More Malbork

Interesting, Matt, that you would ask about the food because this morning before we got out of bed, Dad and I were talking about that exact thing. What we are amazed at is the fact that the bread is not good here...it's tasteless and has no grain and good seeds in it...like the German bread does. Also, the desserts here are totally crappy....not a good one around...and we've tried several and we've been in a bakery and it's not much better than the Hy Vee bakery. Everything is just tasteless. These two things...the bread and the desserts being so bad it's not worth eating...is so strange when you think of the German influence here in the past...but when you think of yesterday's history post about how everyone fled from here...not just Malbork, but the rest of Poland...that left the area starting from scratch and having new influences. When you look at the whole picture, it makes sense. The food here is not mind altering like German food. It's good because it's different, but they don't use much in the way of spices. We're anxious to see what Czech food is like.
We'll keep you posted.

As far as researching family history....Yesterday at the castle information desk, we were given the names of 4 people that work in the castle in the archives department. For whatever reason, I liked the sound of 2 of them....Rijard and Eva. So we arrived at the castle at 9:00 full of anticipation, but when we went through the main gate and no one spoke English, we didn't have a clue where to go. Keep in mind the castle is on 22 acres of land...most of it occupied by walls or buildings. There are umpteen rooms in the castle.

Here's where we went through the main gate of the castle:













But we decided to go through one of the doors...it was shut, but we just went in anyway. Here it is:






Soon we came upon a person who didn't speak English but I showed her the name of Rijard and she pointed back out the door and to the right. So we started walking down the hall. I looked to the left at one point and there was a closed door...a few steps down and very uninviting. Without thinking and without knowing why I did it, I knocked on the door. A woman answered the door and didn't speak English so I showed her the paper with Rijard's name. She started babbling something that I couldn't understand so I pointed to the other name ...Eva Penca Selwekanat. She looked for a minute , then said, "I'm Eva". Wow! what were the odds of walking into Eva's door...out of the hundreds of rooms in that monstrous castle?!! Don't you love it?

So Eva found someone to translate into English and she said that the archives in the castle didn't include any records before 1879 so we couldn't access anything. Johann was the youngest child and he was born in 1859. She said any records would be in the Catholic Diocese in a small town northeast of Malbork called Elblag...about 22 miles away...and about 32 miles from the Russian border (we almost had to go toe to toe with the Rooskies!).

We took off for Elblag...here was a sight along the way:






Wait a minute...where the Hel are we...I thought we were in Poland!!

So as usual, we didn't know what we were doing or where we were going...the address was unclear...so we got to Elblag and we just drove around looking for a church. Finally we saw one and Dad dropped me off & he waited in the car because there is never any parking on the streets...only in designated parking areas and you have to plug a machine that is unclear how to do since we don't know the language. So mostly Dad parks on the sidewalk or in a street with no parking signs - and he sits in the car and if he gets caught, he plans on playing dumb. So I walked into a big church, but didn't see anyone there. I went back outside and walked around and soon saw an important looking priest and showed him the name of the diocese. Soon several other priests were greeting him and holding his hand as if to kiss it. When I later described the guy to Dad, he said that was the bishop...and that was pretty brassy of my to go up and talk to him. Whatever. Anyway, he was very nice and had one of the hand kissers translate to me and showed me which door to go into. It wasn't marked so I was glad they showed me. I knocked on the door there and showed that guy the paper that I had the English speaking gal at the hotel write...that we were looking for family history information for Johann Sawatzki born in 1859. He took me up 4 or 6 flights of stairs to another man who might have been a priest and his helper, a nun. They were both very nice and helpful. the man spoke a little English but we mostly spoke in German. It turns out the man that deals in the archives won't be back until Sunday. So we managed to communicate that I would leave information with them for the man to work on when he returns. They took photos of the family tree that I had created before leaving home...both for Sawatzki and for Nachtigall. Hopefully they will find out some pieces of information and will either email them to me or mail them. They were very nice and tried very hard to help.

I got back to the car and Dad was especially glad that he had stayed in the car since a nun was involved (but she was nice!)

We got back to the city and went to the city building. Dad stayed in the car and overparked. I found an English speaking girl and we went up more flights of stairs to another office. What we found out was that the city doesn't keep any records older than 50 years. The rest are stored in the castle...but only after 1879. I asked if there was any record as to where Johann lived and they said no there weren't any records like that...just church records of births, deaths, marriages, etc. I asked if there were any military records and the non-English speaking woman just laughed and shook her head. I then realized that a lot of our efforts were in vain. They really haven't cared about keeping records of anything...other than the church records...but civil records and military records...no. They have been under so many rules that it would be very confusing to have records of anything. So another dead end there. The girl that spoke English did recommend a good restaurant for dinner tonight...so we decided to go on a tour of the castle and then eat in the Goth Resturant...which is in one of the wings of the basement of the castle.

But first we took a tour. Here are some photos of this amazing place:













A bunch of cannonballs:






More cannonballs:











Here's an old photo of the castle...in 1945...after the war...compliments of the Russians. They people of Malbork (and others) had to do a lot of reconstruction!





This was the kitchen and eating area:












This was one of the amazing rooms:











Look carefully to the right of the pillar...there is a dark ball. It's a cannonball lodged into the wall from a 1410 altercation. They shot the cannon from across the river that borders the castle. It went through the windows on the opposite side and lodged in the wall...barely missing the pillar that was there for structure.






Here's a close up of the cannonball in the wall:






After our tour we went to the castle restaurant and we both ordered the chicken breast breaded in gingerbread. It's from a recipe from the 1400's...how could we not get that!!





Here's a picture of the presentation...what a work of art...and...it was delicious!





Of course beer:






That was it...we had a busy day...so busy that I was too tired to post the blog til now.

But wait...there seems to be a special photo:








Flag Pole


And yet another. Sorry this is blurry..







Pole dancing



I'll leave you with that!



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Location:Malbork