{"id":304,"date":"2011-03-03T16:50:55","date_gmt":"2011-03-03T20:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/?p=304"},"modified":"2011-03-03T16:50:55","modified_gmt":"2011-03-03T20:50:55","slug":"it-all-started-about-a-year-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/?p=304","title":{"rendered":"It all started about a year ago&#8230;."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;.when I received a letter (yes, a real letter, like via the US Postal Service) from my sister, Mary. It was a brochure along with a brief note. The brief note says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #993300;\">Hey, Leon<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\">Thought I&#8217;d send this brochure your way. Our friend Chris Kulinski dropped it off and I know this is a dream of yours. He said it&#8217;s the best tour he&#8217;s put together yet!! Never hurts to dream, right?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\">Love you, Mary<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u00a0And so I did begin to dream. I read that brochure over and over, and it didn&#8217;t take me long to come to a decision, to go on the tour. There are times in life when you find you&#8217;ve really made the best decision, and that is one of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I still have that brochure, though I pretty much had it memorized by the time the trip began. I spent a lot of time reading, planning, thinking, and dreaming. But I never, ever, was able to dream that the trip would be as good as it was. I got to see a lot of Poland, though often briefly. I got to soak up some of the heart and soul of Poland while I was there, too. And, best of all&#8211;the absolute best moments of the trip&#8211;I got to meet relatives of mine. That was absolutely, without a doubt the highest point of my trip. I will never forget that moment when Alicja knocked on my hotel room door. I was perplexed for a moment, and then overjoyed. What a great moment.<\/p>\n<p>And I continue to dream. That first trip to Poland has led me to more dreaming, and now I am starting to plan my next trip to Poland late this summer. You know I&#8217;ll write more about that as time goes on. But I am already planning, already dreaming. And once again, I&#8217;m sure that the reality will surpass even my wildest dreams! I cannot wait to go back again. And again. And&#8230;.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;.when I received a letter (yes, a real letter, like via the US Postal Service) from my sister, Mary. It was a brochure along with a brief note. The brief note says: Hey, Leon Thought I&#8217;d send this brochure your &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/?p=304\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-love-of-poland","category-my-polish-family","category-poland-trip-prep"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}