So, today was my last day of classes and is my last day and night in Ostroleka. Tomorrow I will take myself and my giant bags on the 11:30 bus to Warsaw. I am very sad to be leaving actually. I think the fact that I am leaving so soon is making me see all the things I will miss about Poland and Ostroleka, even stupid things like the bad pop music and the good kebab place. I think I am not noticing the things that might have bothered me before because I will be leaving soon. But it is good that I am going back to school when I get home and really really really looking forward to that because it will make leaving less sad. Its weird though because at this point I am starting to have a life and relationships with other people here. Like if I was not leaving, I would have commitments and things to look forward to in the upcoming days, like Olga's sister's wedding, and Asia's BBQ and some concert that is either saturday or sunday.
Anyway, for the last day of class I played jeopardy with my students and then we just sat around and talked for about 2 hours. I think they have gotten better at english this summer or at least gotten more confident, which makes me feel happy. Even if their grammar is pretty atrocious, i think they learned something. I don't think they could have talked to me for 2 hours at the beginning of the summer. I will miss them alot, but they all have joined facebook so we can keep in touch. (and penpals, lookout, because i gave them your email addresses).
Oh! So the big triumph of my day is that I sucessfully purchased a kebab, not only a kebab but a small kebab with spicy sauce, without giving away that i dont speak polish. Trust me, ordering a kebab is very complex and this is the only time i havent ended up flustered and waving my arms. So see, I'm finally getting the hang of this country.
I don't really know what else to write. I am currently sitting in an internet cafe trying to kill time until I meet up with Asia and Karol, for the last time ever : ( . I will miss them a lot a lot. Yesterday I said goodbye to Julie because she is flying home thursday. She promised that if i continued to keep in touch with her she would invite me to her wedding someday so i cant say that we will never see each other again. I would go outside and sit on a bench and read right now but it just rained so everthing is wet and i don't want to get my butt wet.
on that note, I guess I will end this somewhat depressing entry-thingy. I will see you all and talk to you all soon! But if you want to email me or even comment on what I have written, then I very much approve of that action.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
The Lakes are Beautiful OR I really like bathrooms
So, I have returned from my adventures at the Mazurian lakes. I stayed a day longer than I was supposed to. Meaning, Julie had to teach my class, which was OK because she owed me 2 classes anyway. My students, who now have facebook, apparently did come to class but were upset that I was not there, because "Juliet doesn't like us."
The lakes are really nice and pretty. I took pictures. Wojtek's family has some land there where they are in the process of getting approved to build a cottage. In the meantime they have a little trailer thing. I liked the trailer thing, it meant i didnt have to sleep in a tent, and there was a kitchen and beds.
The downside, the bathrooms were on a campsite that was a 5 minute walk away. Now, this is not bad, persay... except that I am pretty sure that I go to the bathroom 2 to 3 times as often as the average Polish person. So you see, it was very awkward to excuse myself to go to the bathroom because it took so long AND because no one else was doing it ever. And in the night you can not walk there by yourself. So I tried to wait for when other people were going to the bathroom, but seriously, Asia and I went to the bathroom when we woke up around 1030 and then she had not gone again by the time we were leaving to go home at 7. I think this is not normal. And then also, because I know taht I do not have regular access to the bathroom, I feel like I have to go to the bathroom all the time. In conclusion, I enjoy houses, where there are bathrooms, that I can slip away to without informing the world of where I am going and allowing them to monitor my bathroom habits. I hope you all enjoyed this probably overly personal glimpse into my mind.
The lakes are really nice and pretty. I took pictures. Wojtek's family has some land there where they are in the process of getting approved to build a cottage. In the meantime they have a little trailer thing. I liked the trailer thing, it meant i didnt have to sleep in a tent, and there was a kitchen and beds.
The downside, the bathrooms were on a campsite that was a 5 minute walk away. Now, this is not bad, persay... except that I am pretty sure that I go to the bathroom 2 to 3 times as often as the average Polish person. So you see, it was very awkward to excuse myself to go to the bathroom because it took so long AND because no one else was doing it ever. And in the night you can not walk there by yourself. So I tried to wait for when other people were going to the bathroom, but seriously, Asia and I went to the bathroom when we woke up around 1030 and then she had not gone again by the time we were leaving to go home at 7. I think this is not normal. And then also, because I know taht I do not have regular access to the bathroom, I feel like I have to go to the bathroom all the time. In conclusion, I enjoy houses, where there are bathrooms, that I can slip away to without informing the world of where I am going and allowing them to monitor my bathroom habits. I hope you all enjoyed this probably overly personal glimpse into my mind.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
This country is somewhat ridiculous.
So, I don't really feel like writing a blog entry, but seeing as I have lots of things to write about and a good deal of time right now, I should probably get it over with. So yes.
1. Friday (yesterday) was Reid's last day of class because next week he is going to Prague and Berlin(possibly?) and so I will be on my own next week. In honor of his last day, we played baseball during class. We had had a lesson about baseball a couple of weeks ago. It wasnt a very formal game, considering there were 6 people playing. My favorite part was how we were using a bottle of coke as second base, so that if you got to second, you could have a refreshing drink. We also ate ice cream and our students gave us presents. By presents I mean they gave us ceramic cow piggy banks that are wearing Poland scarves. I have a sneaking suspicion that they will not be returning next week, in which case I will just help Julie out with her class.
2. Ok, so now is the big thing that I havent felt like writing about/chose not to write about because
a. I do not think I can convey how ridiculous this is in words
b. Mom would have worried about my safety if she knew about my participation in this
Last week, Karol told Reid and Asia and I that he had signed us up for a "Playing with fire workshop". And really after a week of witnessing this workshop, I really cannot come up with a better descriptive term for what this workshop was. Reid and I kind of gave up on the participating because it took entirely too much time and we decided that we were both too clumsy that continuing on in the workshop would be a bad idea. So anyway they 2 days we attended (monday and tuesday) the workshop lasted about 5 hours. We made it an 2.5 hours those days. Those days also did not involve any fire. Mostly you just learned to spin a stick around. (because see eventually the ends of the big stick would be lit on fire). So I learned some cool stick twirling moves but thats about it. Also on tuesday the instructor felt it was necessary that everyone "do the worm" as a warmup. After having seen the "fire show" that was the product of this workshop, I still do not understand why we were required to do the worm. The instructor himself was an interesting guy. He was pretty much alway shirtless and liked to rub his stomach while he gave instructions, We think he was trying to unspokenly communicate "Look how nice my abs are." Our other theory was that he is a super hero and he activates his powers by rubbing his belly. Anyway on wednesday, after our Makow friends had left, Karol told me and Reid that we should come down to the river so that we could "play with real fire." Do you guys understand how ridiculous that statement is? The scene down by the river was even stranger. There are all these kids with big sticks and they are cutting up pairs of jeans and wrapping them around the ends of sticks and securing them with wire. Then pouring oil over them and lighting them on fire. Then there are kids with chains that they spin around and on the ends are fire. And best of all, there are all these kids who are practicing spitting water and making like a big mist, because...they will then fill their mouths with the oil stuff and spit it into a flame to make it look like they are breathing fire. Apparently if you mess this up the fire will fly back onto your face and hair. Surprisingly, no one was injured at all over the course of the week. Probably because Reid and I declined to participate. We DID each spend about 30 seconds twirling one of the flaming sticks, but really I only did it so now I can say that in the past I have twirled a flaming stick. On thursday, at practice down by the river, "fire hands" made their appearance was well. These are like gloves with wires on the ends of the finger and at the end of each wire is a piece of fabric that can be lit on fire. Seriously the whole thing is ridiculous. Reid and I just watched it like "this would never ever ever happen in the united states, this would never happen in the united states..." Apparently fire twirling is popular in this country though. We told Ola about it when she came to visit and she said that Makow, which has about 10 -20,000 people and 1 restaurant, has not one, but two fire clubs that learn these sorts of things. Last night was the fire show, where the kids from the workshop showcased what they learned. I look lots of pictures and videos since my words alone can not adequately convey the strangeness of this adventure.
3. I am going to the Mazurian lakes in a few hours, to you know, spend my last weekend in Poland in style.
So, please write me emails to keep me amused during my last week here. I'm SOO excited that I will be seeing you all so soon.
1. Friday (yesterday) was Reid's last day of class because next week he is going to Prague and Berlin(possibly?) and so I will be on my own next week. In honor of his last day, we played baseball during class. We had had a lesson about baseball a couple of weeks ago. It wasnt a very formal game, considering there were 6 people playing. My favorite part was how we were using a bottle of coke as second base, so that if you got to second, you could have a refreshing drink. We also ate ice cream and our students gave us presents. By presents I mean they gave us ceramic cow piggy banks that are wearing Poland scarves. I have a sneaking suspicion that they will not be returning next week, in which case I will just help Julie out with her class.
2. Ok, so now is the big thing that I havent felt like writing about/chose not to write about because
a. I do not think I can convey how ridiculous this is in words
b. Mom would have worried about my safety if she knew about my participation in this
Last week, Karol told Reid and Asia and I that he had signed us up for a "Playing with fire workshop". And really after a week of witnessing this workshop, I really cannot come up with a better descriptive term for what this workshop was. Reid and I kind of gave up on the participating because it took entirely too much time and we decided that we were both too clumsy that continuing on in the workshop would be a bad idea. So anyway they 2 days we attended (monday and tuesday) the workshop lasted about 5 hours. We made it an 2.5 hours those days. Those days also did not involve any fire. Mostly you just learned to spin a stick around. (because see eventually the ends of the big stick would be lit on fire). So I learned some cool stick twirling moves but thats about it. Also on tuesday the instructor felt it was necessary that everyone "do the worm" as a warmup. After having seen the "fire show" that was the product of this workshop, I still do not understand why we were required to do the worm. The instructor himself was an interesting guy. He was pretty much alway shirtless and liked to rub his stomach while he gave instructions, We think he was trying to unspokenly communicate "Look how nice my abs are." Our other theory was that he is a super hero and he activates his powers by rubbing his belly. Anyway on wednesday, after our Makow friends had left, Karol told me and Reid that we should come down to the river so that we could "play with real fire." Do you guys understand how ridiculous that statement is? The scene down by the river was even stranger. There are all these kids with big sticks and they are cutting up pairs of jeans and wrapping them around the ends of sticks and securing them with wire. Then pouring oil over them and lighting them on fire. Then there are kids with chains that they spin around and on the ends are fire. And best of all, there are all these kids who are practicing spitting water and making like a big mist, because...they will then fill their mouths with the oil stuff and spit it into a flame to make it look like they are breathing fire. Apparently if you mess this up the fire will fly back onto your face and hair. Surprisingly, no one was injured at all over the course of the week. Probably because Reid and I declined to participate. We DID each spend about 30 seconds twirling one of the flaming sticks, but really I only did it so now I can say that in the past I have twirled a flaming stick. On thursday, at practice down by the river, "fire hands" made their appearance was well. These are like gloves with wires on the ends of the finger and at the end of each wire is a piece of fabric that can be lit on fire. Seriously the whole thing is ridiculous. Reid and I just watched it like "this would never ever ever happen in the united states, this would never happen in the united states..." Apparently fire twirling is popular in this country though. We told Ola about it when she came to visit and she said that Makow, which has about 10 -20,000 people and 1 restaurant, has not one, but two fire clubs that learn these sorts of things. Last night was the fire show, where the kids from the workshop showcased what they learned. I look lots of pictures and videos since my words alone can not adequately convey the strangeness of this adventure.
3. I am going to the Mazurian lakes in a few hours, to you know, spend my last weekend in Poland in style.
So, please write me emails to keep me amused during my last week here. I'm SOO excited that I will be seeing you all so soon.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Some Things
A Collection of Random Thoughts
1. The door to the toilet room (separate from the bathroom) does not shut completely. I feel this is just a potential awkward situation in the making. Especially as I almost walked in on someone this morning...
2. My host brother owns two types of hair gel made by the same company. One is "Chaos Look" and it is described as "modelling gel". The other is "Titan Look" and described as "extreme gel." Other than these descriptions I can not tell the difference between the two and this is what i think about every time I wash my hands.
3. From the first two items, can you guess what the last thing I did before I began writing this blog entry was?
4. Earlier today I drank strawberry, raspberry, loganberry tea. What the heck is a logan berry?
5. Yesterday Asia had a really awesome barbeque. It was lots of fun. Unfortunately, since I dont live there anymore I had to find a way home. I was going to take a taxi with one of Asia's friends who apparently lives near to my new house. So, my host sister sent me the address via text message. However, Karol's older brother ended up driving everyone home. This posed a problem as I don't ACTUALLY know where I live. We (Karol, Karol's brother Tomek, Asia's friend Worczek [Vorchek], and our friend Olga) ended up spending 45 minutes driving up and down every street in the area looking for "Staffa Street" which is evidently my street. We couldnt find it and had to go to Worczek's house and print a map, which finally got me home. I felt so bad to make everyone waste so long trying to get me home. Also I am very tired today. I took a nap at Karol's apartment for about an hour in between doing different things today.
6. Reid and I tried to rent Enchanted to watch in class today. Unfortunately, after spending half an hour at the movie store trying to pick out a movie we found out we could not rent one because we did not have a membership. At this point Reid realized that the other times he has rented movies he had been with Peter (his old host sisters boyfriend) whose family had a membership to the store. grr. We ended up watching the Pianist because my first host family gave it to me and so it has Polish encoding on the disk. I didnt want to watch this though because 1. ive already seen it and 2. its about poland, not america so the kids already know this stuff.
7. Tomorrow Ola and Sarah are coming to visit from Makow, I am so excited! Not the least of which because I will be able to break my 100 zloty bill (like a $50) that no one in the city has let me use in 3 days. You would think people would want me to buy things. But they would rather not have me buy anything than give me change. Its very frusterating because I have no other money and am not going to go to an ATM when I have 100 zlotys. Reid has had to lend me money on several occasions, but I never spend enough money in one place to merit the hundred geting broken. Tomorrow though, I will buy ice cream for many people, and they will finally break my 100. Also, I love Ola and Sarah.
8. My host dad said I was too skinny and need to eat. I disagree with that because I am getting fat in this country. I have had to change the hole on my belt that I use and everything. I may actually have to start excercising when I return to america. We will see. I'm hungry...
Ok that is all for now. Guess what? I will be in America in 11 days!!!!!!!!!!!! But you should keep emailing me anyway.
1. The door to the toilet room (separate from the bathroom) does not shut completely. I feel this is just a potential awkward situation in the making. Especially as I almost walked in on someone this morning...
2. My host brother owns two types of hair gel made by the same company. One is "Chaos Look" and it is described as "modelling gel". The other is "Titan Look" and described as "extreme gel." Other than these descriptions I can not tell the difference between the two and this is what i think about every time I wash my hands.
3. From the first two items, can you guess what the last thing I did before I began writing this blog entry was?
4. Earlier today I drank strawberry, raspberry, loganberry tea. What the heck is a logan berry?
5. Yesterday Asia had a really awesome barbeque. It was lots of fun. Unfortunately, since I dont live there anymore I had to find a way home. I was going to take a taxi with one of Asia's friends who apparently lives near to my new house. So, my host sister sent me the address via text message. However, Karol's older brother ended up driving everyone home. This posed a problem as I don't ACTUALLY know where I live. We (Karol, Karol's brother Tomek, Asia's friend Worczek [Vorchek], and our friend Olga) ended up spending 45 minutes driving up and down every street in the area looking for "Staffa Street" which is evidently my street. We couldnt find it and had to go to Worczek's house and print a map, which finally got me home. I felt so bad to make everyone waste so long trying to get me home. Also I am very tired today. I took a nap at Karol's apartment for about an hour in between doing different things today.
6. Reid and I tried to rent Enchanted to watch in class today. Unfortunately, after spending half an hour at the movie store trying to pick out a movie we found out we could not rent one because we did not have a membership. At this point Reid realized that the other times he has rented movies he had been with Peter (his old host sisters boyfriend) whose family had a membership to the store. grr. We ended up watching the Pianist because my first host family gave it to me and so it has Polish encoding on the disk. I didnt want to watch this though because 1. ive already seen it and 2. its about poland, not america so the kids already know this stuff.
7. Tomorrow Ola and Sarah are coming to visit from Makow, I am so excited! Not the least of which because I will be able to break my 100 zloty bill (like a $50) that no one in the city has let me use in 3 days. You would think people would want me to buy things. But they would rather not have me buy anything than give me change. Its very frusterating because I have no other money and am not going to go to an ATM when I have 100 zlotys. Reid has had to lend me money on several occasions, but I never spend enough money in one place to merit the hundred geting broken. Tomorrow though, I will buy ice cream for many people, and they will finally break my 100. Also, I love Ola and Sarah.
8. My host dad said I was too skinny and need to eat. I disagree with that because I am getting fat in this country. I have had to change the hole on my belt that I use and everything. I may actually have to start excercising when I return to america. We will see. I'm hungry...
Ok that is all for now. Guess what? I will be in America in 11 days!!!!!!!!!!!! But you should keep emailing me anyway.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
I have moved. again.
So, I just moved, maybe 20 minutes ago, to my final host family. There are several plusses and minuses to this situation.
The Positives
1. Computer with internet access in my room.
2. My new host brother is on the Polish Junior National Volleyball team. Thats right. He's a teammate of my future husband. And supposedly he speaks english (host brother). But He also had to carry my ridiculously heavy bag up the stairs so I don't know how disposed he is to have friendly feelings towards me.
The Negatives
1. My new house is a million years away from Karol and Asia. bleh.
2. I just don't feel like doing the whole starting over with a new family thing again. It requires a lot of pushing myself to be outgoing and come out of my shell. And im just kind of tired and just want to go back to America.
But I am and will be ok. After all it is only 2 more weeks. And really only a week and a half left in Ostroleka and Asia promised me we would hang out everyday. So it should be ok.
In other news, I went to Warsaw this weekend. Asia and I stayed with her older sister who is a student/english teacher there. It was pretty fun. I saw the new batman movie, which was very intense. and long. By th end I was pretty exhausted just from having to be so alert the whole time.
So one additional funny story for the road.
Yesterday, I ate scrambled eggs. without bread. Wait, it gets better. The other day, Reid ate 2 leftover chops. without bread. Isnt that ridiculous. Ok, so. Apparently this is ridiculous. So ridiculous in fact that my host sister has been telling this story to random people and earning wide eyes of shock in respose. In Poland, you do not eat without bread. The reason I ate the scarmbled eggs without the bread was that Asia's sisters boyfriend had eaten all the bread. and it was suppertime, and this caused a crisis. Because they had no idea what we could eat if we didnt have any bread. Asia ended up eating cereal and I was going to too, but her sister had made really good scrambled eggs the night before, so I asked if I could have them again. After explaining that Americans do, on occasion eat scrambled eggs without bread, I got my scrambled eggs, but since then, Asia has been telling everyone this story.
The Positives
1. Computer with internet access in my room.
2. My new host brother is on the Polish Junior National Volleyball team. Thats right. He's a teammate of my future husband. And supposedly he speaks english (host brother). But He also had to carry my ridiculously heavy bag up the stairs so I don't know how disposed he is to have friendly feelings towards me.
The Negatives
1. My new house is a million years away from Karol and Asia. bleh.
2. I just don't feel like doing the whole starting over with a new family thing again. It requires a lot of pushing myself to be outgoing and come out of my shell. And im just kind of tired and just want to go back to America.
But I am and will be ok. After all it is only 2 more weeks. And really only a week and a half left in Ostroleka and Asia promised me we would hang out everyday. So it should be ok.
In other news, I went to Warsaw this weekend. Asia and I stayed with her older sister who is a student/english teacher there. It was pretty fun. I saw the new batman movie, which was very intense. and long. By th end I was pretty exhausted just from having to be so alert the whole time.
So one additional funny story for the road.
Yesterday, I ate scrambled eggs. without bread. Wait, it gets better. The other day, Reid ate 2 leftover chops. without bread. Isnt that ridiculous. Ok, so. Apparently this is ridiculous. So ridiculous in fact that my host sister has been telling this story to random people and earning wide eyes of shock in respose. In Poland, you do not eat without bread. The reason I ate the scarmbled eggs without the bread was that Asia's sisters boyfriend had eaten all the bread. and it was suppertime, and this caused a crisis. Because they had no idea what we could eat if we didnt have any bread. Asia ended up eating cereal and I was going to too, but her sister had made really good scrambled eggs the night before, so I asked if I could have them again. After explaining that Americans do, on occasion eat scrambled eggs without bread, I got my scrambled eggs, but since then, Asia has been telling everyone this story.
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