Day 15-20

May 31-June 5 -- The head cold continues to rage, meaning I have been forced to take it easy and perhaps not see as much of Poznan as I would have liked. But I would rather get over this cold before we take off on our next jaunt through Germany and into Austria, when I will have fewer options for rest days.

The exciting news from these past few days is that Liam and I were able to go to a prenatal appointment together while I've been here in Poland. Since Liam will be gone for almost the entire pregnancy, we really wanted to work it out to have an appointment while I was visiting and possibly even an ultrasound so that Liam could be a part of that for at least one appointment. With the help of Liam's co-worker serving as a translator, we were able to schedule one. Together, we got to see Baby Trotter squirming around and waving his/her hand and sucking her/his thumb. And the Big Reveal?!?!?!?...The doctor is 100% certain that the baby is...wait for it...drum roll please...HUMAN! Don't worry, we'll have a gender reveal party around the second week of November or so. And he said that everything else looked good for 17 weeks, too.

On Thursday, we went to the Imperial Castle. We didn't know what we were doing or where to go and couldn't read the signs, so we went in a door that was unlocked and ended up wandering around the whole castle by ourselves, not sure if we were even supposed to be in there. We saw the room that was Hitler's office here in Poznan during WWII (but which he never actually visited) and some cool relief carvings of the history of the oppression of Poland, which started way back before 1000 AD. The Polish people have definitely had their fair share of people playing tug-of-war over them. We finally ended up at the 1956 Uprising Museum, which explained what life was like under the Soviet rule after WWII and how the people rose up in protest many different times to try to get out from under the oppression of the Russians. Their uprising somewhat succeeded in 1981, but they didn't get complete freedom until 1989.

We have enjoyed feeling like we live in this city for a few weeks, getting to know the local grocery stores and restaurants. My favorite restaurant so far has been one called Manekin, which is a crepe restaurant. There is a local, free zoo (known as the Old Zoo) about three blocks from the apartment, so we visited that zoo one morning. It had a variety of animals but it is not very big. We saw some very unique birds, some goats, tamarin and capuchin monkeys, donkeys, zebus, alpacas, and a few other animals.

Over the weekend, I had the apartment to myself as GC was able to wrangle another weekend off, and the C family went to the mountains for the weekend. On Saturday, I walked down to the town center around noon and got to see the goats come out of the clock tower and bang their heads together twelve times to the awe and amazement of a town square full of people. It is anti-climatic to say the least, but I don't think one can really say one's been in Poznan until one has seen it. I also walked to one of the cathedrals downtown and took a few pictures there. Poznan has a lot of cathedrals.

On Tuesday, we will have an early morning walk to the train, where we will say good-bye to our dear husbands and to Poznan and Poland and head back to Germany, with a destination of Dresden. From there it will be a whirlwind of sightseeing for three solid weeks.