This diary is a collaboration submitted by Hannah Gautreau, Sheila MacNeil, Kassie Gilkie, Mary & Matthew Wickwire and their chaperone, Kamila Rybicka.
Diary Entry – Day 1 – April 23, 2009
Greetings from London. The flights were fantastic, with lots of food and both legs on time - and in London there were no line ups, straight through immigration and the bags were waiting for us. The taxi van was also there and took us to the hotel about 20 minutes away. We’re all getting along great and now it’s time to get some sleep.
Diary Entry – Day 2 – April 24, 2009
Our day started early after only a few hours of sleep. First we had a full English breakfast - which was interesting but enjoyable - and afterwards we took to the subway "tube" as they call it here. The tube ride was great and we soon got to downtown London.
I think we saw pretty much all of central London. It was extraordinary. We all were geared up for walking all day and ready to discover the treasures of this city – and walk we did! The weather was fantastic - around 20 and sunny most of the time. We walked everywhere and first saw: Kensington Palace & Gardens; Royal Albert Hall; Amazing Mews; Harrods (unfriendly place). Then we had a snack and a rest in St. James's Park (in the sun, on the grass and with thousands other people) and saw: Buckingham Palace; St. James's Palace; The Horseguards; Downing Street; Houses of Parliament; Big Ben; Westminster Abbey; House of Commons; London Eye. Then we took a boat cruise on the River Thames which was a big surprise and so much fun and we arrived at the Tower of London and saw Tower Bridge.
Afterwards we had our dinner in 'Dickens' a big pub & restaurant in St. Katherine's Docks and as the sun was going down, we saw: Trafalgar Square; Piccadilly Circus; Covent Garden; and took our last photos of London from Hungerford Bridge.
It was an amazing day and because it was all new to the kids and it was their first European City - everyone will have fantastic memories to treasure forever. Tomorrow an early start - we're leaving the hotel in 6 hours time and we are off to Warsaw to begin our work!
Diary Entry – Day 3 – April 25, 2009
Hello from Poland. The weather is perfect, the sites we saw are fantastic, the monuments are great, the food is different and so much fresher than in Canada.
Today was our last day before the "real work" that we came for begins.
After getting up at an unbelievable time (4 am in London - midnight in Halifax) we made it to the airport and got on the plane with no problems. The tiredness from yesterday overpowered us so most of us slept for the whole journey. Then as soon as we arrived in Warsaw we checked into the hotel and we went for a very long walk around the city.
We were introduced to a second chaperone, Aneta, who was with us for the rest of the day translating and giving us lots of information on Warsaw. We visited the Royal Route (Nowy Świat, Krakowskie Przedmieście) where we saw many incredible buildings and churches and monuments (including Nicholas Copernicus - guess who he was - we now know!).
Then we went for lunch and had our first Polish experience with food - Polish pierogis! We tried a few different kinds (meat, cabbage, cheese and potatoes and sweet ones with fruit) and it was very different - some of us liked it better than others - but we ate everything!
We were then joined by another chaperone, Maria, who surprised us because she remembered all our names from the photo that Kamila had sent to her before we left Halifax. That was cool. Afterwards we went for a walk around the Old Town and the New Old Town and the market with Polish made "things" and food where we could try new tastes. Some of them were really good and so amazingly fresh! Then we went to see the Grand Theatre and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and then by tram and Warsaw subway we went to the Palace of Culture and Science - that was fantastic. We visited the newest Warsaw shopping mall which is situated right downtown. It was amazing and.. really expensive!! We didn't shop here though.
Then we went to a Japanese restaurant where we were all eating with chopsticks and tried some more different food. It was really good. Afterwards around 9:00 pm we made our way back to the hotel. We can get some sleep tonight and be fresher and less tired tomorrow. Tomorrow we are going to the Foundation's office to pack the mountain of presents for the children and later in the afternoon we will visit the Warsaw Uprising & WWII Museum and the biggest shopping mall in Poland (Arkadia). So it looks like a full day as well.
We all feel great and are really happy. We are living our experience to the fullest. It feels as if we already been on the trip for like 3 weeks and it's hard to believe that we only left 3 days ago!
Diary Entry – Day 4 – April 26, 2009
Today we started a little bit later. The day was beautiful - sunny and warm. First we took the tram to the office and spent the afternoon wrapping the presents and loading the van. We also looked through some of the albums from the nearly 1000 fantasies that have been granted by the Foundation over the past 5 years and our mission here began to sink in.
After lunch at Polish McDonald's (we had to try this and it is so much better that at home) we went to the Museum of World War II and the Warsaw Uprising and it was very interesting and moving and the interactive parts are so incredible.
Afterwards we went to the shopping mall - Arkadia (paradise for the girls :-) – the largest in Poland - we really enjoyed shopping there and although we only had a couple of hours we bought a lot of stuff. Moms - you will love it!
So, at the end of our 3rd day in Europe we have to say that we absolutely LOVE IT HERE. It is so much more fantastic than we ever imagined. London is incredible. In Poland we also love everything, the clothes, the buildings, the transportation and the food is amazing - everything is so fresh and we are really looking forwards to our meals especially breakfast at the hotel.
We are now fully charged and ready to start our work and to travel to visit the children who are waiting for us. Tomorrow we are leaving the hotel at 9:30 and we won't be checking into the next hotel until late in the evening.
Cheers from Poland! Pozdrowienia z Polski!
Diary Entry – Day 5 – April 27, 2009
Hi there! We have ended our first day of driving on Polish roads which was quite an adventure but because we stopped many times it didn't feel so bad. Actually we had some fun. We sang in the van and played many word games. We visited two teens today to grant their fantasies - Janek and Anastazja. They are both 17, they live in the same town (Biała Podlaska) and they both have cystic fibrosis.
Janek lives in a small two room apartment with a kitchen and bathroom. There are 5 siblings in his family, but at the moment he is the only one living there with his mom. The flat is really poor. There is nothing there yet they are so friendly. Janek's two siblings who also had cystic fibrosis have already died from it. He is the only one still alive and the other two siblings are healthy. Janek has had a lung transplant in Vienna. He only has one lung, because the other one had to be removed to make him live longer a few years back. He was really happy to see us and to have his fantasy granted which was to have a movie camera. It was fantastic! He also loved our Canadian stuff and at the end of our visit he played his accordion for us. It was great, Janek played really well. When he was younger and healthier he attended music school, but now because of cystic fibrosis he is home schooled and music is not included!
Afterwards we visited Anastazja whose dream was to have a laptop. She got one from us! She was a very sweet, cute girl who absolutely loved her gift. She also spoke really good English so we could have a good long chat with her (she has been learning English for 10 years and was really happy to use it). At the end of our visit at Anastazja's house she played the piano for us.
She played amazingly – so beautifully. Like Janek she also attended the music school until her illness and her favorite instrument is the piano.
We all got very emotional after these visits - because despite of the wonderful fun we had with them, we also understood that they are the same age as some of us and that they have no future! Yet they are such fantastic kids, really smart and they have their plans and dreams. It was really so hard to think about it but we chatted it through as a team and became stronger together.
We have three children tomorrow to visit so until then ….
Diary Entry – Day 6 – April 28, 2009
Today we had another wonderful day - not a cloud in the sky. After a quite posh and very delicious breakfast we started our travel through the surroundings of Rzeszów. We found the passing landscapes really gorgeous and picturesque. The area that we have been exploring looks like a land from a fairytale - with deep green grass and trees, small wooden cottages and colorful wooden decorations.
The first fantasy that we have granted was to Marcelina who is 14 and has cystic fibrosis. She dreamed of having a big fluffy donkey toy which she could hug and cuddle. Marcelina was very emotional about our visit. She was quite nervous but also very happy. Marcelina was laughing at our Canadian kids trying to pronounce difficult Polish words or sentences like: "w Szczebrzeszynie chrzaszcz brzmi w trzcinie" etc. She told us also about her other hobbies which are collecting mugs and playing volleyball. Marcelina can't go to school but she has teachers coming to her everyday - she is home schooled like many of our sick children. Marcelina had a lung transplant about 6 months ago and she is slowly recovering. Her mom greeted us with cake and drinks. After a nice chat with Marcelina we went to visit the next child who lived nearby.
The next wish-child that we granted a fantasy to was Aneta who dreamed about having a Hi-Fi system and a digital camera. Aneta who is 12 has very a number of very rare genetic disorders, which make her body disabled. She suffers a lot of pain but she is a very brave, special and very talented girl. A little bit shy and tense in the beginning she became talkative while sitting on a sofa amongst the Canadian kids and showed them her beautiful drawings. Despite of her severe pain and a possible leg amputation in the near future, Aneta wants to be a normal girl so she still goes everyday to a nearby elementary school. She promised to make us a photo-session of all her new toys (she also got another - smaller donkey toy and two very cute sheep from us). Her mom also welcomed us with cake and drinks - all was really delicious.
Our third visit was to 4-year old Amelka who has a rare malignant cancer. She has many small tumors in her body, they spread quickly and soon will become life-threatening. She now has it in her brain, lungs, kidneys and eyes. but even though she might loose her sight soon, at least she doesn't look that she is in pain. Amelia's fantasy was to have her own playground outside her house. This was the 1000th fantasy that the Polish Foundation has granted - an amazing number in only 5 years and with very limited resources.
So we brought the whole playground with us - in pieces and mostly unpainted! We had a lot of work trying to put everything together and our Canadian kids were very brave painting all the parts and it was worth every effort. It took about 3.5 hours to do all the work. The playground looked awesome and Amelia looked very happy and cheerful. She learned the names of most of the Canadian kids and was throwing them a ball and playing with them in her new colorful plastic house, which seemed to be her favorite part of the whole playground. Afterwards we had a barbeque together and chatted to Amelia a little bit more through our translators of course.
It was a fantastic day and after working so hard our Canadian kids got a small reward - they went to the shopping mall again! After a little shopping we went for pizza and then to the amazing hotel Grand in Rzeszów. It is the most incredible and exclusive 4,5* hotel any of our kids have ever been to - so everyone is really happy!
Good night (2am) from Rzeszów – we’re half way!
Diary Entry – Day 7 – April 29, 2009
How to start your day best? With a good breakfast! So we indulged ourselves in the morning specialties of the Grand Hotel kitchen. Congratulations to the chef! Everything was delicious!
Our first little one to visit today was 4 year old Kacper who suffers from leukemia. We brought him a turtle-shaped sandbox and a slide. He was so happy to get his new toys and to see us that he kept running around and it was hard to stop him when we wanted to take a photo. Kacper has a little brother - Bartosz who accompanies him all the time.
The way from Kacper's village to our second child - 3 year old Małgorzata - was very picturesque. Green grass hills, yellow oil seed rape fields, pink and white orchards in blossom all made our journey really colorful and somehow – also made us feel hungry ;-) So we decided to stop for lunch in Busko Zdrój - a beautiful resort town. We had a chance to try traditional Polish dishes, however some of us decided to choose more familiar tastes like chicken, French fries and ketchup, a lot of ketchup! Again we were surprised by the size of cold drinks that are served here! The glass is less than half the size of the ones we get back home and there are no refills here!
Full of energy we reached Małgorzata's house. We were so pleased to see her happy and it would be impossible to guess that she suffers from cancer. She is such a darling! Although we couldn't communicate in Polish, except through our translators, we could understand each other without words. We played ball games with her while her new car was under construction. A "Hummer" as well as a slide were her wishes that we granted today. By the end of our visit she was still sliding down her slide and driving her car. It was fantastic to see.
We left Małgorzata's house around 6 pm and drove towards Kraków. Our chaperones took us around Kraków Old Town - we walked a few streets, the town square and of course we took a beautiful walk by the Vistula River with the view of the castle. We also visited the famous fire-breathing Dragon! That was really cool. Later we went for supper to an Italian restaurant and then back to the hotel. It is a little bit different from the posh Grand Hotel in Rzeszów but it doesn't matter one bit! The weather was incredible all day - it was hot and sunny. We really enjoyed spending some time outside with the children. A wonderfully rewarding day!
Diary Entry – Day 8 – April 30, 2009
How are you today? We are great, very tired but happy. The day started today quite slowly with a lazy breakfast and getting lost in the corridors and rooms of the weirdest and the most confusing hotels that most of us have probably ever seen. After a nice breakfast in one of the dining rooms we left our luggage in the hotel and went to spread our smiles amongst the terminally-ill children with cystic fibrosis, closed in the walls of the Rabka hospital. Rabka is a famous Polish resort with many hospitals that specialize in the treatment of lungs diseases. On the way there we passed some amazing landscapes and admired the awesome views.
At the hospital we were welcomed by a very friendly and helpful stuff. There were not so many children there at this time (around 25) because of the Polish Labour & Constitution Day – which consists of three days of holidays. The poor condition of the children who we met there meant that their parents could not take them home for the holidays.
The children - especially the older ones were a little bit reserved at the beginning, but it didn't take us even 5 minutes to break the ice with our smiles to find them talkative and then they really opened up. They looked very sad in the beginning but their smiling and happy faces afterwards made us feel really happy that we were able to cheer them up. The smaller children really loved their gifts especially the soft toys and all the Canadian stuff that we brought with us. It was really fantastic and rewarding to see how happy the children were about our visit but it was also very emotional for us seeing how hard their lives are.
We heard many "thank yous" from the hospital staff and the children, which was very touching. In the end, a small boy came up to us, and with very shy voice told us that was so happy about our visit and so thankful for all the gifts that he got from us. You can imagine how we all felt…..
On the way back to Kraków we stopped at the Wieliczka Salt Mines. It was an amazing place. The mines were set up in 1666 and they are rich in history and there are lots of legends connected with the mines. After going down 150 meters underground we saw the salt kingdom with very impressive salt chambers, rooms, lakes, caves and sculptures. Everything there was made of salt. The tour was very interesting and the mines were well worth seeing.
We ended our day shopping in Kraków's biggest mall (again!) and having supper there – burgers, subs and other North American style food!
It was an emotional and somewhat difficult day for all of us and we were exhausted at the end of it. Once in the hotel we fell to sleep almost immediately!
Diary Entry – Day 9 – May 1, 2009
Greetings from Katowice. Today we had a long and very emotional day. It started off as usual with breakfast in the morning at the hotel at 8:30. Then we packed the vans and drove to visit Gabrysia (6) who struggles against leukemia. Her fantasy was to get curtains, bedding, carpet and a chair for her new room. She got all those… and so much more. She was a sweet cutie who was very shy. Gabrysia doesn't look very sick, but she just came back from hospital where she was undergoing yet another treatment. She gets infections all the time and any of them can kill her. We helped her to unpack her presents, made a new bed for her and played with her. Gabrysia loves putting puzzles together so we did that. It was a lot of fun!
Next, after lunch we drove to Auschwitz. It was a long visit. We couldn't believe that we were at the very place where almost 1,5 million people were killed and another 1,5 million were basically tortured. It was overwhelming for all of us to see all the photos, the barracks, the death wall, the prison within a prison, the belongings of the people who were killed, their hair and personal items, the gas chambers and the crematorium. It made a huge impression on us and it was really hard sometimes to realize that it happened only one generation ago and in Europe.
After the visit we bought some books or postcards of the concentration camp and then we went to the hotel to Zabrze to check in (it took us a couple of hours because of traffic and bad roads) and then we went for a Polish-style supper.
Tomorrow we are going to visit 3 children and an additional child to our original plan - Iga - who suffers from cystic fibrosis. She is 20, but she was the first person ever in Poland to have a lung transplant. She’s felt great for 4 years, but now her body is rejecting the new organ and she has no chance ... apart from another transplant, but she may not survive. Iga has been in hospital for a long time now and so she would really welcome visitors from across the world. We will also visit her tomorrow.
Diary Entry – Day 10 – May 2, 2009
Hi Everyone. This is the final report from Poland as tomorrow we head back to London for the day before returning to Halifax via New York on Monday. We are all very, very tired but very happy. To travel half way around the world and being up for 16 hours a day on the road is finally catching up with us. We were traveling all day today - first we went to the hospital to visit Iga who is 20 and is struggling against cystic fibrosis. She had her fantasy granted by our Foundation last year which was to go shopping and have a professional photo-session. Iga has been fine after her transplant until now but unfortunately her body is rejecting the new organ so she has no chance and she is dying. We visited her in hospital and she was so happy to see us. Iga looked really poorly but she loved the photos that Patrycja was showing her on the laptop (this was her wish that was granted – when she became a fashion model for a day). Patrycja, our Foundation manager who is on the tour with us, is the lady in green in the photos - a very special lady.
Next we visited Tomek who is 11 and suffering from muscular dystrophy. Tomek's fantasy was to have a laptop. Our visit was a total surprise for Tomek and he was so, so happy with his gifts - he got a laptop and a printer from us. It was a fantastic visit!
Then we traveled to see Kamil who is 3 and is ill with cystic fibrosis. His dream was to get a battery operated car and toys (Thomas and friends and Bob the builder). Kamil got everything he wished for. The Thomas and Friends toys were provided by Pamela Barnes from the Nova Scotia Chapter of the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in Halifax. He was so happy. Kamil also has a younger brother who was assisting us and Kamil with everything. The boys always play together. They both played and had so much fun with the girls while Matt was kept busy putting the battery-operated car together. This was very difficult and Matt was definitely the star of the day! Without him this wish wouldn't be possible! Great job Matt!
Then we went to visit Patryk (7) who is struggling against leukemia and who wanted to have a car shaped bed. Unfortunately Patryk felt really bad and his condition worsened so much that he had to go to hospital immediately. So we put his bed together for him and Patrycja will visit him tomorrow at the hospital to show him the photos. It just shows everyone how fragile life truly is for these young children……….
Our last day in Poland was very good and we are all sad that our amazing journey is coming to an end but we are also missing home and ready to tell our stories to our family, friends and sponsors. It's hard to believe it's almost over. It felt like a month away and, at the same time, just like a couple of days! Tonight we looked at photos of London and others from the beginning of our trip and it seemed like a month not a week ago – we have achieved so much. It was fantastic. Tomorrow (up in 4 hours!) we are going to London and we have no plans apart from getting to the hotel and having a restful and reflective evening together… So, see you soon!
