After spending an entire night on a charter bus with 49 other tired college students, we arrived at Chestahowa, where the original image of the Black Madonna is located. The image is sometimes attributed to St. Luke, and is a huge devotion for the Polish people. I was priveleged again to lead the music for that Mass, crammed as we were there. After a light lunch and some shopping, we continued to Wadowice, the birthplace of Karol Wojtyla, the man who would become...

The entry about this day has taken me a few days to be ready to write, because no amount of words can really convey my experience this past Sunday. In the morning we rose and drove to Auschwitz, the center of Nazi concentration camps. We were given a tour through the camp which is now a Holocaust museum. The sign from this photo is the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" - a mocking 'work will set you free' slogan for the prisoners. I saw the spot where Saint Maximilian...

The next morning we set out for Krakow where we received a full tour of the city. We saw LOTS of churches and cathedrals (Poland is REALLY Catholic), including the cathedral where JPII was ordained and where St. Stanislaus is laid to rest. There are bones hanging from a chain outside the church that the locals swear up and down belong to the dragon that used to live under Wawel Castle. I looked at the bones, and I don't know what else it could be. We were given a...