Barbecues and Auctions - Sunday, May 14

Originally, we were told that we would have the first day in the country on our GSE to rest and get ourselves together. However, our Polish friends were ready with activities from the beginning! Ann and I got up early and went exploring on our own a little. We took a taxi into the city center and walked around before attending our church services.

For lunch, we all met at the Summer Home of Andrei Dolinski, a Rotarian, in Grotniki, outside of Lodz. We had a barbecue with Andrei and his family and several Rotarians. It was a great chance to get to know some people and the food was great. We had fun talking and eating and spent several hours enjoying the fresh air in the country. It rained off and on, but not too hard. This is a group picture taken at the barbecue.



A highlight of the barbecue was when Michael, another Rotarian, came with his Bentley, of which he is the "original owner." Actually, I'm not sure if I remember correctly, but I believe it was owned by the English consulate and prior to that, the German government.



Following the concert, we attended an art auction held by one of the local rotary clubs (and organized by Eva, our hostess) to benefit the poorest children in Lodz. It was in a beautiful building.

After the auction, Eva's son, Stan drove us around and gave us a great tour of Lodz. Lodz was and is well known across Europe as a major manufacturing town. There are several large older factories that are no longer in use, some of which people are just starting to restore. We had a great time learning about the history of Lodz and the past and future industries here. He took us all over and we had a great time. These area couple of pictures of the oldest textile factories in Lodz.





We finished out the evening on Piotrkowska street, a famous shopping and dining street in central Lodz where we saw a live concert of a band from Southern Poland and ate a nice dinner in a traditional polish restaurant. There are several monuments on Piotrkowska street and this is one of them, a famous Polish poet whose nose you can rub for good luck.