of salt growing on the ceiling.

There are several chapels in the mine. This is the largest one. It was amazing! There are salt carvings all along the wall that depict different scenes in the life of Jesus. They look three dimensional, but the dept is at most a couple inches. And all made of salt! So cool.

In this chapel, this is me in front of a carving of the Last Supper.

At the far end of the chapel, a carving of Pope John Paul II. They love him here in Poland (as you might imagine).

A close up of one of the chandeliers in the mine. The crystals are made from rock salt.

We had our conference dinner in a room in the salt mine, over 100 meters below the ground. Again, the chandeliers have rock salt for crystals.

We had plenty of time to check out the old town. Here's me in the main market square.

A church we passed (there are so many churches here), with statues of the original 12 apostles.

Yet another statue of Copernicus.

That week there was a Pierogi festival happening. (Pierogi = Polish dumpling.) They had all sorts of flavors and varieties to try. Here I am with a few. (Including a chocolate one with a strawberry inside!)

The castle not far from the main square, and so we walked down to see it. First we saw it at night, and then during the day. The coolest part was this fire-breathing dragon statue. Very impressive at night, albeit hard to photograph.

And during the day. (I have a picture of me in front of it, but the look on this kid's face was too great.)

Relaxing in Old Town with friends/colleagues from the conference. I don't know what I'm saying here, but it looks like it must have been really interesting.



On my last day, I had made plans to go to Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp from WWII, where approximately 1.1 million people were killed (mostly Jews). While I had originally just planned to go alone, since I didn't know who would still be around and/or interested, there ended up being a group of five of us that went. It was a very, very sobering and powerful experience.

The sign leading into the camp. The sign reads "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" which is German for "Work Makes You Free." (I got chills the first time I read that, just from the sheer evil of it.) The original sign was made by prisoners of the camp and was stolen in late 2009 (how someone stole it is beyond me...it's not small), and found a few days later in northern Poland, broken in pieces. This sign now there is a replica.

Bit closer up.

Pictures from the camp.



The part of the camp that was the most difficult and moving for me was the barrack in which they kept some of the personal belongings that were found after the camp was liberated. There are items that the prisoners had brought with them, but were taken upon arrival (with the lie that they would be returned.) This included suitcases (with names written on them, as they were instructed to do so, in order for them to be "returned"), shoes (including a separate display of children's shoes), eyeglasses, artificial limbs, and personal items such as shaving brushes and combs. The sheer VOLUME of stuff was overwhelming. For the bigger items , the display cases literally took up a whole wall (probably at least 60 feet long), being probably 5-10 feet deep with a mountain of stuff. Also found when the camp was liberated was large amounts of human hair, as the prisoners heads were usually shaved upon arrival and their hair sold. (It was a valuable commodity back then in making various synthetic materials.) Over 2 tons of hair was found, and you can now see it all. It was at this point that the message becomes extremely personal as you reflect on the PEOPLE that lost their lives and you realize that there is no way to possibly understand the scale of the atrocities that happened here.

We were also taken to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which is a nearby extension of the camp. This is where the prisoners would usually arrive. This is the main rail line into the camp.

An original cattle car used while the camp was in operation during WWII.

Site just behind the main crematorium where most prisoners were sent upon arrival. While I was in Israel two years ago, I learned that it is common Jewish practice to leave rocks on graves.

Right before the camp was liberated by the Soviets in 1945, the Nazis knew they were coming, and so they used dynamite to destroy many of the buildings in Auschwitz II-Birkenau, in an effort to hide their crimes. The remains of some of these demolished buildings are still there.





A memorial at the far end of the camp, that included plaques written in multiple languages.

This is the English version of the plaque.


Visiting Auschwitz was definitely a sobering experience, and not one I'll soon forget. The tour and museum were extremely well done and respectful, telling the story that needs to be told, but not in an in-your-face, overly-graphic, depressing kind of way. It was extremely moving. I'm glad I had the opportunity to go, as I feel like it's something that should be seen. Being so close to it (it's about an hour from Krakow), I felt like it was my human responsibility to go.


Once we returned from Krakow, we spent some more time walking around the old town. Then back to the hotel where I gathered my bags and took a taxi to the train station to begin the next, and last leg of my adventure! Onto Prague via an overnight train!

Adventures in Eastern Europe, Part 1: Warsaw

Two years ago I traveled to Budapest and had a wonderful time. On that trip, I decided that Eastern Europe* is where it's at as far as interesting and (relatively) inexpensive international travels are concerned.

A few weeks ago, I had the chance to travel to Eastern Europe again, and it was great! Here are some of the highlights of the trip. The purpose of the trip (and really the only reason I can afford to travel overseas with any sort of regularity) is that I was attending a research conference in Krakow, Poland. And because I'm an expert at the side trip, I took two side trips.

I flew into Warsaw three days before the conference, and spent about a day and a half there. I managed to navigate from the airport to the downtown central station via the new train that opened just 2 months ago! It was a comfortable, smooth ride. And for the 20 minute ride, it only cost $1! (Hence you see what I mean about inexpensive travel.)

The first picture I took in Warsaw. This is the Palace of Culture and Science, which isn't actually a palace, just a building that the Soviets built as a "gift" to Poland in the 1950s. The Poles didn't like it, for lots of reasons.

The flight that I took left DC at 3pm and arrived at Frankfurt around 6:00am. I barely slept on the flight (since it felt like it was in the middle of the afternoon/evening), and so I had a killer time getting over jet lag. But I was determined to (a) get over jet lag, and (b) get all that I could out of my short time in Warsaw.

So upon arriving, I walked from the train station to my hotel (only about 15 minutes). It was a beautiful day, and fun to be in a new city that I had no idea where I was going, and I definitely don't speak Polish. (But had maps, don't worry.) Although speaking of, during my time in Warsaw I was approached by three different people, asking me questions in Polish. I took it as a compliment, as I figured it probably meant I looked like I knew what I was doing, and didn't look like a tourist. (Although I've about concluded that traveling alone makes it really easy to not look like a tourist.)

I was able to check into my hotel right away, despite being early. Once I got in, I REALLY wanted to take a nap, but my time was limited! So I dropped my stuff off, got my maps and list of things to do organized, cleaned up a little bit, and then set out on my way.

First thing, I found lunch. I bought a chicken kebab from a street vendor. It was delicious. The woman who sold it to me didn't speak much English, but enough to make sure I got chicken instead of lamb. And she taught me how to say "Thank You" in Polish, which I forgot within about five minutes. Turns out, Polish is one of those languages that does NOT stick in my brain.

I walked over to the Museum of Warsaw Rising, which was all about the uprising of the Polish people in 1944 in an attempt to stop the Germans invading from the west and the Soviets invading from the east. It didn't work. The museum was interesting, and I learned a lot about the Rising, but also about the Polish people in general. They're very resilient.

A big hammer and sickle in the museum:


One of the centerpieces of the museum, runs from the main floor to the above floors. It represents the heart of the Rising and of the people, with the numbers being the dates the Rising occurred over. If you get close, you can put your ear against it and hear the heartbeat. It's kind of creepy, but in a good way.


After the museum, I walked over to Old Town. One of the most interesting things about Warsaw, I think, and a true testament to the resiliency of the Polish people, is Old Town. During WWII, most of Warsaw was totally destroyed. They rebuilt the city, particularly the Old Town, to look exactly as it did before the war, based on old photographs and paintings. So while it looks old, it's actually been built relatively recently!

There is a statue of Copernicus, who was from Poland. The rings around the statue base are different planets, with the sun in the center.

Saturn, part of the Copernicus monument.

Close up of Copernicus:

I ate way too much of this in general:

The next day I explored the beautiful Lazienki Park, which is Warsaw's Central Park. (Though much smaller, of course.) It's a beautiful green space in the middle of the city.


One of the centerpieces of the park is the Chopin statue. Unfortunately, it was closed off for construction, so I couldn't get very close to it.

Zoom in of the statue:

Every Sunday they have a Chopin concert in the concert near the statue. I wish I could have gone, but I had to continue on to Krakow Saturday afternoon.

Next I walked over to the Palace of Culture and Science. They have an observation deck on the 30th floor, to get a great panoramic view of the city.

Poland co-hosted the Euro Cup this summer, and so they had decorated parts of the city to welcome the other European countries, including this outside the Palace of Culture and Science.

The tallest building in Poland.

Panoramic of the city. At this point, most of it looks like a regular, modern city! (In the far background of this photo you can see the stadium that was used for the Euro Cup.)

I then gathered my bags, went to the train station, and bought a train ticket to Krakow. The train ride was express and was only about 3 hours. I didn't know there were assigned seats, so I actually sat in the wrong place at first. Fortunately, the person whose seat I was sitting in was really nice and spoke excellent English, so they were able to help me find the right seat. (Which was, of course, many train cars up. Gah.) But I made it!

Next installment will be my time in Krakow!



* Although the friend I spent time with in Budapest, a native of that city, would argue with me that Hungarians do not consider their country as being in Eastern Europe, but rather being in central Europe. That's another discussion for another day.

BashFest '11

During my first year of grad school at Texas the longtime director of McDonald Observatory, Frank Bash, was retiring. In his honor, they held a two-day conference where they invited promising post docs to give general review talks about the current state of their field. Everyone had so much fun that they decided to make it a biennial thing. And so, BashFest was born. (The real conference title is something like "New Horizons in Astronomy.") (The picture above is me sporting the official conference Tshirt. I like the design of it a lot. Way better than the shirt I have from the conference from 6 years ago.)

This year marks the 5th occurence of BashFest. Several months ago, I received an email inviting me to give a talk at this year's conference. It was both an honor and a bit overwhelming. My assigned topic was "late-type compact objects," in other words, white dwarfs. That's my dissertation topic, although I haven't really done anything new in that area in the last two years because my post doc work focused on other things.

I wanted to maximize my time in Austin, but couldn't really get away for too long because of my teaching schedule. So I flew out Friday afternoon. Had a great time seeing friends and eating good food. (Well, minus the UT/OU game. That was horrible. But the company was great!) Many thanks to R&W for letting me stay with them 2 nights! (And to their daughter E for being so cute and so much fun.)

Good food. Love Rudys creamed corn!


Also, I brought all the rain in Virginia with me to Texas. It rained so hard! It hasn't rained since like April. They really need the rain!


The conference had a small reception Sunday night and then was Monday and Tuesday. My talk was Monday afternoon. I kept putting off preparing it, and did most of the prep Sunday night, until my internet in the bed and breakfast I stayed in when out. Then I finished it up the next day during lunch. (We had a really long lunch break.)

I was the first talk after lunch. I liked the focus and theme of my talk: overview of stellar evolution and the creation of white dwarfs, and discussion of different white dwarf science in order of decreasing temperature: the hot ones, the medium-temperature ones, and the cool ones. I was feeling a little nervous before (I wanted to do a good job, and I'd worried a lot about whether or not I pitched my talk to the right level), but once I got up there, I totally relaxed.

Honestly, I feel like this was one of the best talks I've ever given. Maybe THE best one. It was so much fun! I felt like I was enthusiastic, informative, engaging, etc. In my introduction to stellar evolution, I showed the HR Diagram/color-magnitude diagram animation I got from JA at STScI. (I've mentioned it before on this blog, if you haven't seen it, watch it! It's super cool. Go here, watch about 9:15 to 12:45.) I knew people would love it and they did! After showing it, I got APPLAUSE in the middle of my talk!! That's a first for me for sure, and undoubtedly the last time it'll happen. (P.S. It never happens, astronomers are hard to move sometimes.) (Don't worry, I gave JA credit, for sure.) And everyone laughed at all my jokes, and I got some good questions at the end.

I felt terrific about how my talk went, and I got a lot of compliments! From fellow conference attendees, I got the following comments (among others):

• "Your talk was excellent!"
• "I loved your talk!"
• "Your talk was fantastic!" (- Frank Bash, namesake of the conference)
• "Your talk was fabulous!"
• "You talk was wonderful!"

(In addition to lots of people asking for a copy of the animation. I have to ask JA about that, since it's not really mine to distribute.)

Also, Rob Robinson, a former professor of mine, found me at lunch the next day to catch up and when I said I was teaching right now, he asked, "How are you liking teaching?" When I said I loved it, he said, "I can believe that. You just seemed to exude joy as you were talking yesterday. You can tell you love teaching." :)

Anyway, the conference was a great time, and I had to head back Tuesday night. I arrived at Dulles airport at 1:00am, back in Harrisonburg at 3:00am, and then had to teach at 8:00am! Yikes! And I think I caught a cold on the plane, which isn't awesome, but hopefully I'll get over it soon.

Oh, and I'm giving my physics class their second exam tomorrow morning. Yikes! Hope it goes better than last time! (The grade distribution on the last one was so broad, I ended up just curving it.)

San Diego roommate reunion

I've just returned from some wonderful travels! I'm going to try and blog about them all in the next few days or so.

It all started when I flew to San Diego for a great reunion with some of my roommates from BYU. We weren't all there, however. Angela and Becca, we missed you guys lots!

I flew in Monday, and Amy and Christy picked me up at the airport. Every time I go to California, I always think the same thing: why don't I live here? The weather is perfect all the time, why go anywhere else?

Well, anyway, over the course of the next few days, we did lots of fun things including going to the San Diego Zoo (my first time), eating pizza on the beach at sunset (why don't I live in California again?), going to Disneyland (and eating lunch at the Blue Bayou!), and going to Sea World (also my first time). Here are some pictures.

Me and the flamingos at the San Diego Zoo. Part of my usual series of pictures that Amy calls "Elizabeth in Front of Something Interesting." I guess it's true, I do take a lot of pictures like that. Ha!

Amy, Auburn (plus Maren), and me at the beach. It was really bright. I cheated and kept my sunglasses on.

Seth was pretty much Christy's best friend during the trip. It was cute and funny. (He never wanted to ride the rides with anyone else!) Here they are on the Bug's Life caterpillar ride at Disneyland (California Adventure? I don't really know). I think this picture is super cute.

Amy and I on the Buzz Lightyear ride (my first time on that ride/game). I was just shooting randomly, I have no idea how I got any points.

We celebrated Amy's birthday by going to brunch at this delightful little outdoor cafe overlooking the beach. (I think it was in La Jolla?) And Seth is pretty much one of the cutest kids ever.

Brunch.

Also went to Sea World. I thought the turtles were really cool. (Again, "Elizabeth in Front of Something Interesting." :) )

Christy, Amy, Auburn, and Maren in the walk-through shark display. Cool.

Me, Auburn (and Maren), and Amy hanging out. The lighting wasn't the best for pictures in there.

We even saw Shamu. (I wish I had taken pictures at the dolphin show. The theatrics cannot be described in words. Haha!)

The next morning I managed to wake up early enough to go to the temple before flying out. (Auburn told me she was sure she'd come out the next morning and find me still asleep. Yes, clearly she has been my roommate. :) I even surprised myself in this instance.)


It's been far too long since I've seen these great friends of mine, so I'm happy that we were able to reunion this year. As Amy said, you know you're good friends when you can not see each other for eight years (as was the case with Amy and me) and your conversations start right back up as if you'd never been apart. I'm so lucky to have been roommates and friends with such great girls! Let's hope it's not so long between the next time we get together! :) Thanks again for the great time!!