August 17, 2014
First of all, my day started out with a hot comforting shower complete with little jets of water and a radio. Yes, it took me 5 minutes to figure out how it all worked and exactly where the hot water knob thing actually was (I know that you all are reading this just to find out this piece of information. You’re welcome). It was the last day of tour and the last concert day and the last bus ride and the last number roll call on the bus. It took us 14 point something seconds in which Eric B. was pleased. We sang at a small church 30-ish kilometers from Chelm. It was the 90th anniversary of the church and we felt blessed to be a part of the celebration. After the service, there was much food and much eating. So. Much. Food. Amen. And we ate. And ate. And ate. I was personally blessed to see a man standing on a chair in the kitchen stirring the large pot of bigos, a wonderful polish stew with bacon and all things good in it. Our cooks set all of the food on these big tables out side and everyone converged. There were no lines, one just dove in. Kielbasa ( the essence of comfort food) a polish potatoes salad with pickles, (of course) bread and bigos- this was lunch. And then there was cake. Everywhere. Confession: I ate too much cake. Our hosts were so generous and kind to us and made us feel welcomed in every way. They even did the wave for us as our bus departed. Our evening concert was in Chelm. There were quite a few people in the audience that we had met at the morning service and it was nice to feel like we ” knew people”. We ate a quick supper, (once again provided by our kind hosts) wherein we scraped the nutella jars CLEAN. We left for “home” at around 8 pm and did not arrive back at Gustav’s until midnight-ish. After the bus was emptied entirely, we said good-night.
~Kristen Sommers