Poznan was one of the locations that I originally “circled on my calendar”, so to speak, because at one point during my ancestry search, it came up as a location that some of my ancestors might have lived in and even been buried in. This dream eventually died or at least was diluted a bit, as I discovered that most of my ancestors only traveled through Poznan, and might not even be from there. But I still decided that it was somewhere I wanted to visit. Seeing the name scrawled on passenger manifest was enough to get me looking online at cemeteries and at Google Street View. I will admit: from my western perspective, and because of the context, I expected it to be some sort of backwater tiny Polish village. But of course, it’s a huge vibrant modern city, and even the cemetery was very modern and nice. And I only found one potential ancestor; but who cares, I had fun anyway.

I had a very pleasant and small AirBnb right near the central town square, which was beautiful but also unforunately under heavy construction. There was a croissant museum - closed for the holidays. I ate at Fat Bob’s Burgers in honor of my dad, and it was acceptable, if a bit salty. The weather has not been cooperating so there wasn’t much to do. I did go out to a single cemetery, and like I said I found one distant relative, but I don’t consider it a loss at all.

I visited a cathedral which apparently is the oldest in Poland, dating from the 11th century, and it was easy to imagine my ancestors visiting the place and praying there, like I did.

I also got to visit Decathlon, the French sporting goods store that we used to have in Oakland before they closed their only 2 US locations. Man, I miss that place. I bought some cool pants.

i also drove to Poznan central station where an awesome employee helped me buy tickets to and from Kyiv. She was amazingly helpful.

So all in all, a good day.