So, my colleague and I got to Olsztyn, Poland this afternoon after a long flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam (7.5 hours) and a considerably shorter flight from Amsterdam to Warsaw (less than 2 hours) followed by a 3-hour car ride from Warsaw to Olsztyn. While I made the trip fine, my colleague's bags never even made it to Warsaw. Hopefully, it's somewhere in Poland.
Olsztyn is in northern Poland and is the capital of the Warmian region. Warmia is where Copernicus lived and expounded his theory of a heliocentric astronomical universe. What I find fascinating every time I visit Europe is its living history. Most of us consider Copernicus to be old and waaay in the past. However, it gives me pause to think that Copernicus lived here in the 1500s. He published his theories on the earth revolving around the sun in 1543. Yet, in the town on Olsztyn, you can still see the castle that was built in the 1350s. Also still standing is the Cathedral of St. James which was built between 1380 and 1445. Now think of this. When Copernicus hung around here, these structures were already almost two hundred years old. I can just about imagine a young Copernicus showing visitors around the town explaining about these ancient castles (over a hundred years old!) in his neighborhood. Here we are, an additional 400 years later (more actually), still able to walk through these buildings and marvel at their construction.
That's what I love about history - it's entertaining to imagine people living and seeing these same structures five hundred or more years before me. It is even more fascinating to me to imagine people three hundred years ago pointing to these same "ancient" structures and wondering about the people who lived there two hundred years before them.
This is the sort of sense of insignificance it is hard to get in America. It is so strange to think of how incredibly young our land is. I mean, by the time we had out first settlement in the continental US, Copernicus had been dead for over a hundred years. And we're talking about the first permanent European settlement in the USA!
Had delicious pork cutlets for dinner. The weather here today is just astoundingly beautiful. The sn was shining, but it wasn't hot. We went for a walk in the afternoon and there was a strong breeze blowing that wasn't at all cold, but wasn't warm either. Both my colleague and I commented about how strangely perfect the weather is - not hot and not cold. Let's hope it stays this way.
My room at the Novotel is typical European style. While it is fairly large and not as cramped as these hotels usually are, there is no air conditioning and no fan. So, I know I'm going to find it difficult to sleep. How spoiled we are - I groaned and complained about the lack of air conditioning until I finally realized it wasn't going to do any good. I asked the front desk for a fan and they said they didn't have one. It is now 11 PM and it still isn't as cool as I'd like it to be.
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