Mister Booster, what's your news, sir?

Becoming Noa

2010-01-09T13:29:00.003-06:00

So, it's officially the future. 2010. And our little girl is growing up.

In the last 3 or 4 weeks she's started talking (well, what we consider talking: uuhhhhs and arrrrgs in rapid succession, very closely resembling sentences), copying when we blow our lips, laughing and as of last night, rolling over and waving goodbye. How does this stuff happen so quick? She's so quickly becoming social, independent.

But she's also in the process of becoming her. So often we hear people say how amazing it is to realize that this little baby, once a part of mother, is entirely her own person. And these people say they realize this early on. I have a different impression altogether. It's always hard for me to express big ideas/concepts like this in words, but to me, she's slowing growing from being part of me, her mother, to being more fully her. It didn't happen spontaneously at the moment of birth. It's a continuous and fluid process. In the first weeks after her birth, I couldn't distinguish Noa from myself. In conversation I'd forget to refer to the "three of us"; instead it'd be "us two." There's something to that. I didn't forget about Noa. I really think it's because, since she left my body--no, since she was conceived--she has been slowly growing into herself as a new person.

Take this for instance: During pregnancy a mom will develop a darkly pigmented line going down from her bellybutton called a linea negra. It becomes darker as the pregnancy progresses, and, after birth, will begin to fade. Amazingly, baby gets one too, and the same thing happens. And now these lines we have, just like the memory-experience of the particularly deep and intimate connection we had when she was inside me, are slowing dissolving into the past. Of course we're growing towards and alongside each other on a different, more lasting plane, but in this most subtle and spiritual way she's letting me go.

Really, there's something intensely human about it. I guess it carries with it the idea that no one is solely him or herself, that families (and, further, humanity) are connected to an extent beyond what I'd ever considered before Noa. Over the course of our lives, she will never fully leave me, nor will I leave her.

Key Words since Spring: Leaving, Moving, Working, Birthing, Moving

2009-12-13T11:42:00.010-06:00

So we haven't written much in the last, I don't know, 6 months. I think this is probably due to some major life-changing events going on. And since our last blog included "Spring" in the title, I think it's time. Ok, to recap: we left the farm in late June, moved back to Tulsa (what?!), both got jobs with Global Gardens, and WHOA had a baby! Oh and then we moved again a month after she was born because our upstairs neighbors were meth-heads and were obviously herding goats with wooden legs all hours of the day and night. So life has been brimming.

Out of order, but most importantly, our little angel Noa Violet arrived September 29th at 9:03am (9.29.09 at 9, whoooo), weighing 7lbs 10oz and just over 21 inches long. A fantastic and magical birth. Our dear friend Noa Abend had arrived on September 25, the day after my due date, and was there for the whole experience--the birth and the month following. Without her, we would have been lost and completely overwhelmed in the weeks following Noa Violet's birth. She was a dream, providing much love, massages, laughs, and also cooking every meal and keeping the place clean. She is an amazing friend and we're so happy to name our daughter after her.

Everything has seemed to work out ideally. Now, it might not seem that moving back to Tulsa is an ideal situation. But in our case, it might be. During the four months we were interning at Spikenard, it got increasingly worse. We didn't blog about it at the time, but there was an insane amount of drama there. Gunther and Vivian didn't seem to understand what it took day to day to run a farm and were indignant that the other 5 people--all in our late 20s/early 30s--didn't see their roles as being there on the farm to serve them. Of course we did learn an awful lot about gardening and about ourselves, as those situations tend to make you more self-aware, and we made some great friends. Emily left about 3 weeks after we did, and is now doing a Waldorf teacher training up in NY as well as working on a farm getting good at seedsaving and caretaking for a woman with special needs. Bobbi and Alex had their gorgeous (!) baby boy, Rowan, in early August and are now the sole farmers out there. We know they're going to be successful. Check them out in few months--Live Springs Farm is their new name. They're gonna rock it.

If we hadn't have left the farm, we'd now be out of work with a newborn, who knows where. Now, we're back home surrounded by my side of the family who are getting pretty proficient at doting on the little one and supporting the new parents (not to mention doing their laundry!). We work for an amazing organization--Global Gardens. Bhads is at Eugene Field Elementary School, teaching gardening and peace education, loving it, and is adored by his students and fellow teachers. And I was doing their admin work and teaching one day a week at a satellite school up until the birth. I'm not sure what I want to do at this point, although I do know that I just can't leave this baby of mine. So in love. And the gals at GG (5 other girls, all in our mid-20s to 30s, likeminded and incredibly lovely people) have been so supportive. Three of us had babies within a month of each other, so they definitely know what it's like. We both feel so lucky to be involved with GG and to have such amazing people to work with (and to have as friends).

About a month after Noa was born, we decided to split across town. Our apartment was nice, in a great neighborhood, within walking distance to the farmers market in summer and the Irish pub, very sunny and bright, and most significantly for me: it was where Noa was born. Yep, we had a very successful homebirth...or apartmentbirth. I labored for 8 hours in our one bedroom apartment, with Bhads, Friend Noa, Molly, Mom, and our wonderful midwife Ruth and her hard-working assistant Dana. It was a full house...apartment. There were some strong emotional ties to the place and it was hard to move. But when faced with sentimentality and possible explosions from the upstairs potential meth-lab, we figured it was an easy one. Our neighbors had been shady from the beginning--about 8 or 10 people cycling in and out throughout the day and mostly throughout the night. When our friend Noa stayed with us, she had to sleep on the bed in the living room, and had to try to sleep through strange banging and what sounded like heavy furniture being dragged back and forth. And seriously at all hours and constantly. We had a friend do a background check on the guy and as it turns out he'd just gotten out of jail and had a long list of charges against him. So we moved.

It was uncanny timing, but we are now renting a 1929 gingerbread style duplex just a mile up the street. It has two rooms, a front porch and a tiny back yard we're going to intensively garden here in the Spring. It's pretty sweet. And our landlady is this adorable 80 year old who used to live here when she was first married, her sister on the other side, something I'm trying to get my own sister to consider--if I could just get the lady next door (who is lovely and I feel bad writing this although it's so obviously tongue and cheek) to move out and my sister to move back to Tulsa with her boyfriend Ryan. I'm not sure which would be harder. Yes I am.

In a way, it's a strange reality to now be so grounded. Back in Tulsa. Renting a home. Driving our own car. With a baby. We've been on the road for so long, I never really thought we'd settle down. I never really wanted to until now. It's so cliche, and people always told me this (to my annoyance), but with the baby we really just want to be settled and near family. I always wondered if and hoped that my restlessness would be quelled when Noa came, that I wouldn't feel the deep longing to be somewhere else--back in Poland or Ireland or somewhere completely new. I'm so happy to say that it worked. All I want now is to have my baby in my arms and my husband and pup at my side...just a totally ordinary life.

And it feels so nice.

A Spring Update

2009-04-18T10:32:00.001-05:00

Here at the farm I have found myself thankful for the many rainy days we've had recently but even more grateful when the sun has shone itself, which seems like it's been few and far between. But how easy it is to forget the gray days when the blue skies appear. On those days, to get up and out at 7 is a real joy. The bird songs hover in the cold air just a little longer. The fog hangs in the shallow valley on the horizon. The pigs wait impatiently for their morning feeding. The moo of a cow from a neighboring farm bellows along with the roo-coo-ca-coo of the rooster in the hen house. And I head for the green house along with Bethanie, Emily and Gunther to check on the starts and get the day rolling.

Recently we have been transplanting tomatoes and cukes in between the thriving lettuce and leeks on fruit days and we've already got peas sown and coming up in the market gardent along with some good looking swiss chard transplants. Emily has filled in a few more beds in the greenhouse with fennel, their slender leafy fingers glowing bright green next to deep forest green of the deer tongue lettuce. Apparently deer tongue lettuce is Gunther's favorite. His directions were to make it a priority in the green house before sowing any other lettuce, and so we did. I can't wait to try it in a few more weeks when the leaves start maturing.

Just yesterday on a beautiful sunny day in the low 70s we found the time to transplant a dozen or so rasperry plants at the bottom of the garden along with 3 gooseberry plants. And at the other end of the garden we put in an apple, pear, peach and cherry tree next to a handful of blueberry plants. I'm looking forward to their juicy offerings in the seasons to come.

Big Day

2009-04-16T21:31:00.002-05:00

The board meeting is coming up this weekend -- so all the members are arriving one or 2 at a time tomorrow. So today was the last day without the added responsibility of cooking for 15 people that Beth, Emily and I have been assigned to do -- it'll be fun, actually. Lots of good food! I'm even making a banofee pie.

So we spent the day, beautifully sunny and still, with the plants. We planted a peach, pear and cherry tree early in the morning. Then I mowed the market garden with the new riding lawn mower while Beth and Emily transplanted raspberries and gooseberry bushes. I don't want to become the permanent lawn jockey so I'm doing my best to avoid being the one who always mows, but so far that's been the story. At one point I totally lost sight of what I was doing on the mower for a second and completely wiped out a blueberry bush seedling. Felt bad, but what can you do? Maybe it'll grow back.

So that was the morning. in the afternoon we planted 8 tomato plants in the greenhouse and cleaned up a bit and watered before putting up a tent that will serve as the mess hall for the next couple of days.

But the highlight of the day was when Bethanie told me how happy she is here and how it feels so good to be tending to the earth while our baby grows in her. Pretty amazing! She's 4.5 months along now and feeling full of energy!

Lettuce Water Rescue

2009-03-28T15:12:00.003-06:00

The weather forecast said 100% chance of rain today and they were right. But Beth and I managed to stay dry most of the morning thanks to our greenhouse duties, despite all the drips and leaks that our poor greenhouse is victim to. Beth sowed eggplants and a couple varieties of bell peppers -- purple and brown! I didn't even know bell peppers came in those colors and each is supposed to have a unique flavor. Can't wait. I sharpened the hand scythe (how much I like a sharp blade) and took it too the long grass that had taken over some of the green house corners. I've never sharpened a blade like this before, but now that I've got the hang of it I'm looking forward to sharpening the machete I picked up in Costa Rica. I just used a pretty fine file and worked it toward the blade at about a 20º angle. Okay sorry to get all boring on you. I just really have a thing for sharp blades. Anyways, after that I ventured out into the rain and rigged up a pretty effective tent covering for the lettuce that I just transplanted outside yesterday into the cold frames. I'd hate for them to get hit by the cold. It might even snow tonight. Could get 3-5". We'll have to wait and see. Well, by the time I had it all covered with the help of a large clear tarp, some stones, hay and a few logs, I managed to keep most if not all of the standing water from crushing the lettuce. Hopefully I'll be able to say the same tomorrow if we get any snow. Now I'm in by the fire. Beth made a delicious beef stroganoff. We followed that with one of her homemade lemon tarts and some tea. It should be a cozy rest of the day.

Sowing Peas

2009-03-24T17:13:00.004-06:00

The rain came down today hard and fast. With winds gusting from the south, slurping down the hill from behind our cabin, rattling the greenhouse, shooing the clouds along. But not before we sowed the first seeds of the year in the garden -- peas. Giant Swiss Snap Peas. And rows of snow peas. Here's something interesting -- a convenient rule of thumb -- seeds like to be sown their diameter deep. So that's what we did with the peas. We planted them 2 inches apart and about 1/2" - 3/4" deep. Bethanie, Bobbi, and Emily were so excited about getting these green little balls in the ground. I was less excited about the idea of planting peas and just excited about planting something. Peas and me don't get along. I don't mean like they upset my stomach. More my pallet. I can't stand their mush. But maybe snap peas in the pod with change my mind this year. I'm always up for tossing aside my old eating habits. So bring it on peas!

We spent the afternoon, after a delicious lunch of shepherd pie (made with organic beef, not the traditional lamb), transplanting tomatoes (dark beefsteak and another beautiful little one with a golden stem) and then flowers that will eventually be forage for the bees. All the while the rains shook our leaky greenhouse as we shuffled from one table to the next trying to find a drip-free zone to do our work in. A beautiful day on the farm. Rain and all. And now I'm going to drink tea and read a bit... maybe study up on my knot tying.

Bethanie watering seedling bunching scallions.

A shot of our greenhouse. Beyond the door there is the heated end.

Our New Home

2009-03-18T18:17:00.000-06:00

We arrived at Spikenard Farm safe, sound and, well really, sad to say goodbye to my dad. We'd been staying with him off and on for the past couple months and it had really been a pleasure. He'd made us feel so comfy in his place with a massive inflatable bed that you really couldn't tell was inflatable and with tons of good, healthy food. Leaving his place and going to meet a completely new experience like, eh hem, becoming farmers was intimidating.

The past week and a half, though, has been solidly good. We're starting to feel more comfortable with our roles here and ourselves, and starting to settle in. We have a log cabin and, yes, it is idyllic. It feels very nice to have a place that we know we'll be in for a while, so we have pictures of family and friends tacked up to our bedroom walls, postcards from Europe taped to the rafter in the loft, our books on a bookstand that Bhads built!, the piece of fabric Molly brought me back from Ghana on the table, little knick-knacks we picked up on our travels like the little plastic elephant we found on the streets of Krakow and the nesting doll one of my students gave me, my Baby Jane doll, lots of my mom's stuff that she so sweetly donated. With time, it will feel like home.

So let me introduce a few of our fellow farmers. This is Emily. She's staying with us in the other bedroom for a bit while her yurt is getting a stove. We all love those stoves. She's really good at starting fire in our stove, here. We're doing the market garden apprenticeships, while she's doing the beekeeping apprenticeship. So she'll be here through November, too. She's a sweet gal and interesting to talk to. I'm really starting to admire what the bees do for us. And she's excellent at cooking veggies!

Alex (left) and Bobbi (under) are the other younger couple on the farm, who we found out are also pregnant too! It's pretty sweet having someone to talk to about the joys and the woes and the weirdnesses of being with child. And they both have great senses of humor, so we end up with deep belly laughs when we're around them. We've been helping them with the wood chipper this past week. Well, actually, Bhads has been doing the chipping and I've mostly been hauling limbs and sticks. Yes, a glorified "picking up sticks." Good thing I had so much practice when I was younger.

Sheila is a dog. She lives with Bobbi and Alex and is hilarious. When she greets you, it's with a mix of spazzy energy and meekness. She gets obsessed easily, loves to be squirted in the mouth with a water hose, kills all kinds of small rodents and then leaves them all over the farm, and is in love with Booster. At the moment, she's in heat, and also Booster is without his naughty bits, he still has something in him for Sheila. It's pretty funny to watch them try to figure that one out. But they are the best of friends already and are quickly forming the farm's first pack.

I don't have any pictures yet of Vivian and Gunther, the creators of the farm. The two of them live in the cabin next to ours, and are just lovely people. Vivian is thoughtful and cheery and is so supportive of us already. Just so warm. We actually haven't seen Gunther very much since he's been away. But from the impression we got when we visited here in February, he's very much like his wife in those ways.

We're doing very well. I just had a dinner of peanut butter toast on homemade whole wheat bread with the best honey I've ever had. Bhads is sitting by the fire studying up on knots. He's getting really good at them and has been rigging up all sorts of stuff all over the farm. Booster is on the bed, curled up on a blanket (go figure). And I think I'm about to go up in the loft and read a bit before bed. It's been a good day.

Goodnight!

Mister Booster, what's your news, sir?

2009-03-18T17:56:00.001-06:00

Well, mister Booster's news is big this time. He's gonna be a big brother! The official word is out: we are pregnant.

Right now we're finishing up the 12th week, the last of the first trimester. It's been a relatively easy first 3 months--minimal nastiness to report. However, feeling like you have 20 lb weights on all your limbs does make the farm work that much more challenging. But we have good boots (we splurged and now look like real farmers). I'm already feeling my energy come bouncing back and I'm looking forward to the majority of my days being bouncy. If you really want to know about cravings, you know, I haven't had them since leaving Tulsa. I was craving Knotty Pine (chopped beef oh-my-gosh-good sandwich) and we did pull off the road for an emergency Piccadilli lunch of chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, mac and cheese (ahh!) and peach cobbler. Since then I've been eating a lot of sauerkraut and pickles, but not really ravenously craving them. They're just good.

So the little one is due September 24th. Don't worry, we have names picked for a girl or a boy; but, sorry, they're secret! I know, we have to be difficult, huh? But you can rest assured, the Bs stop here. We can't be one of those families who have 3 kids and they're named Betsy, Bobby, and Bertrand. We are cheesy, that is known, but you kind of have to draw the line somewhere.

Love to you all!

Sweet Spuds

2009-01-07T17:30:00.003-06:00

If I could be a vegetable, I would be a sweet potato. Why? Some or few might ask. The reasons are simple.

Sweet potatoes are awkward and oblong. They can be sweet or savory. They are grounded. They have thin skins. They are trustworthy. They are mad about Autumn. They can be mushy. They have few enemies. And they love to people-watch.

I wrote a little rap to portray my admiration to this special piece of lusciousness.

Sweet Po-Tay-To Rap (record pending)

Sweet Po-Tay-To,
Don't be afraid, yo.
To show yo' colors, yo.
You always steal the show.
Yum, yum, yum, yum.

Sweet Po-Tay-To,
You are delish in dough.
You ain't nobody's foe.
You ain't got no woe.
I wanna eat you!

Sweet Po-Tay-To,
You were born so low.
You always on the go.
You might die in snow.
I see you lookin' my way, sweet spud.

Finding a Farm

2009-01-07T12:54:00.005-06:00

We sit in Tulsa, at another point of transition for what feels like the 10th time in the past two years. Really, it's been far less, but in between teaching semesters and farming and traveling we sit and wait. Plans up in the air. Living with such a sense of personal freedom is something I love. I get the sense at times that some friends and family think that we're living irresponsibly. But I see it as living freely. During these times between adventures I am so thankful that our families are so welcoming and supportive.

Working on Finca Ipe, we really connected with the way of life -- being so close to nature, working hard within a tight-knit community, and learning and practicing how to live sustainably and grow food organically. We want to continue down this path and now we seek to learn the skills of organic/biodynamic farming. We've sent around 15 emails to farms in New England, California, Illinois and Oregon. And we've had a few follow-up emails since. But the time ticks by. We're ready to get to a farm now and start working, but it looks like most farms want help beginning in April or May. There are a few however that need help sooner. And those are the ones we're applying to, keeping our fingers crossed.

Some days I feel a little down, concerned with 1000 questions: Where will we be in a few months? Will we like it? Will Booster be okay? How long will our families put up with us before they feel like we're too dependent on them? What's the bank account look like? Will farming be something that we still like doing after a year? And these questions go on and on.

The good thing is that generally I feel positive about what we're doing and how we're living. I feel excited about what's to come. Friends like Molly, Noa, Jethro and all the people on the farm, who are living similarly to us, remind me that what we're doing isn't as crazy as some may think. Someone told me recently that what we're doing is so far out of the main stream that they're worried. My response is it only feels that way when we're here in an environment that stifles our true sense of freedom and forces many (not all) to live under some illusion that we've only got two options: 1) work like crazy in jobs that we hate in order to make money, so we can feel secure and successful (which are possibly more illusions), and continue to pursue happiness (it's unfortunate that our country was founded on the belief in the "pursuit of happiness" rather than happiness itself) or 2) be homeless. Maybe I've been clumsy in summing up these options. But, the bottom line is that there are more options than we perceive and sometimes in order to have great adventures we must be willing to be considered fools.

Tom & Wayne Discuss Things

2008-12-23T16:47:00.007-06:00

During our last couple of days in Costa Rica we stayed at a guesthouse. Wayne was staying there long-term and Tom had been renting out the garage for 10 years. This is a re-enactment of the conversations I witnessed. I'm not making this up. In my opinion they were absolutely hilarious and they didn't even know it! You can listen to this movie file or click the link below, download the file and give it a listen. I'd love to know what you think.

download the mp3 by clicking here

Soap (from Beth)

2008-12-20T12:47:00.004-06:00

My hair is still damp and slightly noodley from my shower "experience" this morning. It shouldn't take nearly as long to dry in this crazy arid Texas weather as it did in Costa Rica. It's not silky smooth and it doesn't feel like the angels kissed it with their luscious, morning dew of Spring aromatics or like a waterfall of soft and suppleness flowing like time from my moisture rich follicles. It feels like I washed my hair with a bar of soap. And indeed I did.

Coming back home is always a new experience. Seeing family and friends is what it's all about. It seems like every time we come back I grasp the magnitude and beauty of these relationships more and more. At the exact same time, we never fail to see our culture and country in a critical light. I might call it reverse culture shock for lack of a more descriptive and less generic term, but in reality it stirs up feelings of resentment, anger, frustration and confusion.

Walk into the average American's bathroom and take a look at the body-cleaning products on offer. There's soap in the form of liquid for your hands, but not for your face. For your face you need a special, sensitive formula that won't hurt you, but not for your hair. For your hair you need another liquid soap called shampoo that will revitalize and fluffen. But you cannot forget your conditioner that will inject moisture into the hair you just revitalized (or "vitalize" as one of the shampoos in this bathroom currently claims. No "re" about it). If you don't do this, you will be a flathead. Hence: multiple bottles, pump-action and squeeze, and a few bars lining the shower and sink space like little soldiers.

While traveling, I've been forced to carry less. Shampoo takes up quite a bit of space in your backpack when it's your only piece of luggage. It's true that that space could be better saved for items like: fancy cheese, a piece of bamboo, or an ugly scarf with pictures of African wildlife for your sister.

So we started carrying just a bar of soap for cleaning purposes. What a liberating discovery! Who knew that one bar of soap could clean a whole body?! Well, many people probably knew that. But I didn't. One bar of soap and your done with all the plastic bottles full of promises, your done with a magnitude of waste, your done with the idea that you need to purchase a different product for each part of your body. How great is that?

Really, it's symbolic for me right now. This bar of soap is a simple, uncomplicated idea of what one daily routine could be like, rethought. Take away the options, the consumption, and you have one, old-school bar of soap. And even going beyond hygiene...one bar of soap that you can use on your washing, your house-cleaning, your dishes. How novel! Buying less and using less.

Thank you, soap, for this morning lesson.

What a Sunset

2008-11-22T10:28:00.002-06:00

Derek took us over to a lookout point on the farm where the four of us (Derek, Beth, Me and Rach) sat on a car and relaxed to watch our first sunset in Costa Rica. It was gorgeous to look accross the valley and through the mountains to the Pacific.

The Gate and a Truck Full of Manure

2008-11-22T10:17:00.004-06:00

I think I posted about the gate for the farm (Fuente Verde) that Beth and I had a big hand in building. All bamboo and beach palm with some bolts and bits here and there. It´s been turning a few heads, literally, as I´ve personally seen 3 cars stop to stare at our creation. Not bragging, it´s just got an unusual look for this area. Generally a gate here consists of a single metal bar across the road or some removeable barb wire. We´re proud of our creation!

Also Derek and I spent a wednesday morning to shovel shit. A whole truck load of horse manure into the back of the farm truck. My shoes were caked. Glad that´s a rare treat.

Zip lining

2008-11-13T12:07:00.006-06:00

Loved it! Zip lining this past weekend was so much fun. Here´s the pics and videos from our day. Look at Beth go! And check out that 3-toed sloth we saw on the way. Our guides telescope was awesome!

Ode to Baby Bunnies

2008-11-13T11:59:00.004-06:00

This is an ode to the baby bunnies out there--
You and me, we make quite a pair.
Other animals? They just stop and stare...
For you are the littlest and you don´t have much hair.

Now, I have a question for you all...
Why are you so cute and ugly when you are small?
This is a strange phenomena
And now we sing fa-la-la-la-la.

Fa-la-la-la-la, baby bunnies.
Fa-la-la-la-la, sweet, sweet, fuzzy bunnies.

Your eyes are closed so snug and cozy,
With hair and woodchips you´re so toasty.
Your ears look like people´s bellybuttons
And you don´t seem to care bout nuttons...

I graciously thank you for not getting mad
When you were in my hands and a tear I almost shad.
You melted my heart like hot lava...
Oooh, que lindo! Entonces yo cantaba,

Fa-la-la-la-la, baby bunnies.
Fa-la-la-la-la, sweet, sweet, fuzzy bunnies.

Manuel Antonio Trip

2008-11-13T11:27:00.004-06:00

We took off last weekend for Manuel Antonio, a nature reserve on the pacific coast a few hours away by bus. Rachel was the catalyst behind the trip and we´re so glad she came up with the idea. The trip down the all dirt 47 km road was a bumpy one, but once we got there we quickly found a little room for us to share for cheap and we hit the beach. The beach was long and gorgeous. Not many tourists yet as it´s still the rainy season and the swimming was great. We had been warned about the rip tides, which seem to be bad all up and down the pacific coast of Costa Rica, but this day the water was warm and we just played in the waves. After that we returned to our room (they call them cabinas here, which sounds way more exotic) via the private path through thick forest/jungle growth for a little rest. Oh, I almost forgot an important part of the story. Along the way we ran into a family from the states who were enjoying their day at the beach: Larry, Joy and their two sons who were about 10. They had been hanging out on the beach for some time before we bumped into them and stopped for a chat. After talking about the weather and what we were all doing in CR, the three (Rachel, Beth, and I) all noticed simultaneously that Larry´s (and I hope I don´t offend anyone with my directness here) penis was hanging out of his zipper! At this point all of our eyes turn to the horizon and we fight back the laughter as Larry goes on about the great apartment they found for cheap and he invites us all to stay with them if we need a place. Then I collect myself and I say, "Hey man, your fly´s down" (an understatement if I´ve ever heard one). And he replies "Oh, that´s pretty exposed there." Who uses that language unless it was totally intentional!? Exposed! You´re darn right it was exposed. And what´s the deal with the wife and kids not giving ol Larry a heads up? No pun intended.

Pretty quickly we declined their offer to room with them and moved on from there. What to do next? After our rest time we checked the guide book and got sucked into spending a fortune on a shit meal at an expensive (prices in dollars) restaurant because the meal came with a free film at the adjoining hotel´s movie theater. Long story short, the film was the worst ever. I´m not against dracula, but this version was terrible. We shivered for two hours being drenched from the rain that fell hard and fast before the meal and left with a few minutes to go in the film. An over priced taxi ride later we couldn´t stop lauging about our run in with larry and how we got suckered by our guide book. And we slept soundly knowing that even the occassional rip off wouldn´t ruin our getaway weekend.

The next day we hit the national park and walked through it´s beautiful trails. Along the way we met 3 sloths, a few monkeys trying to steal bags from the beach, a cayman, a sweet looking lizard (see pic) and had our first dose of tropical forest.

How to Roast a Pepper (Starring Derek)

2008-11-13T10:58:00.003-06:00

Derek´s always fun and he knows tons about getting around in the kitchen. Before managing Fuente Verde he was a chef for 14 years. Fun fact for you Oklahomans out there, you might be interested to know that he was at one time the head chef at Sushi in the Raw in Tulsa on Brookside.

Swim Hole

2008-11-06T11:21:00.004-06:00

Bethanie and Derek, the farm manager and the cool guy who´s house we´re living in.

David tieing a new knot in the swing.

That´s me striking the frog pose.

For Tiffany´s b'day we headed down the road and off onto a little dirt road to a small beach on the river. It was our first time there. David made a rope swing from bridge and we swam and played. As a lot of you know, I'm a clumsy dude and I did slip on the rocks but managed to turn it into a crazy jump into the water. After slamming my knee on more rocks in the shallow water, I surfaced to clapping and whistling from the people on the shore as they celebrated my aerobatics. Other than that and the scrape that I´ve got to show for it, we had a great time.

A Bit of Nature at Finca Ipe

2008-11-06T10:50:00.006-06:00

I took all these pics on the farm. There´s always plenty of coconuts to be foraged for. And that´s a huge gecko that lives in the kitchen of the volunteer house! Those letters are 3-4 inches high!

Rachel and I had fun making this one. I remember seeing these plants before, but never in such numbers. There everywhere!

Ants at Work at Finca Ipe (video)

2008-11-06T10:39:00.004-06:00

To best enjoy this vid, turn up the classical music and enjoy. Since being on the farm our appreciation for the details of nature has really increased. I sat and stared at these ants for like 15 minutes trying to get the perfect recording to capture the frenzy. This is the best I could do.

The Bamboo House at Finca Ipe and a Little More

2008-11-06T10:17:00.004-06:00

Jaw-dropping is the adjective that springs to mind when I try to describe the bamboo house at Finca Ipe. It's completely open to nature. The entire east side of the house is open. Only a very thin mesh keeps the rain and a few of the more stupid bugs out. Most of the bugs find there way in without much problem. We've got a couple of beautiful golden orb spiders in the kitchen for pest control and other than that it's long sleeves, pants and socks all the time for us. Any ways, back to the house. As the name says it´s a lot fof bamboo. Bamboo supports, wall decorations, tables and chairs, kitchen island and counter supports. And it is shrouded in trees on the edge of the farm. We live with the couple who helps run the farm, Derek and Tiffany. They´re from Colorado and Oklahoma (it´s crazy that they´re from OK and we´re always talking about our favorite restaurants and things). They were in the restaurant biz for 14 years before coming down to the farm and getting away from it all. They've got a 10 yr old son named Gabe who's full of energy and has a great imagination. We also live with Dave, a retiredish dude from Florida seeking some solitude.

From the bamboo house there are trails leading to the yoga hut, where we have yoga three times a week, and other houses. We have been spending a lot of time at the volunteer house lately. Two families of three live there along with Rachel. Rachel is from Canada, along with all the other volunteers there so everyone says hoos instead of house and things like that. We really hit it off with Rachel. She's just a couple years younger than us and she´s just out of college enjoying a trip around central/south america. She´s got a great sense of humor and we hang out all the time. We even went on a weekend trip last weekend with her to Manuel Antonio to check out the beautiful beaches and do some hiking in the tropical forest. We were liucky to see 3 sloths, a bunch of monkeys, a really cool cameleon and a cayman along with some very beautiful nature. Lately the three of us have been relaxing a lot in the evening over rum and cokes. A good way to end a long day.

In the pics you can see Rachel and Beth in the kitchen, a golden orb spider, Tiff making quayle eggs (so rich and you gotta each a bunch to get full. When I eat them I feel like the Flinstones. They´re white with purple blotches.), the goats and the snake that was in the kitchen rafters last week.

Hot Tubbin

2008-11-06T10:06:00.003-06:00

While at the Montana Linda, the hostel we stayed at in Orosi, we had a jam session. To me it was a bit of a funny idea at first, because there was only one other person at the hostel at the time along with the two of us and booster. So I thought it would only be like the three of us and the two owners/locals who came up with the idea. Well, that night three people who had been at the hostel the previous weeks and were now in homestays returned and 6 people checked into the hostel for only one or 2 nights. Crazy! So we had a full house. Three guitars. I played a bit of harmonica. Plenty of beer and then we hit the hot tub. It was awesome. It took like 8 hours to heat the thing because the rain water that had been collected had to be pumped through the tubing that coiled in the fireplace before being dumped into the tub and then repeated until the 14 or so of us from Holland, Costa Rica, Germany, Israel and Canada eased into it. Then we all took our turns singing our national anthems before relaxing and just talking the night away. Truly a special night to remember.

Pics from Orosi 2

2008-11-06T09:54:00.004-06:00

Here's what´s happening in these pics: That´s us with our Spanish teachers and a picture of the school. For Bethanie´s birthday I gave her a two hour horesback ride through the coffee fields in the valley. It was beautiful. The coffee farms from the Orosi valley are some of the best in the world and we meandered through one of them on our journey. My horse was named Betty and Bethanie's was something like Paloma. And then lastly there´s one of the confused roosters that started sounding the alarm at 2 am!

Pics from Orosi

2008-11-06T09:45:00.003-06:00

The first two weeks of our time here in CA were in Orosi, studying Spanish and getting used to things here are some pics of our time there. It´s a beautiful little valley with some of the friendliest people around.

Bhadri´s Take on the Work (a segment of an email to a friend)

2008-11-06T09:40:00.003-06:00

You know at first I kept thinking to myself "Damn, I got the worst assignment again." It didn´t matter what the work I was doing was. It could be turning compost or using a machete to shave needles from a beach palm or digging 3 foot post holes. And then something occured to me. Farm work is hard work. I talked to the other volunteers and they would always say things like"You don´t want to get stuck planting this or doing that." And the funny thing was I thought that the other volunteers were lucking out with more enjoyable stuff. But really it´s all grinding and exhausting and the bugs eat me all the time. So now I am enjoying the process of the work much more than just having ticked something off the list, if that makes sense. I'm really working on my patience and at my own pace without worrying about how fast I'm working or when it will get done and finding a lot more pleasure in what I'm doing.

First week on Finca Ipe

2008-10-24T14:12:00.000-05:00

we decided to stay in the little town of Orosi and take spanish lessons. They were intensive and after a week we were speaking much better. Beth is doing much better and we´re working hard on the farm now. Farm life is good. We´ve been here for a week now doing odd jobs around the farm in the mornings. Getting up at 5 or earlier is getting easier and easier. So far our jobs have included turning 25 foot long compost piles, cleaning out a water tank, hacking of dead leaves from banana trees with a long piece of bamboo with a blade on the end, and probably the most difficult and most important task for the farm that we´ve done so far was building a bamboo gate for the driveway. Beth and I did it solo and we´re really proud of it. The gate has a thick rectangular bamboo frame held together with screws and that was given to us. We were asked to make the bamboo support beams (5 in all that had to hold up the gate). The catch was that we couldn´t use any screws. So we measured our bamboo, cut it, and then used a hack saw and chisels to carve out each end so that it would fit snuggly between the horizontal frame pieces. Took us about 10 hours over two days. The next thing to do is cut down palm fronds and weave them in between the vertical supports and then mount some wheels before somehow carting the whole thing up the hill and putting it in place. I have never worked so hard physically, but surprisingly I´m feeling good and enjoying the process of things. I had no idea how strong bamboo was!

We´re in the city for the day just running some errands which revolve around finding second hand american clothing that we can destroy working on the farm, the internet, and getting peanuts to make homemade peanut butter. And it just occured to me that maybe a snake bite kit would not be a bad idea either. Last night during dinner a snake of an unknown species (not totally unknown, just to us. we didn´t discover a new species or anything ), at least a meter long was crawling on the bamboo support beneath the tin roof just above the kitchen sink. Oh, did I mention that the house we´re staying in on Finca Ipe doesn´t have front or side walls. The bedrooms do, but the whole house is pretty much outdoors and it´s beautiful. Lots of bamboo and a fantastic feel. Anyways, that should help you to imagine how the snake was moving around so freely. So we flung it down the hill and finished dinner. I asked Derek the owner of the house if they usually killed snakes that came inside. And he was like ¨usually´´, but this one didn´t look threatening enough. Ahhh!

2 Weeks in Orosi, Costa Rica

2008-10-15T16:38:00.003-05:00

Orosi is a beautiful valley of coffee fields and small farms surrounded by mountains. Each morning the sun shines bright and with my pants and rolled up long sleeve shirt I´m sweating early in the day, but I don´t want the bugs to get to me so I´m not giving into the temptation to wear shorts. haha.

We decided not to head to Puerto Viejo after all. It´s funny the way things go, but after calling the number of the hotel that was listed in the book and getting a wrong number, I looked it up on the internet and tried again. That number was wrong too! I couldn´t believe it! And the other hotel listings were more than we wanted to pay, so I didn´t book a room and we decided just to head over there the next day. Well, that night Beth ended up getting ill (don´t worry she´s much better now. probably at 80%. Looks like she had a little bug and maybe some dehydration.) So we ended up staying in the hostel since. So now we´ve been in Orosi for about a week. Not a bad place to be.

Before Beth got sick we took a nice walk through a couple little neighoring towns and did a 6 hour mountain hike that was really beautiful. The trail (really more like a dirt road) was lined with dense jungle along with intermitent coffee fields. The kicker was that after 5 hours the monsoonish rains came. By that time Booster had been in our litle backpack for a few hours. He was just laying in the bottom with his head out the zipper. Imagine that! I put on my rain jacket and it fit perfectly over the bag and my under arm vent that zipped open provided the boy with fresh air without getting a drop of rain on him. So as the rains fell (picture the hardest rains you´ve ever experienced without letting up for hours) we made our way down the mountain and soon the trail turned into a stream. We were getting nervous when it started to lightning. We decided to stop at some sort of large warehouse farmy thing and before we got there we ran into a woman and her like 3 year old daughter walking with only umbrellas (the little girl had her own and wasn´t even holding her mother´s hand. Picture it!). They told us just to head the way we had been going and ignore the 5 inches of water that was rushing down the mountain. And after seeing this girl doing it we figured we could too. So down we went. (As a sidenote, while it was lightning I thought back to our time watching Man Vs. Wild and what he did when it rained. I suggested to Bethanie that we find an open spot and get down just like he did. And she was like,¨Okay, but I don´t think bear was standing in a river when he gave that advice.¨ Oh yeah. Truestory.) We probable spent 10 or 15 min. milling around under some trees for cover hoping the rain would let up before we ran into the woman and her daughter. And then after taking her advice we hit the town 5 minutes later. It was crazy how remote we still felt and really we were only five minutes from town. At this point we got so stoked because of what we felt we had accomplished and we treated ourselves to some take out costa rican food and headed back to the hostel for the night. What fun!

So, now that Beth is getting better but is still not 100% we´ve decided to make the most of our time and we´ve enrolled in a 1'week intensive Spanish course. We´ll start tomorrow and have 3 hour lessons each day and then do a lot of independent study on the side. We are really excited about it, so wish us luck! A few other people at the hostel are taking courses and they warn us that no miracles will happen in a week it is time and money well spent. So we´re stoked.

And by the way speaking of the hostel, right next door to it is a beautiful lot (with fruit trees) for you to buy and retire on. I spoke to the owner yesterday in Spanish and he´s selling 6047 or there about square meters for $50 per meter. So for a little over $300,000 you´ve got a few acres. They will need some irrigation work to prevent all the siting water after the rain and you would have to stop his brother from letting his horses graze there (if that bothers you. They´re actually quite enjoyable to watch and if any animal is going to wake you up with the sounds they make a horse neighing is much better than a cock crowing. Trust me on that. There are plenty of roosters around here and most of them don´t know when the day begins so you hear them from 1 am well into the morning).

Well, we head to the farm to start work on Saturday, Oct. 18. Wish us luck!

A Trip to Albert

2008-03-13T07:52:00.002-06:00

One of the larger Polish supermarket chains, Albert is known for it's uncommon variety, it's bad produce, and it's infamously bad customer service. Claire, one of our friends from work, has been repeatedly refused tea, tuna and bread upon checking out. The shop lady would scan and reject, scan and reject, matter-of-factly saying something uncomprehendable and shaking her head no. We never could figure out why Claire can't buy these basic items when we've been able to buy them with no problems at the same location. It's just another Polish mystery.

Today we stopped into Albert (bottom floor of the local mall) before work to grab some cherry tomatoes, olive oil, soymilk, and wine. We had to make it to school for an 11am teachers meeting, so we were in a bit of a rush. Got to the checkout line. Five people ahead of us. After 3 minutes we were right at the helm, about to lay our goods on the small counterspace, when the man finishing his purchase immediately in front of us busted his bag of flour. The lady scuffled off to get him a new one, but when she got back we realized she also needed to give him a tax refund (he was a chef in one of the food court restaurants in the mall) or something very paper-worky. Clicking away on her adding machine or whatever it was down the counter towards the vodka sector, she came back 5 minutes later with a long roll of paper for him. Finished, good we can check out. But an old lady in her burgundy beret and matching burgundy wool coat steps up to the counter from the opposite direction, butting in front of us. Ugh, a return! She had three packages of store brand twarog cheese. She had been gipped, ripped off, and she wanted her money back. Another 10 minutes later (not kidding), she gets what she came for. One zloty and 32 cents (that's about 40 American cents, folks) refund. Our shop lady scoots off again to get the man in front of us, who was still waiting at the vodka end of the long counter well after he had received his tax paper, some cigarettes. What addiction will do! Finally, our shop lady, ready to serve her patient customers who had been waiting now for over 15 minutes to check their 4 items out, now presents herself at her register, and not looking up, not raising her eyes, grabs and swipes each item with the utmost boredom iminating from her being, points to the digital total and says "32 zloty." By this time everything was funny. The long wait, the old lady cut-in-line, the cigarettes, but the lack of acknowledgement devoid of the common and expected apology.

It was so perfect, so Poland. Communism died over 18 years ago, but the mentality still remains--even in the most capitalist of places. At least we were able to buy the things we wanted, we checked out and were in the clear--there was no tea-tuna-bread mystery this trip.

Hebrew, Haircuts, & Optometry

2008-03-09T08:46:00.002-06:00

I have an exciting first few days of the week laying ahead of me...

Tomorrow morning I have a Hebrew lesson with my amazing new friend Noa. She's been coming over to our apartment at 10am twice a week for the last few weeks. Sadly, she and Jethro--her boyfriend and our other new amazing friend--are leaving Wroclaw for somewhere less "ghost-towny" in the next few weeks. Such is fate. You meet some of the kindest, funniest, most interesting people and you click, and then something happens and they're gone. But we're so glad we met them and have gotten to hang out, watch bad Monty Python, eat vegan food from Berlin, and go hiking. And of course, there's the lessons. It's really given me something to focus on other than work. Since starting lessons every Monday and Wednesday, I have something to look forward to, I feel challenged, and it takes my mind off of teaching for an hour.

I also thought, in my Friday stupor, that I would schedule a hair appointment for 10am Monday, not realizing of course that I had my lesson. My hair has been getting long, especially the region above my eyes (not eyebrows), and I'm beginning to feel like one of those dogs whose hair-genes allow them to survive harsh Winters. Really I just want a bang trim. So I went to the mall (Pasaz Grundwaldzki) and the one hair salon they had, Wella, was booked through the weekend. Not sure how reputable this one is. That's the problem with living in a foreign country: You're not sure if you'll get a Supercuts Choppery or an Aveda salon. The logo was okay, the stylists were young, as were the clientèle, and they had a translator on hand to deal with the influx of English-speaking tourists ready for a new doo (mind you, this is suspicious as we live a good 30 minutes from the tourist center and there are only 3 or 4 native English speakers in our area, so far as we know). But the big neon lights flashing UWAGA (caution) was the 50 zloty price tag. The dollar is about 2.60 to the zloty and this is Supercuts Choppery cheap (sorry to repeatedly knock the Supercuts--I've had traumatic experiences and Bhadri has had sideburns above the ear from them. Never a good thing. Especially at different angles in relation to the lobe). The really good salons charge over 100zl, so it does make me wonder. Although I am never one to turn down a good deal, there's a chance I'll arrive home with a nice and trendy Euro-mullet or severe bangs that were cut by careful trimming with a soup bowl held over my face. Either way, I still double booked and won't be getting my hair cut for a few days. Maybe it's fate's way of guiding me away from bad-haircut-ville and in the direction of linguisticity (this word copy write Bethanie Verduzco 2008).

Also exciting in my life: I'm getting glasses. I really don't have bad eyesight, and the English speaking optometrist told me I didn't have to get glasses. But it is nice to be able to see clearly at longer distances and in low light. At 200zl for the exam, lenses and frames, glasses here are a steal. Of course, if you play it right you can buy a pair of frames for all of 1 zloty, and that can knock the price down a bit. Yes, I found the coolest (read: dorkiest) pair of frames ever. A merge between 1950s and 80s, these light brown with purple iridescence plastic beauties were shunned to the promocja rack. One zloty. That's less than 40 cents American. Poles obviously prefer the hard-lined rectangle look, with thick colored or thin wiry frames, sometimes with the lenses poking out at minute angles. Sounds weird. It is weird. But not as weird as it sounds. They do not prefer shrunken Buddy Holly frames with a purple tinge. Please do not imagine a 3rd grade Bethanie with her forest-green-graze-the-lower-cheek massivities. These are substantially cooler. And I won't be sporting the frizzy perm or the buck teeth to boot. Although I probably will be sporting the unkempt dog and the pasty white skin look. Out with the old, in with the new.

A trip to Torun

2008-03-09T08:02:00.004-06:00

Well, it's been a while since the last blog. Beth and I had a couple of weeks off to travel during winter break and we took a small trip to Warsaw and Torun, a city we had never visited before. Nice little German built town. It was pretty cold though. So we walked plenty in the morning and made sure to head to the pub in the mid afternoon to warm up. On our second day there we decided to go to the ginger bread factory. It wasn't much of a factory -- no conveyor belts or loud gushing and whishing machinery, but we did have some fun. We wanted to make some ginger bread. The minimum group that could make it was 5 people. but since it was just the two of us they put us with a class of 3o six-year-olds! It was so much fun. We mixed the ingredients, rolled out our dough and finally put them in the oven to bake. We got a couple of nice souvenirs from the day and some good laughs. You should have seen the little kids -- they were so impressed at the way I crushed the cloves! We tried to talk to a couple of them, but not much could be understood on either end. One did count to ten for us, a surprisingly common experience for us here in Poland. Anyway, check out the picture. Our "guide" doesn't look too happy to be posing with us.

Christmas Videos

2007-12-27T07:52:00.000-06:00

A Verduzco Christmas

2007-12-27T07:45:00.000-06:00

Hope you all had a good Christmas! We had a festive and cozy one here. The pics pretty much speak for themselves. But we did have a small feast that we didn't photograph which included veggie hotdogs, actual hotdog buns, sprouts, french mustard, onions and canned baked beans. Now for some this may sound like a typical meal, easy enough to purchase at HEB or Albertson's. But for us this was a Christmas feast. First time we had veggie hotdogs since we left the states. Same for the sprouts and beans. And to top it off we had a nice bottle of Malbec from Argentina. Pretty good.

Videos from Germany

2007-12-27T07:01:00.000-06:00

The Duo Daytrips to Deutchland

2007-12-27T06:47:00.000-06:00

So pretty much on the spur of the moment we decided to pop over to Gorlitz, Germany for a day. Something different for a Sunday afternoon. We caught the 7:15 am train out of Wroclaw and arrived by 10:30. It was freezing, but lucky for us there was a great little Christmas market on the north side of town. As we made our way there we noticed something strange: this little town only a half mile or so from the border looked like a typical Polish town but with 15 years' more development, investment and graffiti control. Immediately the public transport seemed to sparkle and hum with a new efficiency. The streets were flat and evenly paved. Signs and buildings were marked clearly in traditional German fonts. And most strangely many fellow pedestrians flashed us friendly and welcoming smiles -- something almost unheard of on this side of the border. So suffice to say we were pleasantly surprised.

The Christmas market was also a surprise. We had no idea it was there or that it was its last day when we stumbled upon it. It came complete with hot vino, carolers, ponies on parade, liqueur sampling, a horn quartet, artisan-made cinnamon rolls over an open fire, plenty of bratwurst which Bethanie happily avoided but I had my fill of (if you're in the area try the lemon seasoned), and a small mouse farm with like 50 mice playing without a cage just happy to be together on a table top with a few feeders and a miniature mouse town setup -- a little bizarre but incredibly enjoyable.

So we passed the afternoon here and in a pub making beer last over a game of Jenga, during which most of the patrons were glancing over in anticipation of the final and oh-so-enjoyable tumble. Bethanie won. Hope you enjoy the pics from our afternoon out!

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-26T08:04:00.000-06:00

Hey Pilgrims! Last Thursday we resisted the urge to stalk home from classes, make a grilled cheese sandwich and eat it while watching some tacky Polish variety show, and did Thanksgiving up right. We invited some of our teacher friends over to our place to put together a pot-luck Thanksgiving meal. Bhads and I made a nutroast, some devilled eggs, mushroom gravy, and even a pumpkin pie (from scratch!). The Englishfolks, Claire and Holly, brought two different salads and a big whole chicken (a.k.a. turkey) for the meat eaters, and Mike brought the wine. John, the only other American soul at IH, made his now famous garlic mashed potatoes and picked up some delicious cranberry jam from a specialty store. Having them over really made the night feel like semi-home. We felt like true Americans, introducing our British friends to pumpkin pie. Seriously, before trying some they thought it would be salty. Oh, how much they have to learn... So we sat around, talking about baseball, Bhad's showing off the intricacies and uniquities of his glove, talked about family traditions and "I'm-thankful-for" circles, it was fantastic.

The Boys' Jam Session

2007-11-07T07:58:00.001-06:00

Nasty Day, but Bright Outlook (and Cheesy Title)

2007-11-07T06:40:00.001-06:00

The past few days here in Wroclaw have been disgustingly gray, depressingly rainy, and painfully windy. The sun will pop out for a 5 minute tease and then scuttle back under the clouds a couple times a day. I'm equating the weather right now to adolescence: it's not sunny and fresh like youth and it's not snowy and crisp like adulthood--it's just hovering in that awkward and uncomfortable stage.

But regardless, I'm forcing myself to take in this reality. Yes, the weather is crapola, but my life is not. Walking to work today without an umbrella (because I left it in the warm apartment with Booster), the freezing rain was spitting down, I could barely lift my gaze from my feet without a splat of frozenness to the face. But as I did I saw this beautiful city, still glowing with orange and yellow leaves half on the trees, half beneath them, many-colored umbrellas with quick legs scurrying around, and ahh the four swans on a double date, lazily paddling across the Odra River. My feet are still wet in my black boots, but Winter is here. That makes me happy. Winter is Poland is extraordinary. It's so cold outside that you feel every inch of skin on your body and can even feel the contours of your lungs as the freezing air cycles in and out (or maybe I'm just imagining that...). But when we get to the place you're going, walking through the door and feeling the rush of cozy warm air. It goes beyond just a physical warmth.

Booster likes to take his morning stroll around the oldest part of the city, Ostrow Tumski. Situated on two islands, there's about 4 ancient cathedrals and countless beautiful buildings belonging to the Catholic diocese. Sandwiched between these buildings and the River Odra are sweet little, well-maintained gardens, perfect for a dog-walk. We'll swoop around the garden paths, and perch on a bench overlooking the water, Booster will make a friend, and we'll think: how crazy is it that we live here? And after he gets a nice trot, we walk the five minutes home and get the towel out and wipe his feet off (a new ritual since the recent rains that he absolutely loves! Especially when we wipe HIM on the towel instead of the other way around). We'll hang out with him, maybe make some lunch, and head back out for work. The photo with the two bridges shows our usual route to school (we take the closest bridge called Most Pokoju).

Tomorrow we have another Conversation Club, the pub nights that the school organizes for adult students here. Bhad's agreed to host it and do another of his award-winning pub quizzes. I think it'll be a good time, although it's always hard to make yourself go out for drinks at 9:00pm after being at work since 10:00am. Usually, we just want to get home to the pup and a nice hot meal. But it's just once a month, and hot, mulled wine might give me a boost.

We borrowed a few dvds from some of the teachers at work. Amongst them, 24. Ok, this is seriously addictive stuff. I'm sure most of you guys have seen the series, but we didn't used to watch that much tv back home so it's really our first contact with the show. It's crazy good, especially for two homesick over-worked American teachers looking for cheap thrills. We watched 3 episodes last night, and were up past midnight. Not so good for Bhads who had to be at an early morning class today. I'm a bit wiped, but believe me, it's gonna be round two tonight!

It's 2:00 and I think it's about time for lunch. Cheese, tomato, and mustard sandwiches on white rolls and surowka--shredded cabbage salad with red bell peppers, fresh herbs, onions, and maybe some secret ingredients, too. I could really go for an orange pop, too, but I think I spent my last bit of change on the lunch today. Two out of three of my classes today are in the computer room, which means easy-breezy planning for me. It's always nice to have a bit of a break.

Ok, Bhads is summoning me for lunch. And, whatdaya know, he just found 2 zloty for an orange pop! What a husband!

Honeymoon: Vernazza Town

2007-10-30T11:45:00.000-06:00

Our base for the 6 days we were in Italy, Vernazza was sheer paradise.

Honeymoon: Italian Signs

2007-10-30T11:43:00.000-06:00

Bhadri is a huge fan of the sign, so he took a few artistic shots of ones he really liked. Handpainted signs are everywhere and you forget how special they are when you're there and engrossed in it all...

Honeymoon: Bergamo Italy

2007-10-30T11:38:00.000-06:00

The last day of our honeymoon we made our way north to a town an hour from Milan called Bergamo (pron: BER-ga-mo). We thought we'd just stay the night in the hostel, get some rest, and not bother with the town. What kind of town has a cheap airline just outside? Katowice, and other crappy towns, that's what. But Bergamo was a shocking surprise. It's a ski town at the base of the Italian Alps, but in good weather it's also a great tourist destination (shh: without any tourists!). The old town was so ancient and mysterious, walled and sitting atop a large hill (or tiny Alp). We walked for hours and hours through the winding streets, small parks, snipping at focaccia bread pizza, peering into boutique store windows, and finally riding the funicular down to catch our bus back to the hostel late into the evening.

Honeymoon: Italian Food is Tops

2007-10-30T11:30:00.000-06:00

The food doesn't get any better than in Italy. We ate like royalty while we were there--everything was fresh. We made fresh pasta with sundried tomatoes and regional pesto most days for lunch. With a little side of focaccia bread and 5 euro wine. Bhads tried out the little sardines in lemon juice at our fancy restaurant (you had to eat the fish whole!). We picnicked on the beach and roasted like veggie-turkeys. Speaking of, the little bird carcass things are marzapan. The man at the cafe said it takes 3 weeks to make the candy--and this was the stage right before they painted them. How creative. Little chickens or turkeys...?

Honeymoon: Our Apartment in Vernazza

2007-10-30T11:28:00.000-06:00

Irish Birthdays and Best Buddies

2007-10-30T11:17:00.000-06:00

We were honored with our good friend Patrice's presence a couple weeks ago. She flew in from Shannon, Ireland on Thursday and managed--and quite successfully--to find us at our school in the city center. She was cheery and cold and such a wonderful treat for us!

We spent the long weekend hanging out, watching movies, eating pizza and Polish food, drinking Zywiec and wine, hanging out in pubs, talking walks in parks, eating Taytos and posh chocolates, and not getting any sleep. The last bit deserves more explanation. Since we have no real bedding for guests, other than two fake leather loveseats which don't really count, we forced Pats to sleep in our bed with us. Poor girl. So we cuddled together under the faux-down comforter, sweating and struggling to not kick each other out of the bed. She's a trooper, along with us, and we all survived. She even made us tea (no one makes tea like Patrice) in the mornings.

Around Poland with a Friend

2007-10-24T08:05:00.000-05:00

It's been forever since we traveled Poland with Kara, but it's still worth posting a few images of our journey. And here's something I wrote for the blog way back when...

When our friend Kara came to visit us last month, we noticed a disturbingly funny trend. All over the country, people were out in their casual clothes doing their thing, without knowing…they were wearing t-shirts with [duhn, duhn, duuuhn] bad English!

Ok, no, this isn’t a new occurrence. We have blogged about it before. But we did make it a point to scout out and write down evidence of each sighting. They are all authentic bad English actually being worn in Europe as you read this. Hopefully it makes an enjoyable blog.

Please note: the following are spelled as they appeared.

Calm Down: Street Tribe Report
Ambush 72
Finish: We Made it, CHS 1986
Gastro Blues Festival
The Blood Thirst
Life is a New York City Generation
North European Tournament Sail Contest Back Long Harbour Reserved
Night Effect
Yours Style Express Our Style
Ready to Meet You
District of Southern Area
In the Love
I Want to Fly to… [butterfly icon here]
Cajun Annual Alabama 69 [with eagle crest behind lettering]
Super Best
Desert Storm: Welcome to the Desert Area
The First and Only
Strong Power Taurus (seen twice)
Darkness Passage
Player One 01
West Coast City
Getting Records
Wonder Places

I’ll end this blog with a quote:

“There’s like a God-reason you’re here and this is it.”
--Bhadri to Kara on her ability to spot bad English on t-shirts

Happy Birthday

2007-10-15T08:05:00.000-05:00

Dear long lost friends and fam,
Today's my birthday! It isn't quite the same without you all. It's been really strange, I just realized it that my bday was coming up about 3 days ago and since then Bhadri's been working hard trying to get me excited about my day. We've been at school since around 11:00 and will be here until 9:00 tonight--so it's hard to enjoy a birthday that's spent almost entirely at work.

But no complaints here. Bhads worked very hard on my gifts and I was so surprised and delighted when he gave them to me this morning. A beautiful porcelain tea cup (it'll be my cup...we have pretty crappy and tiny cups for morning beverages courtesy of our landlords), a book I've wanted to read for a while, and the biggun, a Bhadri-made book stamp. His design was inspired by the 1970s Ukrainian book marks we found in a little antique shop in Lviv last year. They are basically the book owner's seal or symbol to insert into their books. So he made one for me with lots of Bethanie-symbolism and it's gorgeous. It was so thoughtful, he always is, and I love it.

Another great bday present is our buddy Patrice from Ireland, who is staying with us for about 4 days. She's about to leave the continent for a year long trip in Australia, so she came to visit us before she set sail. It's so wonderful to have her here, especially during my birthday. She's family now and I really miss my family! She brought so many goodies with her from Ireland! Two huge bags of Taytos, 6 packages of good chocolate, a couple of nice frames, and even our old books from Dingle. She also brought a scarf made by her mom Patricia for me for my birthday--it's beautiful and it makes me so happy that her mom knitted each row. Booster loves having her here--she plays with him constantly and even sneaks him bits of her tasty dinners, much to Bhad's dismay. He'll be sad, like us, when she's gone.

The three of us are going out for pizza and beer tonight after work. We heard about a place called Oregano and we're gonna try it out. Hopefully some of the other teachers from work will want to go out tonight too. Holly and Claire, two of the new teachers here, got me the most delicious chocolates and instigated a card-signing for me, too. Very cool.

So in five minutes, we're off to teach our first of three slots today. Hopefully they'll go birthday-smoothly and we'll be off for pizza in no time. Please have a wonderful day for me and grab a slice of over-the-top-sweet-frostinged grocery store cake with assorted color icing for me!

27 Years Old

2007-09-02T01:54:00.000-05:00

Sept 1 I turned 27. It's been a great year: Got married to a wonderful wife (planning our honeymoon in Hungary in a few weeks), living and teaching in Poland, picked up the harmonica, plenty of travel (even made it to the Ukraine) and topped it off with a fun summer bumming it around Poland with our friend Kara from Texas.

Last night the three of us hit the streets of Warsaw to celebrate. Kara treated to an awesome sushi dinner complete with red wine (sold illegally according to the waitress. I asked for a wine list and the waitress said we don't have one because we don't sell alcohol with a grin. Then, she asked if we would like red or white. Too wierd.) The dinner was topped off with a surprise cheesecake that Beth picked up for me complete with big 2 & 7 candles. Kara smuggled it in (a Verduzco tradition) and the waitress brought it out along with coffee. Beth and Kara sang and the party was complete...

Well almost complete -- then of course we headed to the Irish pub for a pint of guinness topped off by a liter (and that's a lot of beer) of Belfast. Made it home before 1 am to see kara off today. It was a night to remember.

Kara gave me an awesome book -- a little early actually -- and I've already finished it. If you haven't read it, check out "The Life of Pi". Beth gave me a guidebook to Amsterdam and an open invitation to enjoy the city with her, so plans are under way.

Well, got to run. I just had breakfast and we're seing Kara off in a few minutes. Will post soon.

Summer Camp

2007-08-08T11:51:00.000-05:00

It seems like we’ve been sprinting through these last couple of months, running from teaching in Katowice to visiting friends and family in Austin to getting married in Tulsa to teaching at a summer camp in Sobieszewo and finally we’re back home in Katowice…for now. It’s been an exhausting—yet exhilarating—ride, but it’s nice to be married and unemployed.
What a blur. For two weeks we worked for Bell, an English language school putting on their annual English immersion summer camp just outside of the tiny village of Sobieszewo on the Baltic Sea. The work was good. The camp’s theme was ancient Greek Olympics, so the six groups chose names (Argos, Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Megara, and Troy) and carried the theme throughout with the teaching projects, group chants, sports competitions, and a Trojan horse building (which was tragically mediocre). We created one project that we could adapt for six different language levels and ages and taught three hours a day for six days out of the two weeks. My project was how to make your own soccer jersey; Bhad’s was how to create your own sports invention and then make a commercial for it. The kids came from all over Poland and ranged from 10 to 18 years old. We each had a group that we worked closest with, we led them on some activities and taught nightly drama workshops. I had the 12 year old pre-intermediates (Corinth) and Bhads had the older ones with the more advanced English (Troy). They performed their dramas on the last day. Corinth’s was Shrek 13 and Troy’s was The Adams Family Has a Party. Bhadri played lurch and was undoubtedly the star. He’s a natural, he can’t help it. We both got very close to our own groups. Just like summer camp should be!
Accommodation at the hotel Orle was paid for by the school, so all the staff and students stayed there in two halls and most of our activities happened in or around the hotel. It was about a 5 minute walk to the beach, a beautiful and clean sandy beach. Unfortunately it was rainy or overcast most of the two weeks, but we did get a couple of really lovely walks down the coast, even one in the rain. Meals were thrown in, too. If I had to complain about one thing at the camp, the food would be the big winner. Let me just outline a day for you.
Breakfast: cereal, bread, rolls, butter, jam, sliced cheese, cottage cheese (salty and sweet), sliced tomatoes, cold cuts (for carnivores), scrambled eggs.
Lunch: the hot meal. Soup, main course, juice. Every day for a week and a half we struggled with reminding them that I (and 8 students) did not eat meat. That didn’t mean that I didn’t just not like the taste of meat, as they assumed, but that I did not want to eat any meat at all. No, that doesn’t include baby bits of bacon. No, that doesn’t include tiny shreds of chicken in the mushroom casserole that you’ve served me twice now already, each time with smaller chicken bits. The last 3 days were better. It took Bhadri getting up from his seat and getting angry to get the point across (we’d formed a vegetarian table upon the chef’s request and they were still bringing us various meated items). Lunch always included boiled potatoes, and occasionally included filets of fried cheese for us vegetarians. Not kidding.
Dinner: bread, butter, sliced cheese, sliced tomatoes, cold cuts, eggs doused in mayo and ketchup. (Can you see the resemblance to breakfast?)
Every day the breakfast and dinners were exactly the same. Every day. Two weeks. I felt so overlogged with tomatoes, eggs, and potatoes and deficient in every other kind of food. It’s just nice to be at home with our own kitchen.
We met a couple of girls on the camp named Julia and Tania. They were and are the most amazing people, and made our time on the camp so much more fun and much less stressful. I’m still shocked but they are both 13 years old, but are so balanced, confident, wise, open-minded, and dignified. It just goes to show that age isn’t so important and we place way too much significance on it. We had a couple of lovely late night chats, meals together, hang-out times in the afternoon that included Polish tongue twisters, camp songs, and goofy pictures (posted), and dance-offs at the disco. Of course, as there always is, there was a few older bullies who loved to aim their insults at them. Picking at anything they could find. Bhads and I were really shocked at how cruel these kids could be and seemingly without reason. They just “didn’t like them.” But it was so clear that the real reason they bullied our buddies was because they saw their confidence and their individuality as a threat. This group was supposed to be the cool ones, they were supposed to just run their game and everyone would look on in awe. But our gals didn’t pander to them and they just did what made them happy (which included talking to us, and singing and dancing non-sluttily—all things which weren’t exactly cool). Our gals were very open about their feelings of hurt, but could see through those kids’ game and they knew that it lacked substance. I just can’t say enough about our two new friends—I’m very proud to know them.
Booster came with. Needless to say, he was the celebrity guest star of the camp. The kids goggled over him every time he peaked his nose out of the door, they begged to walk him across the hotel grounds, and they taught him the relevant dog-related words in Polish. Students asked me day and night: Where’s Booster? What is Booster doing right now? Why does Booster sleep so much? What does Booster eat? And repeatedly said: Booster is sweet. I like Booster. Booster is so sweet. Talk about a love hound, geez.
The kids struggled to get Bhadri’s name right. Bogri. Barty. After a while we all just let it go. Anything that started with a B and had two syllables passed. One of the campers, on the train ride home, walked into our cabin and said: “Hey Barty, can I crips?” Bhads was holding a bag of potato chips (also called crisps), and little Rafal wanted a piece of the action. Can I crips?
In between project days we had a couple of trips. The first and best trip was to Sopot. Sopot is a resort town, smushed between Gdansk and Gdynia on the Baltic shore. It’s main street is lively with tourists and merchants selling everything from postcards to flip flops to shimmery bandanas. It was a gorgeous, sunny, warm day and although we didn’t get to swim, we were at the beach and feelin’ fine. After a cup of coffee at a fancy tea shop with our counselor friend Linh, we grabbed a chocolate dipped ice cream cone and headed for the pier. Sopot boasts the longest pier in Europe and it was fantastic. A half kilometer long, the white wooden pier jutted out into the clear Baltic, flags strung between posts waved energetically in the air as red and happy tourists skipped its length. It took a good few minutes to walk to the end where all the activity was. Apparently the European Yachting Championship finals were going on that day. So we plopped down on the edge of the pier, hung our legs over and watched the boats cruise around the obstacles. We even saw the Polish Dancing with the Stars host, sitting all debonair inside the café at the pier’s end. It was a pretty posh scene. You know when you have the Polish Dancing with the Stars host hanging out with you that you’ve really made it. After the boat race we met up with the kids (who had gone to see a movie in Polish earlier and left us and Linh to have some fun in Sopot). We headed out on an hour long walk down the beach to the next town called Ilowo, filled with jellyfish washing up on the beach, stories of my girls’ animals and dreams of traveling the world, searches for amber, and Bhadri teaching some of the kids how to skip stones in the ocean. It was a magical afternoon.
It really was a great two weeks, and we’re hoping to be back next year for round two. But for now, we’re really enjoying waking up late (8:30 am), watching lots of old Sex and the City episodes, making elaborate and labor-intensive meals, and talking quiet walks around Katowice with the pup.

More Wedding Photos Part 3

2007-08-08T11:50:00.000-05:00

More Wedding Pictures Part 2

2007-08-08T11:47:00.000-05:00

More Wedding Pictures Part 1

2007-08-08T11:46:00.000-05:00

The Wedding Story

2007-08-08T11:36:00.000-05:00

Bethanie and I talked about marriage well before I ever proposed. I’ve known that we should be married. But it wasn’t the being married or even the getting married part that made me nervous. It was the planning to get married that had me concerned: where, when, who to invite, announcements, invitations, and the 100 other things that seem to pop up during the process. We kept checking things off of our to-do list, but it never got shorter. We had lists in each of our planners, on odd bits of paper. Napkins over lunch would be scrawled with more responsibilities and questions to answer. The lists not only got longer, but also seemed to multiply into other lists. One list included catering. Now we had a new list for what to have catered. Same with drinks, decorations and so on. I’m not complaining, but it was more than my mind could handle. On top of all this, we were planning it from Poland.

With Bethanie taking the reins and incredible support from our families back in the states we somehow managed. We designed our own invitations, got them printed, and mailed them two months before the wedding. Unfortunately, the US and Polish mail systems don’t seem to work well together. Some of the invitations took up to ten weeks to arrive. I got more than one email after the wedding that said an invitation had just been placed in their post box. That was probably one of the biggest problems in our planning process. However, we did manage to sort out our attire, and we were constantly trying to manage around the seven-hour time difference between Austin/Tulsa and Katowice to discuss details over the phone.

That’s where the real action was happening: in Tulsa. People were running around crazy. I don’t know when anyone found time to sleep. Bouquets, cakes, candles, centerpieces, colors, dates, décor, flowers, guests, how many people?, invitations still haven’t arrived?, lists, location, Monday won’t work, pink but not too pink – that’s the way she wants it.

We flew into Austin for a too-brief-four-day visit. Saw the fam and a few friends. Not enough time. Josh (my bro) and I did manage a few jam sessions. I’ve been working on my harmonica and he’s been playing guitar for years. Also squeezed in some good Mexican food – I forgot how good it is – some micro-brewed beer and a trip to the Green Belt. As I left Austin, I think one of my last conversations was with my brother a.k.a. my best man. Me: “Get your suit soon.” Him: “I will tomorrow.” One week to go and still no suit. But I wasn’t worried. He took care of it and looked great.

And then up to Tulsa. We spent most of that week at Kathi’s house, running errands and trying not to come completely unhinged – really, just looking forward to the day after the wedding – all the time with a thought tugging at the back of my mind telling me that I should really be enjoying this.

A couple days before the wedding Grandpa, Grandma and Badri made it in from California. That was cool. Got to hang with them and drink a lot of good coffee and chai. And just sit and talk. I really enjoyed that time.

On June 29, the day before the day, the wedding party headed out to Skelly Lodge for our rehearsal. It was our first time to the lodge. We had heard great reviews from Kathi and David, who had each visited the site and decided it was the best place for us. Despite the overwhelming number of animal heads, stuffed fish, and paintings of nude Indian women on the walls, it was a great place to get married. The scene was beautiful – the two-story, eight-bedroom B&B overlooked the Verdigris River valley. We could hear the rush of the river and see the fog rising from the forest. We walked the grounds and then walked through the procession. We rehearsed it twice outside and then headed indoors for one more run through – had to be ready for rain. It had rained something like 28 days straight, as everyone was reminding us.

After the rehearsal, we all headed to Kathi’s for the rehearsal brunch, which my mom had excitedly agreed to plan and host. Originally we were going to have our rehearsal brunch at McNellie’s Pub. We thought it would be easier and save a few bucks if we just had a little bagel brunch instead.

The conversation with my mom, when I told her the change of plans, went something like this: Mom, we’d like to have a rehearsal brunch at Kathi’s instead of a pub dinner. | Well, okay. To be honest, I was never a big fan of the pub anyways. I just went with it because that’s what you wanted. | Cool. But it’s not that I don’t like the pub idea, I just think this will be easier and save us some money. But I want to ask you to still be in charge of it. | Okay. What does that mean? | You know – organize it. Basically, get the food together. I was thinking something like bagels and cream cheese. Just something simple. | No, no, no, no. We can do better than that. Your grandmas and I will take care of it. Don’t worry. | Great. That sounds great. But really I just want it simple – a little bagels and cream cheese, juice. You know … simple. | (Yelling over her shoulder) Mom, Bhadri wants us to organize a rehearsal brunch for him and he says we just wants bagels. I told him we can do better than that. | (Granny’s response) He wants bagels? It’s his wedding and he wants bagels? No way! You tell him to leave it to us. | (Mom back to me) Don’t worry, honey, we will make it great. | Mom, just keep it simple. | Don’t you trust us? | Yes. | Then trust us and we will take care of it. | Just keep it simple. | I gotta go, honey. It will be great. We are going to blow your mind. Love ya.

Simple. I just wanted simple. Well, simple wasn’t what I got. After getting lost on the way to Tulsa, turning an eight-hour drive into twelve, Granny Norma, Grandma Betty, Nicole and mom stayed up into the early hours of the morning cooking at the apartment they rented for the weekend. They must have been dead tired, but they were cooking for the brunch. And when I walked into Kathi’s dining area after the rehearsal I was amazed. The dining table had a beautiful floral centerpiece and bagels and cream cheese … and sliced meats, sliced cheeses, croissants, fruit salad, peach halves stuffed with cottage cheese and olives, a tiered dessert tray with cheese cake bites and more that I’m sure I’m forgetting. The tables in the back yard were colorful, each with their own bouquet centerpieces. And Beth’s and my glasses were wearing a veil and a tux, respectively. I didn’t get simple. But what I did get was amazing. My family came through in a big way and I am so grateful. Everyone had a great time. That night the Verduzco’s did all get to the pub for a pint after all. It was a great day.

Finally, June 30, 2007 arrived. I woke up at David’s (Beth’s dad’s) apartment. I wasn’t going to see Bethanie until just before the wedding for photos. I picked up Josh in the early afternoon and we went to the driving range. Hit some balls. Just trying to calm my nerves. Had a good talk. Ate some greasy French fries. Headed to Skelly Lodge. Stay calm. Stay calm. Did some stretching and just tried to act as calm as I could. Mom gave me a small glass of orange juice spiked with vodka unbeknownst to me. I took one sip and nearly threw up. After Poland, I can’t do vodka any more. Josh and I did some stretching before he got his haircut and I went to get ready. It was 5 pm on the day of my wedding. The ceremony was at 7 and Nicole was cutting Josh’s hair on the upstairs porch. The idea of it still makes me laugh. But that’s how we roll.

Mom helped me put on my Guinness cuff links. Bethanie was getting ready with her sister. Guests started to arrive. The photographer, Evan (who would later confess to being called Ian, Ethan and Ivan, among other names throughout the night), arrived and was snapping away.

It did rain. People scrambled to get chairs inside. And we stared a little after 7. The band, Hot Club of Cowtown, generously arranged by David Erwin, was ready to go. I asked them to play something weddingish. And they took care of everything. That gives you an idea of how we looked at a lot of the details of the wedding. We just trusted people and knew everything would be okay. And it was.

Debra, our officiator, who was recommended by David, and was great, led the procession. She descended the stairs, took a u-turn up the short aisle and waited for me in front of the fireplace. Once she was out of sight I remember thinking when should I go. I didn’t know if she was trying to calm the crowd or beginning the ceremony. Then I, escorting Kathi and my mom, descended the stairs, and were greeted by a full room of friends, family and smiles. I loved the idea of escorting my mom and Bethanie’s mom. It was unusual, but to me wasn’t even a choice. That’s how it was supposed to be. Josh and Molly walked the aisle next, looking great. Josh joined me. He was smiling big with that patented Josh smile. Olivia, our flower girl, proceeded down the aisle next. And along the way she dropped 5, literally, 5 rose petals. We later joked that she was saving them for the next few weddings that she’ll be in.

And then the music changed. The three-piece band started in on Somewhere Over the Rainbow, a song that David suggested and Bethanie thought would be perfect for her procession. The crowd rose to its feet. And Bethanie was gorgeous. Her dad and her slowly made their way down the aisle, trying to stretch it out as long as they could. At the end of the aisle, he raised her veil, they hugged and he gave her to me with a shake of the hand.

The ceremony went quickly, as we had hoped it would. It began and ended within 15 minutes. At the beginning of the ceremony Josh presented our rings and then they were passed around the audience. We liked the idea of the community being involved in the ceremony in this way. At one point the rings fell to the floor. Badri, wanting to make sure the rings made their way to Kathi on Bethanie’s side of the aisle, stood up to pass them over. They fell from his hands and one landed just behind us – from what I heard later it went under Bethanie’s train. I heard the rings fall, but at the time I had no idea that Badri was crawling around behind us searching for them on the floor. Eventually we did exchange rings and vows. We worked together to write vows that were special and unique for us. And I remember a specific moment during the ceremony when Beth said, “ … and I promise to play with you as much as I can …” that everyone, even Bethanie, broke into laughter. It was great. I managed to get through my vows, after an initial false start to fight back the tears. I just kept looking at Molly and Josh for support. They were great.

After the ceremony, we took portraits and Bethanie and I snuck a few moments alone upstairs. Then we descended the stairs and went to the porch for our first dance to “Paradise With You.” Unrehearsed, we did a nice little two-step, complete with a dip and a lift and spin and the end.

Then we moved on to dinner: a beautiful spread including a fruit and cheese sculpture, stuffed mushroom caps, salmon moose tartlets, bruscetta, and spinach pastries. The food was excellent. We had a little and made our rounds to say hello to everyone. Everyone was so supportive. And it was great to see everyone together. This is one of the few times in your life, Jeb pointed out, that everyone gets together to support you. It’s rare and wonderful.

After dinner we moved into speeches. I feel like the night was a rite of passage for Bethanie and me, but also for Josh and Molly. Josh began – he started with a joke, “Tonight Bhadri has finally realized something that I have known for a long time,” he said, as the room fell silent, “that I am the best man.” He continued with poise and confidence and finished his speech with words of advice, “Love each other with everything you have. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.” Molly’s smile filled the room. It was all a blur. But she spoke of how proud of Bethanie she was and how happy she is to be her sister. She later told us that she wanted to say, “The first time I meant Bhadri he hit me in the head with a Frisbee…” But her better judgment decided against it. I think it would have been funny.

“We’re going to do this next,” I said, gesturing to the cake. Beth and I had just been given instructions in the kitchen on how to cut the cake and we were ready. Grandma Grace Ann yelled, “Be respectful!” not wanting me to smear cake down Bethanie’s face. And we were. We fed each other the best cake ever, a cream cake with raspberry sauce and toasted with champagne.

From there the night was full of dancing and drinking. It began with a father/daughter and mother/son dance and finished with Whitney (my cousin) doing her best impression of a honky tonk knee-slapping hoe down at midnight. In between everyone got into the action as the band went on for 3+ hours. Grandma Grace, after hurting her knee only a few weeks earlier, wasn’t sure if she’d be able to dance. But her and Grandpa Frank cut a rug just as well as ever. They are the ones who taught me how to swing and Beth and I did plenty of it that night. When they played “Take Me Back to Tulsa (I’m too Young to Marry” the night was complete.

Back in the USA

2007-06-20T13:18:00.000-05:00

Sue, Bhad's mom, picked us up at the Austin airport and shuffled us over to his brother Josh and his girlfriend Nicole's house to land. On the drive over, we stopped at a store to grab some local beer. Fireman's Four and Real Ale. When we arrived at Josh and Nicole's, we were greeted with big hugs and a delicious veggie meal. The beers were popped open and the party was on.

Bhad's been practicing his harmonica so he can jam with Josh when he got to Austin. He's gotten really good at it and I'm very impressed. He can improvise and make any song sound good. They're playing right now, in fact. With the guitar and the harmonica we have a band right here in the living room!

Josh and Nicole have two big dogs. Green and Violet. Do I sense a theme? They're adorable and after a few hours of "getting-to-know," Booster joined the big dog gang. He was terrified at first: goggled eyes, ears back, tail between legs, hunched back. But now he's sniffing and wiggling and provoking play time. It's good for the little man. And now he's got a posse. Violet is such a character--she'll let Josh do anything to her. Hence the sheep-carrying pose. She's the most loving dog I've ever met, always noozling you or putting her paw on your lap to say hello. Green is a total human. He's sitting on the couch people style, right now. He's so mature and he'll look at you with this, 'hey, what's up' face. They're all characters and Booster's absolutely loving the dog-company!

The Journey on the Aeroplane

2007-06-20T11:44:00.000-05:00

I wrote this on the plane yesterday morning:

"In the air from Chicago to Austin. Thirty-something thousand feet. They put us on standyby for the direct 9:05am flight. The alternative was to catch the 9:55am to St. Louis and then on to Austin by 4:30pm.

We should've been in Texas last night if everything had gone as expected. As Tom, the operational supervisor at American Airlines, said: 'it's an act of God so it's not our problem.' He pleaded with us to blame God for the weather delay, not him, and to feel free to take up any concerns with the big man or AA.com.

We had to make a 12:00 flight from Krakow yesterday morning so we were up and out the door by 7:00am. The Hallo Taxi man was waiting cheerfully outside our door. This guy's one of my favorite drivers. I know most of them from my tri-weekly ventures to satellite schools and businesses.

Our train to Krakow was almost an hour late. Once in the Krakow airport, we waited and waited, three hours, in 'utter chaos' (as the flustered American couple put it). It really was utter chaos, although I prefer not to pass judgement on another culture for not being the same as my own. It's an easy outlet for disgruntlement, but it's unkind and unnecessary. I'll try to describe it as objectively as I can. Hundreds of people funnelling into a tiny space--the width of two, maybe three, people--to enter another area where you again had to squeeze into another section to wait. It felt like a sweaty and tense mirror maze. There was no tidy queue, no courtesies, just a mass of irritated travellers shoving for the best position and throwing angry glares at their new neighbors. It was all so primitive. It was survival.

As it turns out, it wasn't bad that our flight from Krakow was delayed as we learned once we passed through the hours of security. We wouldn't've made it to the plane on time anyway. But we were already tired and we hadn't even begun.

The flight was a-okay. There was no room in the first-class closet for my wedding dress or Bhad's suit, so we had to not-delicately-at-all cram them in the overhead compartment. The LOT stewardesses (I know it's politically incorrect, but I like the throw-back) were curt as usual, but we noticed major and recognizeable improvements in our Polish. The last trip we made on LOT airlines, we were struggling to keep the words for 'thank you' and 'good day' straight. Now we could communicate that we wanted tea with milk and no, no lemon thank you. We didn't get any cocked-head, confused looks, all was smooth as butter. Smooth as maslo. And Booster was a star. Didn't even make a whimper.

Our landing was delayed 30 minutes and it was terribly rocky. Tumultuous is the word. I was very nervous, I admit; the plane would drop and then seemingly catch itself every few seconds. 'What's the worst that could happen?' I kept asking myself. Oh, yes, we could all die. But we'll die anyway someday, right? So nothing we should worry about. I think I could do for better acceptance of death. It puts things into perspective and it's so real. It might sound obvious to say that death is real, but we do our best to ignore it everyday. But the reality is also that I like living, and conveniently we didn't die. The pilot got us on the ground and the passengers errupted in applause.

As we rushed off the plane that'd carried us across the Atlantic, the relief of the safe landing didn't last long. We immediately started to feel the urgency once again. We had to make our connection to Austin in just 40 minutes! The health and safety inspector needed to take a look at the pup's papers, but they took about 15 minutes trying to page an officer authorized to do it. We shot off towards the AA check-in area in terminal five the moment he cleared us to go.

When we arrived at the check-in, the man directing the people traffic said 'this line please, oh, I think that flight is cancelled,' as if someone had just asked him if he wanted sugar in his coffee and he'd responded 'sure.' I had the fantasy of him saying all of these traumatic or drastically exciting things in the same ambivilent tone. But the novelty of it dissapated into annoyance quickly. We were to meet this man, our buddy Tom, at the counter 30 minutes later.

As warned, our flight was cancelled. Due to weather, apparently. Every potential flight out of Chicago aimed at Texas--even one to D.C (?!)--were cancelled for the night. Tom offered with his broad, toothy smile 'if we wanted, we'd be more than welcome to stay in the public terminal overnight. The seats out there are quite comfy and there's a food court just upstairs [insert automatic smile here].' He also gave us the option, as he put it, of taking an indirect flight from Chicago to St. Louis to Austin, arriving at 4:30 in the afternoon the following day. We made the argument that our original flight was direct and we were not exactly happy with the exchange. Insert smile, shake head, sing-songy Chicago accent, and his power phrase: well, that's your opinion. He apologized for the inconvenience and said 'well, if there's nothing more I can do for you...' The word 'more' rallied every emotion in my body for battle and set me off. More you can do? More? But you would've had to do something in order to offer us more! 'That's all I can offer you, ma'am. I'm very sorry.' Smile, bigger smile.

I had to muster all the sense I had left to not start making wild judgements about Americans again. The saccarine sweet attitude Tom gave us, never giving us a direct answer but twisting it to make it look like it was the best situation possible for us, disgusted me. Why not just be honest and treat your customers, although they're customers, like humans? The toothy grins and chipper nods he perpetuated when he gave us the bad news was totally unbelievable. Unbelievable. What world are we in? What's wrong with him?

I was upset and exhausted and totally unable to make a clear decision. Bhads took charge and bought a hotel room at the Radisson with a discount voucher from the airline. It was still $80 (240pln!!!) and on principal I disagreed, but we really needed the rest.

The hotel was as comfy as a cloud. There was a nice clean bathtub with hot water in the pipes just asking to be released, internet access, TV showcasing a baseball game in all it's American glory. Booster let loose after being in his bag all day, I jumped into the bath, and Bhads ordered us a deep dish Chicago pizza from the famous Giordano's. I don't know if they're really famous, but they claimed to be so on the box. One third crust and sauce, two thirds cheeeeeese. There was so much cheese, I was almost grossed out. I love cheese. It's my favorite food. Practically any type of cheese. I'll eat it alone, with other foods, hot or cold. I could eat cheese for every meal. But this was almost too much. The call was simple, no language challenges. And we sipped on water from the tap--what a luxury!

Ah hah, descending into Austin now. Oh, hello cabin pressure and nausea...

We ate some of the left over pizza for breakfast and hopped the shuttle back to the airport to try to get a standby seat on the direct 9:05 flight. We got seriously lucky. Out of 39 people waiting on standby for an open seat, we were numbers one and two! We got seats next to each other without a problem. And they even had a closet to hang our wedding wares.

Oh, bumpy clouds. Maybe clouds aren't so comfy. We'll be in Austin in minutes. 95 degrees, clear skies and humid? Oh, the journey continues and it's time for a nap."

We Are Teachers

2007-06-15T06:27:00.000-05:00

With the end of the year comes stress, sentimentality, and best of all, presents. Most of this past year I felt more like I was working at learning how to teach rather than really feeling like,
"hey, I'm a teacher." But the formula is easy: students give me presents, I feel like a teacher. I just remember the days when I'd get so excited to give my own teacher a little something to say thanks before jetting out of the class as fast as I could to a bright blue and newfound summer day. I was shocked to have my students presenting me with gifts this time. Me?! Could I be the teacher that they get excited to give a gift to before jetting outside? Even if the answer's no, I still felt like it and that's what counts. Presents are serious fun.

My adult class gave me an atlas for Poland. It's this huge book with super detailed maps of literally every inch of the country. It'll come in handy on our travels--very thoughtful, too. I blogged about them earlier so I won't go on again.

My teenagers at our satellite school Jankego, Martyna and Michal, gave me a bouquet of flowers. The rumor is that teenagers are miserable to teach, but this class totally disproves it. They are so lovely, they laugh at my stupid jokes, they say the cleverist things, and I really feel like I know them. Those IH scrabble champions made my year fun!

The kiddos at Jankego were so sweet. They gave me all kinds of goodies: flowers, a candle, a box of fancy chocolates. It was so cute the way they presented them to me. Rushing up to the teacher at the last minute like they'd been waiting all class, sticking their hands out with the gifts, and saying "here," then running off again. They're nothing short of adorable. I really know what my mom means now when she calls her students her children. They're pictured left to right with the play they wrote: (top) Aga, Gosia, Mieszko, Wiktor, (bottom) Dominika, Marta, and me.

Some of Bhad's teens from the satellite school in Siemianowice: Kuba and Anna. They're really cool kids and are well versed in the Bhadrisms. They joined at us the pub last week for their last class. We're trying to convince Kuba to check out St. Ed's for college next year. He's already suited up in his Texas gear, so the rest is easy.

Bhads also got a present from his one-to-one student. It really takes the cake. It's a purple, glass "diamond" the size of a fist. It looks just like a diamond, but it's massive. The woman bought it at a really nice store here in town, Rosenthal, and we can't really tell if it's functional (paperweight?) or if it's art. It's so cool in its randomness and I dig it.

So that's it for the year. We're heading back to Texas this Monday and there's loads to do. We are going to take a day to do absolutely nothing and enjoy it before it's back to work for the wedding. Ooh, it's all happening folks. Life is good!

Schooooool's Out for the Summer

2007-06-15T06:05:00.000-05:00

Schoooool's out for the summer! Yesterday was our last day at IH Katowice. I ran around the teacher's room hunting down each person for a memorable and goofy photo. They're all such great people. It was really sad to say goodbye. But of course, we're all roamers and I'm sure we'll meet again. Happy Trails, everyone!

This is our lovely teacher's room, where Stephanie and Joanna use the miracle of light reflection to communicate.

Jo is not only a teacher, but she also a model in her spare time. Or maybe a body builder...? Look at those cheeks, baby. She's got all the moves!

Sabina is one of the sweetest and most genuine people I've ever met. She's our office manager, and she's amazing. I'm going to miss our wedding chat, but I can't wait to hang out in Wroclaw with her. We'll be newlywed couple friends -- ah, so 1950's!

Ooh, there's the Director of Studies at the stand-by board up to no good. Please, Bronwen, no summer stand-by slots!

Oh, I'll miss you smokers. Oh, I'll miss you smoker's balcony (note the sign). Piers and Jo, creating lasting friendships while creating lasting damage to their lungs. Ahh...

Croissants, Tieing the Knot, & Last Classes

2007-06-12T09:29:00.000-05:00

I have 45 minutes before my next class. It's 4:30 pm and I've been here at school since 10:00 am. I have two classes tonight, which puts it at 10.5 hours for the day. Boogers, I'm tired.

For a bit of a pep-up, I walked down to Zabka--a tiny convenient store with, surprisingly, everything you could ever need. I thought I wanted a chocolate bar, but then I saw the beloved 7 Days Chocolate Croissant making eyes at me. These little devils are seriously delicious. We used to eat practically one a day during CELTA, so yes fond memories. They are buttery and soft with a dollup (never enough) of chocolate cream inside. They are packaged and oozing with preservatives and it makes them all the better! I bought one for Bhads, he loves them equally as much as I do, so when he gets out of his class he can have a tasty snack. But it's a real test: it's sitting there, about 3 feet away, waiting for Bhadri but giving me the same eyes it gave me in the shop, can I resist?

This reminds me of another predicament. When we were travelling back from Lviv, back during Easter break, we had a layover in a Polish-Ukrainian border town called Przemsyl. Lovely town. But as we strolled through town, we noticed the glow from inside Zabka (yet again). We went in and snatched up what but two 7 Days Chocolate Croissants. We ate them hastily...it left us unsatisfied. So we popped into a gas station a few blocks down the road and, yes, bought another pair of the delights. So here is the conclusion: one is good, but two is nasty. We felt so ill after eating the second one (and really, after half of the second one I knew I should quit, but...). We both were regretful and had that feeling that you know you just chose to do something oh-so wrong. So with this in mind, I think I'll pass on Bhad's croissant and allow him the pleasure.

We now have less than a week until we leave for America. It's pretty mind-blowing. We aren't mentally or physically or psychologically or anthingally prepared for it. Today, I'm finding it difficult to balance teaching with wedding planning. But we sure are plugging away and getting lots done for the wedding. A few biggies are still left up in the air, but we have a couple of weeks to sort things out. We had a look at possible vow and ceremony options yesterday, and it hit both of us hard. We were quite the couple, sitting in the coffee shop with our pages of options, me with red and teary eyes and Bhads gasping for breath. It's pretty powerful stuff, this marriage business. We've been so overwhelmed with school and all the details of the wedding that we haven't started to focus on what we'll say to each other or how the ceremony will go. As Gabi, one of our teachers, nicely put it: "Maybe the other stuff is here to distract us so we won't focus on the important stuff until it's the right time." I think she must be right.

I'm really going to miss some of my classes. Last night my class of post-advanced adults and I went to the pub for class. And they gave me a gift. Seriously, I felt like such a teacher! It's crazy how one little thing can make you feel like you've done a good job and it can justify all the stress. We stayed at the pub for a few hours, chatting about shelled animals (do crabs really have shells or just "armor" and do octopuses have a shell if it's inside their skin?), weddings, Silesia, and accents. It was lovely.

I brought my wedding dress home last Saturday. It was such a relief to have it at home. I was going through that unfinal anxiety and it's nice to feel like I have some control over it now. Yes, I need to feel control over my dress. Oh crap, what's happening to me?! I need another pub lesson.

A Misadventure to the Lake

2007-06-11T06:48:00.000-05:00

I haven't blogged in a while, and I'm not even sure what I want to write as I sit here in the teachers' room of the school. The semester finishes this week. So pub lessons are on tap for the agenda. This means that for the last 90 minute lesson we head to the pub and have a beer with our students and just talk. I didn't get to have any pub lessons last semester because we joined the team so late in the term, and I'm really looking forward to the idea.

Yesterday we went to a nearby man-made lake called Pogoria or something close to that. After a 40 min. bus ride with our host for the day and friend Boz, we continued on foot for another 20 minutes to our destination. As we got closer hoards of people were walking in the opposite direction from us and the rain began to fall hard with lightning and thunder and the whole bit. But we figured we could walk back and get wet or continue to the lake and get wet so we pressed on. The lake was great. I didn't have any expectations, but it was really nice. Sandy beach and all. Apparently they used to mine sand there and when they were finished they filled the big whole with water instead of leaving it -- good idea. The lake is probably a mile wide. We sat beneath a large patio umbrella at the pub waiting for the sun to fully bloom and the rain to dissapear. After a couple of hours and a few pints the sun finally retuned. We finished the day with some volleyball and a quick wade into the the icy water. Booster passed the time digging in the sand, running around in a frenzy for a few seconds before digging again, sticking his nose in the hole and repeating the entire process again and again. Boz was brave enough to go for a swim while Beth, Booster and I only went in up to our ankles. My only regret is that I didn't have a speedo (that's all the men where here). I'll have to get one for the next time.

Our Schedules, Our Woes, Books, and Eurovision

2007-05-29T04:41:00.000-05:00

We only have 12 more days until the end of term. And one of those days is reserved for parent meetings, of which, so far, neither Bhadri nor I have any scheduled. Oh, and I just remembered we have a monday in June that's a state holiday--Corpus Christi. Not just a city in Texas, apparently.

So I think I've been grinding my teeth at night. I wake up each morning with sore jaws and a headache, so process of deduction. Unless I'm waking up in the middle of the night and going out into the hallway to gnaw on the exposed pipes by the telephone. I've been totally exhausted lately. The black circles, no appetite, whole-head headaches. It's not too fun. But on the flip side, we do only have a few more weeks before vacation. It's been such a stressful time with the wedding planning, summer school organization (and Booster accomodation during it), new school getting for next year, moving to Wroclaw and when?!??, and alternative extras that we want to do but have no idea when we'll have time. Our students and friends, the Chyrowicz family, have invited us to spend 2 weeks with them in the middle of a primeival forrest in north-eastern Poland (near Belarus). We'd be hanging out in a forrester's cottage, no where near civilization, and it sounds so beautiful to me. There's a Yiddish culture and language seminar going on near Warsaw for 3 weeks, as well (starts the day after we'd leave from the forrest). It's an intensive language course with native speakers and with day trips to old, important cities/towns/places. It sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity--how amazing would it be to study Yiddish in Poland? It's affordable, I think, but the only thing is: how can I voluntarily spend 3 weeks away from my new husband and dog-son? Wow, it's crazy to write that. Not dog-son, but new husband. AH! Excitingness! Anyways, Bhads thinks I should do it because it could be such an incredible experience...but we'll just have to see. Also, we are gonna need a honeymoon at some point. We pushed it back so we could do 2 weeks at an English language summer school up on an island in the Baltic Sea (off the coast of Gdansk). The money and experience would be good to have.

So, after that we'd have to move very quickly (and eh hem, find an apartment) to Wroclaw because our lease runs out here in early August. Then we'd meet the Chryowiczs in the forrest. Then I'd go to the Yiddish camp. Then we'd go on honeymoon to Hungary. Then we'd have a week or so before we start work in Wroclaw. I'm not sure if it's all do-able, and something will have to give.

It's gotten pretty hot here in the last few weeks. It's been in the 90s for you Fahrenheit lovers, and quite humid. It's really gorgeous when you're in the shade and the breeze is blowing, but if the sun is beating down, oh the sweat will be a pourin'. Air conditioning is a luxury that Poland doesn't value. We don't have any AC here at the school, so if you're in a classroom on the sunny side, prepare yourself for sweaty shirts and foreheads. Plus teenage boys here tend to stank (yes, I said: stank) even without the heat, so please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Hah!

What else about life. Bhads has a major knot in his back. He made me stand on him this morning. I hate doing that. But he's pretty stressed too.

Booster is grand. He's been super cuddly lately, crawling up into my arms in the middle of the night and plopping down on my reading material. He's loving the sunny days from his cozy spot in the window, but we're realizing that he can't take the long walks we're used to. He gave Bhads a real look of: this is NOT cool, the other day. Bhads said it was such a human look.

I think it's time for a Red Bull. Or Rrrrraid Bool as the locals say.

...I'm spacing out...

Oh, another book recommendation. Our friend Piers loaned us a book. I'm sure you've probably all seen the movie or at least heard of the title. Everything is Illuminated. Well, I have to say, our buddy Kara was reading it before we left Austin and she was raving about how great it was. I was like, yeeeah, but the movie was so awesome I don't know how it could get any better. But, let me tell you, it's an incredible read. It's so dynamic and the characters are hilarious and so genuinely human and I'm obsessed with it now. I can't read it enough. The details are so quirky and super-funny (I'm positive I've missed so many subtle and clever parts. I'll have to read it again and try to catch them), and the storyline is so beautifully told. I just can't say enough good about it. It's actually pretty different from the movie, of course, but I guess I didn't expect it. If you need a good summer book, I recommend it.*

This weekend we went over to Piers' apartment for a Eurovision Song Contest party. I'd never really heard about this phenomena until this year, when all the UK teachers were raving about it. For some reason I can't get the photo to copy, but please click this link (it's the winner crankin' it out for the Serbian hometeam): http://www.eurovision.tv/images/stories/galleries/First_rehearsal_of_Serbia/target2.html

Also, please (for humor's sake) click on this link for my own vote, Ukraine: http://www.eurovision.tv/images/stories/galleries/Germany_and_Ukraine/target3.html

*The author apologizes for the constant stream of book recommendations, but she wants to make it clear that she really likes these books and really likes her friends and family and really wants them to like these--and other--books as well.

Greeetings From Poland

2007-05-22T05:01:00.000-05:00

I've been making time for a little graphic design lately. I even got a small freelance assignment on the side which was nice. Another teacher is starting up a translating business and asked me to make a poster. It was fun.

And that got me on a kick. So I've been doing much less reading lately. I stayed up a few nights ago until 3 in the morning playing with this cow. I've been tired since, but had a fun time with it. I really just wanted to dispell the old myth that cows in Poland are different from those elsewhere around the world. Wherever I go I keep hearing about this. And it's just plain wrong! This illustration is to scale and is both scientifically, factually and anatomically correct for its age. No bones necessary. Fact. The heat produced by the digestion keeps the cow inflated.

This is Booster

2007-05-16T08:07:00.000-05:00

Rare Photos of the Bs

2007-05-16T08:03:00.000-05:00

Because one of us is usually behind the camera, we don't have many pictures of the two of us together. Our friend, Grant, took some photos of us while we were out hiking in the mountains a couple of weeks ago. We liked seeing our faces face-to-face, and we hope you do too.

Wroclaw, Wroclaw Here We Come...

2007-05-15T09:30:00.000-05:00

I'm happy to report that we've been offered jobs in Wroclaw, Poland, next year. Yippee! We visited the city a few months ago and found it lovely with lots of coffee, fresh poppy seed pastries, culture, little copper elves scattered and hidden across the city, and a gorgeously gorgeous old town. It'll be fun to be in a beautiful city again.

We've decided that it's not that terrible living in Katowice. It's very nice and green and lively with all of the outside cafes and flowers that've popped up all over town. But something about Katowice feels shallow. There's not the history here that's in other towns. Most of the restaurants and bars feel like they're trying to be Western/American, but that's not too charming.

It should be a new, Polish adventure. We're pretty excited!

Baron Rogacizna's Dinner

2007-05-11T06:23:00.000-05:00

This is a play that my 9 year old students wrote yesterday. I'm really proud--they did it all by themselves! So I present: Baron Rogacizna's Dinner

Characters:
The monkey: Baron Rogacizna
The Bananas: Molly, Chiquita, & Zdzislaw
The Parrot: Johan
The man: Jaszu

[The story opens with three bananas, Molly, Chiquita, and Zdzislaw, hanging in a shop window. A man enters, looking to buy bananas...]
Jaszu: Three bananas, please.
Molly and Zdzislaw: Oh, no!
[The man buys the three bananas, Molly, Chiquita, and Zdzislaw.]
Chiquita: I hear a truck...
Zdzislaw: I don't like trucks.
[The man takes the bananas and puts them into his truck. The don't know where they are, but a minute later the truck door opens. They are at the zoo, and a big monkey named Baron Rogacizna is waiting for his bananas.]
Molly: Oh no, it's Baron Rogacizna and he wants to eat us!
Chiquita and Zdzislaw: Please, help us!
Baron Rogacizna: Raaaaarrrrr, I'm very hungry, and I want to eat a banana!
Molly, Chiquita, and Zdzislaw: Help! Help us!
[Baron Rogacizna, is about to eat the bananas. But the bananas see a parrot flying towards them.]
Zdzislaw: Oh, it's a super parrot. He wants to save us!
Chiquita: It's Super Johan!
Johan: I want to help you!
Baron Rogacizna: They're my bananas, Johan, they're MY bananas!
[Johan the Parrot flies down and takes the bananas. Molly and Zdzislaw sit on his back, and Chiquita sits on his head.]
Johan: Thank you, Baron Rogacizna.
Baron Rogacizna: Rarrrrrrrrr, they're MY bananas!
Molly, Chiquita, and Zdzislaw: Thank you, Johan.
Johan: You're welcome.
Johan, Molly, Chiquita, and Zdzislaw sing: We are the Champions, we are the champions...

Beskid Business

2007-05-08T05:14:00.000-05:00

May 1st and 3rd are state holidays in Poland. This year they fell on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively, so most people got a whole week of vacation (or at least 3 days like we did). The first of May was the Communist Labor Day (a day off work to honor the proletariat), and although the city streets don't host the parades and festivals they used to during the Communist days, people still get the day off. May 3rd is the day the Polish constitution was inacted. The two holidays aren't really connected, as far as I can tell. Polish history has been so tumultous, and it's consolation prize is lots of days off work. Not too shabby.

During our vacation, we went hiking in the Beskidy--the mountain range south of Katowice, on the Slovakian border. Bhads, Booster, and our friend Grant, joined me on the longest and hardest hike of my life.

31 kilometers (about 20 miles) stretched over two days. I'm pretty proud we did it. I'd never tried or succeeded in doing anything that hardcore, so I was fairly skeptical that I could get over that next ridge in one piece. Some of the mountains were very steep, but I did my best to let all my anxieties go. Even after the hostel at Mlada Hora turned us away two hours before sunset (they were booked up, but generally turning people away at all is frowned upon), I still knew we had nothing to worry about. They'd made us tea to keep us going; it was good tea, too, so that was kind of them. But images of shelters in ditches, covered with evergreen braches for warmth, flickered through my thoughts (and funnily enough, through Bhad's thoughts at the same time!); I knew we'd survive the night whether we found beds in Soblowka, the village at the bottom of our mountain, or if we had to rig something up in the hills. I was all just a part of the adventure.

The hike was really wonderful. Day One we ended up in Soblowka, after taking the emergency detour down the mountain in search of warm beds and a cold beer. Of course, everything always, always works out. Always. We arrived in Soblowka, and were a bit stunned. On the map the community looked like a veritable town, but when the trail turned into cement and opened up our view, there was no doubt: Soblowka is a village. Maybe 25 houses scattered across the side of the hill, smoke billowing from chimneys, horses neighing, cats scurrying. We checked out the map at the trail's end and saw no hostels or guesthouses or hotels on it. We started to walk down the main drag, and found ourselves knocking on the door of a short, plump woman's house. A sign read: Noclegi, Zapraszamy! and a telephone number. Having no clue what "noclegi" meant, I knew "zapraszamy" was "we welcome you." So our chances of finding a place were getting better. I didn't catch her name (something like Babcia?) but her sparkling eyes and pink circles of cheeks left an impression. She asked where we were from, we answered, and she responded by clutching her chest and exclaiming with gusto, "America! Ah, America." We were in.

Unfortunately, she said, she didn't have any rooms available. Holiday week. But she would happily call her friends and they come and give us a lift to their place for the night. "Jedno noc, tak? Tylko jedno noc?" She wanted to make sure we needed to stay only for a night.

Accomodation was being arranged and priorities had shifted to, well, beer. What's a hike in the mountains if you can't have a local pint at the end of the day? So, knowing that the village shop was open for just another 10 minutes, Bhad jetted down the street in search of Tyskie.

A few minutes later, Grant and I, standing on the old wooden porch deciphering a guest's map, saw Bhadri sprinting down the road, beer in tow. He kept running and running, passing the driveway to the house. Grant yelled to him with a hey-you-idiot-we're-right-here tone, but Bhads screamed back--still running--"Shut up!" As he jogged up the houses' back entrance, Bhad swore something in between breaths about a crazy drunk man, shaking his head and saying "what the hell?" He told us that the store was being "guarded" by ten liquered-up, mountain men. One of them took it as duty to chase Bhads down, stumbling after him, clenching his fists and yelling after him in a gruff Polish tongue. Bhad successfull alluded him, the reason for running past the house, and avoided a mountain brawl.

We waited for our accomodation beholders to arrive, and the sweet woman with the pink cheeks served us a most delicious three course meal. Veggie soup with noodles, kompote, meat cutlets with mashed potatoes, gravy, and bigos, and a majestic apple dessert. Confession: I ate the meat. The whole meal had meat in it, bar soup and dessert, and I was starving. Yes, I'm making excuses because I feel slightly guilty, but to be honest I wouldn't have had it any other way. The meal was perfect and thank you, a hundred times blessed animal, for the nurishment!

The door of the basement eating area opened as we were rounding off the dessert course. Bhads face twisted confusedly as a short, balled lumberjack walked into the room, a clean-cut man with a character-filled moustache by his side.

"That's the man who chased me down the road!" Bhad whispered to me out of the side of his mouth. "What is going on?"

The moustached gentleman approached our table and extended his hand. He was the shop owner who, notified by our lovely pink cheeked host, came to apologize for the hostile encounter. Piotrek, the owner, shook our hands, said a sturdy, "Przpraszam," and let our small lumberjack take a turn. The little man shook Grant's hand, kissed mine (!), and then took Bhad's hand, placed it on his forehead and bowed, repeating "Przpraszam, przpraszam..." Standing up, bowing, standing up, bowing. He was like a scolded puppy, he seemed so sorry for his behavior, trying to make amends through his intense and sorrowful eyes. In his confusion as well as his good nature, Bhad echoed the guesture and said, "it's really not a problem..."

As it turns out, the village of Soblowka is really much smaller even than it looks. Piotrek ended up being the man who our pink cheeked host had called to put us up for the night. He waited patiently for us to finish our meal, then gave us a ride to his family's home.

A crew of smiling Poles, in varying sizes and ages, greeted us at their door. They were so cheerful and quite inquisitive. Hannia, the mom, Ola, the teenage daughter, Tomek, the boy, Marysia, the Grandma, and Bronek, the Gramps. We put our things down in our room (wow! 3 beds and a table in a real home in the mountains!), and went back downstairs to chat with the fam. As we plopped down at their kitchen table, the family gathered 'round to talk. Hannia made us hot cups of coffee and placed a tray of fresh local cheese on the table in front of us, saying, "prosze!", here you are. We pieced together a lively conversation in Polish, lots of charades and laughter to accompany. Marysia and Bronek had lived in the same village their whole lives, Tomek knew a few words of English, and Piotrek not only owned the shop in town, but was also the fire chief (or fire chef as he liked to say). Later in the night, he brought out his fireman's uniform for me to try on! The family was so incredibly kind to us, even invited us back, and we felt honored to spend a small part of our lives with them.

The next day we tried to catch the 8:50am bus to Ujstron, a bigger village down the road, but it was May 2nd--smack in the middle of the holidays--and the bus driver was probably sleeping in or eating a hearty egg and toast breakfast. Either way, after 30 minutes, it was clear that the bus wasn't coming.

We walked along the road towards Ujstron for a few kilometers, savoring the fresh pastries we'd just bought and exchanging "Good day"s with the men plowing their fields and the women hanging their clothes on the line. Grant was at the back of our single file line and had been sticking his thumb out to every car that passed. A car actually stopped for us, much to Bhad's surprise. He was at the front of the line and had never seen Grant's hitching thumb. So we hopped in the man's super clean car, and he gave us a smooth and pleasant 10 minute ride to Ujstron. From there, we started the ascent up, up, up into the mountains to the eventual oasis of Hala Boracia--a cozy and bright hostel perched on the side of a mountain. We laid out on the grass with our cold pints of Zywiec, ate oscypek cheese, read, snoozed, and giggled at Booster's man sun-soaking positions. It wasn't a tough walk from there to Wiegierska Gorka, the town where our evening train would leave from. The hike from the bottom of the trail at the edge of town to the train station a mile and a half away was a killer, though. My body sensed the end was near, so it started shutting down prematurely. It was a brilliant feeling, despite the pain: we'd just done a challenging two-day hike, Booster was still prancing, we didn't go hungry, and I couldn't've felt more alive.

Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life

2007-04-24T08:05:00.000-05:00

My dear friend Sarah sent me a book in the mail the other day. It came across the pond highly recommended--she even sent me her copy.

Ever since the book arrived in our tiny, metal mailbox hole, I haven't been able to leave it. The book is a collection of Etty Hillesum's, a Jewish woman from Amsterdam, diary entries from 1941 through 1943. We know she will die in Auschwitz at the age of 29. And, although, she could have only chronicled her experiences and atrocities of living the Holocaust, she focused on her inner growth instead. She was only 27 when she started these writings, but each entry shows tangible psychological and spiritual growth. She reaches conclusions about life and happiness that most people might never even consider; and she expresses thoughts and feelings that, in anyone elses' words, could be too simple or too complex to seem real.

Every page is full of insights that are so clear that only after 150 pages, I feel like I'm starting to see the world with different eyes. Etty deliberately "works" on herself, in every moment, infusing love into every encounter. I can't help but think she found what she was looking for.

Some quotes:

--If you have a rich inner life, I would have said, there probably isn't all that much difference between the inside and outside of a camp.

--And sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.

--I know about the mounting human suffering. I know the persecution and oppression and despotism and the impotent fury and the terrible sadism. I know it all. And yet--at unguarded moments, when left to myself, I suddenly lie against the naked breast of life, and her arms around me are so gentle and so protective and my own heartbeat is difficult to describe: so slow and regular and so soft, almost muffled, but so constant, as if it would never stop. That is also my attitude to life, and I believe that neither war nor any other senseless human atrocity will be ever be able to change it.

--If one finds the strength to deal with small things, one finds it to deal with the large ones as well.

--Even if there is only one decent German, they would deserve to be protected from the barbarian rabble and for that one German's sake one should not pour out one's hatred for the entire people.

--Never give up, never escape, take everything in, and perhaps suffer, that's not too awful either, but never, never give up.

A Weekend in the Mountains

2007-04-24T03:30:00.000-05:00

This is so cool -- this past weekend, a student that Bethanie and I both teach, invited us to his cabin in the mountains. So we headed up there with his whole family. It's funny cause we teach English to four out of six people in the family. Anyways, we went on a leg crushing hike on Saturday for like 6 hours. We walked through the woods along a long ridge in the shape of a horseshoe. The views were great. In the distance we could see the Czech Republic. That night we ate Polish sausage (even Bethanie had some--she couldn't resist) from the grill and sat around the camp fire. Sunday we slept in. Enjoyed coffee in the fresh mountain air, something we're not used to living in Katowice, and then went for another 2 hour hike in a setting that looked amazingly like Switzerland before catching the train home. Pretty good.

The Train to Lviv

2007-04-23T03:32:00.001-05:00

We scooted on through Tarnów, Debica, and Rzeszów before arriving in Przemysl, about 12 km from the Poland/Ukraine border. It was 1:15 a.m. as we shuffled to the queue of the sleeper train on the track opposite. Travelers hoping to pass from Poland into the Ukraine are required by circumstance to change trains in Przemysl. Unlike tracks in Poland and the rest of the European Union that are 4’ wide, Ukrainian trains run on tracks that are 4.5’ across for defensive purposes, i.e. to avoid being invaded by Germany, a commendable but nevertheless annoying design modification at this time of morning.

The “bouncer” we’ll call him for lack of a better word, didn’t as much welcome us to the train as intimidate us aboard. Though we were still on Polish soil we were clearly entering a place well beyond anything we had ever experienced. He spoke Ukrainian, a Slavic language like Polish and Czech. These languages share many words and I’ve been told that people from different Slavic countries can often communicate with each other. However, the little Polish I knew was proving useless now.

We boarded car two and were escorted its full length to our sleeping compartment at the far end of the corridor. To our shock and appreciation, our compartment was a two-person sleeper. In 2004 while in Italy we took a night train from Rome to Venice. Six people were crammed onto narrow bunks in a space not larger than 6’x6’ with a 7.5’ ceiling. If you’ve ever experienced something like this you know how uncomfortable it can be. If you haven’t, then take my word from it—sleeping in a closet full of strangers with sweaty feet doesn’t present the most restful seven hours.

The feel of the train was like what I would expect to find on one of those who-done-it murder mystery cruises where the passengers are part of some elaborate interactive performance and they have to find the killer before the killer finds them. The Persian rug beneath our feet was faded and tattered—some of its tassels missing. An olive curtain, intended to conceal our coats and shoes, hung from the ceiling a few inches from the light wood paneled wall opposite our bunks. I hoisted my bag up to the overhead rack, stretched for a moment, happy to no longer be weighed down by 15 kilos of clothes, and pulled back the single white lace curtain that covered the bottom half of the window. The window had no obvious opening mechanism. No school bus style thumb-operated tabs that caused the window to jerk down two inches at a time. Nothing. Not even a pull cord only to be used in emergencies.

But at this stage, emergency exit or not, all we wanted to do was sleep. Unfortunately, we had yet to go through all the check-in procedures necessary for international train travel. First the bouncer returned and, after some mental math that took a fair amount of time, collected our fares. It seemed like a high price, but as the train was already in motion and we were obviously in no position to bargain we paid him without a word. Next the Polish and Ukrainian border guards stopped in to compare our passport photos to our present tired appearances and give us the necessary stamps to proceed. The latter guard decided to use the corner of our bottom bunk as her temporary base—collecting documents from down the hall and returning to our chamber to enter the details into her laptop before departing and then returning with a new set of passports to repeat the process. Again we were in no position to make a fuss and after 20 minutes we were able to lock our door and settle in for two hours of uninterrupted rocking along with a few moments of sleep. We would wake up in Lviv.

Lviv, Ukraine

2007-04-12T12:34:00.000-05:00

Lviv, Lwow, Lvov. It has way too many names. But whatever it's called, it's fantastic! We visited the city for 3 days over our Easter holiday last week. It's amazing that a culture so different is just a train ride away.

We'll be posting several more blogs on the city (complete w/ picture collages) in the coming days. We had so many photos and so much to write that we couldn't fit it into just one, two, or five blogs.

check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv for more details in the meantime.

Fashionable Lviv

2007-04-12T12:31:00.000-05:00

We all have an image of what Ukrainian fashion is. The skin-tight stone washed jeans with metal studs, super short mini-skirts, dramatic make-up, pleather jackets, and old women with scarves tied snuggly under their chins. The fashions of the 80s and 90s are still the fashions of today. I can now report that this is one stereotype that we found true.
I had hoped before arriving in Lviv that I could find a pair of jeans and a few t-shirt souvenirs to take back with me. I knew Molly is a fan of foreign t-shirts and Josh’s birthday is in just a few days, so we were excited to buy cheesy Cyrillic shirts for our siblings. Plus, Bhads and I have pretty much worn out our University of Vienna shirts we got on our first European adventure, and would’ve liked to replace them with one from Lviv. In short, we found two places to buy t-shirts: the university and a small souvenir shop. The university had 2 shirt designs, both only in XL, with a lion on one and the Virgin Mary on the other. They weren’t cheesy enough for us to buy or wear with confidence. The other shirts we found lived in a small shop on the Rynok Square. It was a tiny place, but the lack of things inside made the shop look enormous; you know that feeling when you get served a small piece of food on a large plate? That’s what it was. The man working the shop sat on his fold-up chair and drank his coffee, hardly seeming to notice the customers milling about his store. The shirts were displayed on the wall. The designs were bad, but not quite bad enough. Two of the shirts were in English; one saying “Vodka is Life” and the other “Merry Christmas from Lviv.” The others were variant colors of a big smiley face with a sentence of unknown Cyrillic written around it.
I can honestly say that we didn’t see anyone wearing anything with Cyrillic lettering the whole time we were there. All the shirts with text were printed in English. It doesn’t matter what they say, but English is a modern status symbol (see Bhad’s t-shirt blog below). It represents Pop Culture, wealth and prosperity; and in a country so impoverished and repressed as Ukraine I guess it’s only natural for people to strive towards that.
Besides t-shirts, we found people—especially women—wearing the most interesting things! Leather or pleather jackets in all shades of the rainbow (reminiscent of racing gear), permed hair and equally permed bangs, very tall boots with buckles and studs galore. Even a woman police officer we saw strolling across town was doing so wearing tall leather boots (see pic). I’m making an assumption here, but all of those years under Communism, where everyone was forced into anonymity and sameness, have created a black lash now against simplicity. Every purse in a shop window, every shoe, every boot, every pair of jeans are adorned with bright colors, metallics, jewels, and rivets. You just can’t find a piece of clothing that isn’t adorned with something.
On the other hand, the older generation seems to have stayed the same. This is probably similar in every culture, but it is so intriguing in Ukraine. The women, almost always, wear headscarves—usually in bright red, yellow, and blue traditional patterns. The men wear dark colored golf hats with their shirts and ties. We grew up with the image of the Ukrainian woman, round and fussy with a headscarf around her tired face. Even though some stereotypes proved true, many of the older women flashed hearty smiles and some even stopped on the sidewalk to chat with us. They would get tickled when we said we knew some Polish, and then cheerfully remind us that Lviv used to be Poland before the war. They’d say goodbye with a swish of the hand, and waddle off down the road, looking back to make sure we were doing the same.

Galicja's Eastern Capitol?

2007-04-12T12:29:00.000-05:00

Before WW2, Lviv was the eastern capitol of the Polish region of Galicia, and at that time Galicia had the second largest Jewish population in the world. Yet, of course, those Jews are gone now. After the war, the Polish border shifted westward (Germany lost land, including Katowice and Wroclaw, as a reparation), and Lviv was left on the outskirts. Ukraine swept up the eastern Galician region and Lviv has been Ukrainian ever since.
We assumed that since Lviv was such a center for Jewish learning and culture before the war, there would be some remnants or even recreations of this in places throughout the city. Krakow has restored its Jewish quarter, Kazimierz, with numerous museums, bookstores, synagogues, cemeteries, concerts, restaurants, gift shops, and tours. And it’s bustling. But Lviv had nothing of the sort. I mean nothing. We were shocked.
We walked by one of the two synagogues in the city the first day we arrived. It was tucked away in a neighborhood close to the train station and guarded by an 8’ tall metal fence. The façade was freshly painted yellow, but dotted with bright blue paint splotches, clearly vandalized. We reached the gate and gave it a push. It was locked, so we turned to keep on back to the city. I glanced across the street, and a small elderly lady was peeking out from behind her lace curtain gesturing “Back! Back!” Confused, we looked back towards the synagogue to see an old man opening the metal gate. He peered at us and said something in Ukrainian and we rushed back towards him. “Can we see inside?” we asked in broken Polish. He smiled and responded that the synagogue was being remodeled so it was closed. After thanking him and wishing him a happy holiday, as well as mouthing thanks to the lady behind the curtain, we walked on.
A couple of days later, we found the second synagogue. We knew where it was on our map, but we couldn’t seem to find it in reality. The neighborhood was very neglected (pictured), the buildings and pavement crumbly, but it didn’t feel unsafe. Bhad plucked up the courage to ask a passer-by where the synagogue was, and he pointed us left on the next block. No wonder we missed it! The building was slung in the same disheveled tone as its neighbors, windows foggy with dust, and no clear indication that it was an important site. We approached the door and rung the doorbell (pictured along with metal plate over the place were the mezuzah used to be). No answer. So we knocked and we rang again. Of course, still no answer. A small woman with a blue hat was making her way down the sloped street towards us, calling out something in Ukrainian. She helped us understand her with gestures to her eyes and indications at the door. We exclaimed “Tak!” as she searched under her layers for the keys hanging on a long string.
She let us in, laughing and muttering things in her language, as if two tourists wanting to see her synagogue were of the oddest things that could’ve happened on a Friday morning. Waving her hands towards the main sanctuary entrance, she motioned for us to go on in while she settled her things on the table in the hall. The sanctuary was large and filled with movie-theater-style chairs, posters and pictures hung to the walls, and the ceiling seemed to climb higher as we stood there. One wall was dedicated to the Holocaust victims, and showed enlarged photos of crying children and old men with circular glasses being tormented by Nazi officers. There was also text to accompany. Our friend joined us in the sanctuary and pointed to that wall, saying “Niemcy…,” briefly commenting that it concerned Germany. We couldn’t read the Cyrillic, but we clearly understood what it meant. Another wall was covered in pictures of school kids performing plays during holidays, Hebrew classes, and other members of the community. There were old posters dedicated to the Shoah (the Holocaust), theater performances, and one that read: Mazel Tov, painted with a dancing couple (all pictured). The back wall was empty except for a few marble plaques dedicating the remodeling of the synagogue to certain members of the community and officially naming it Shalom Alechem. It was all written in Ukrainian, English, and Hebrew.
After talking, or more aptly trying to pick out keywords in Polish, with our friend, we thanked her and left. We were so lucky to have arrived at that door seconds before she appeared coming down the hill, and so appreciative to have such a caring and intimate tour.

Our Ukrainian Home

2007-04-12T12:27:00.000-05:00

We had been warned that hotels in Lviv were pricey and, well, bad. Bhadri researched mid-range hotels and found the general price to be around 500 hrivny (100 dollars), which is outrageous for Eastern Europe. With that price you’d expect luxury coming out your ears. But the reality was that despite the high price these hotels were still dirty, uncomfortable, and not necessarily close to the city center. Also, Lviv has problems with it’s water system—hot water is delegated to different parts of the city at different times, so most of the day you will be without.
Thankfully, we had a very pleasant stay in Lviv. Bhad found a website advertising apartments for short-term rent and followed up. In case you’re ever going to Lviv and need accommodation, check their website out: http://www.inlviv.info/. They were really nice and have loads of apartments. For a one-bedroom apartment in the city center, it was 250 hrivny, and it included a king sized bed, a bathtub, satellite tv, and a full kitchen! Plus, it had it’s own water system which meant there was hot water all day. It was incredible.
The day we arrived, exhausted from an all-night train journey and culture-shocked, we had quite a time finding the place. After about 3 hours of texting the company, not texting back because our phone wouldn’t work, hunting down their signless office, and finally trekking back to the apartment to friendly Oksana and her baby girl warmly inviting us inside. The owner, Oksana, was the nicest woman and keen to chat with us a bit in English before heading out for the day. I made buddies with her 2-yr old girl, Sulamika, before she handed us the keys and took leave.
We crashed on the massive plushness of the bed and sighed. What a day. Really, what a two days. We’d been awake now for about 48 hours, with a few winks on the train between customs officials and conductors visits. It was good to feel settled.
After a luxurious bath and a few Reeses Easter eggs (provided by my dear Mom) we’d rationed, we set out into town to buy foodstuffs for dinner. This was possibly the second hardest thing we’d done all day, next to finding our apartment. There were no food stores. How is this possible? Poland has a food store, stand, or shop every 25 meters. We searched for about 45 minutes in the city center before finding an inside market, where we bought eggs, vodka, coffee, and creamer—the essentials. We took our goods home and, after a cup of coffee (100% instant, as it boasted on it’s label), whipped up a tasty dinner. Note: the eggs in the photo are real. They were florescent yellow, I kid you not.
Our stay in this apartment was delightful. We made some delicious home-cooked meals, took some soothing baths, slept more soundly than we have in months, and got to watch hours of BBC news and international soccer.

Around Lviv, Ukraine

2007-04-12T12:24:00.000-05:00

We covered quite a bit of ground during the three days we were in Lviv. And, although we got more and more comfortable with the city, we were constantly shocked and impressed by it. Lviv was both run-down and beautiful, impoverished and enchanting, exotic and familiar.

Statues and monuments were sprinkled across the city. Most were of old, stoic men, but others were of Greek gods and goddesses, angels, the Virgin Mary, or Communist-style abstract sculptures. A 35’ Soviet-esque statue of a man whose name we have no idea (engraved at the base in Cyrillic) stood opposite the university at the entrance of a large, planned park. He was a bit intimidating, although the bright and sunny day did add an element of playfulness to his rigid features (pictured). We set up our camera on his marble base and put the timer on. That’s us in front of the university building, standing next to the other couple taking photos (pictured). St. Ed’s has nothing on Univ of Lviv—it’s like a palace…of learning. A castle for culture. An estate of knowledge. Anyways, it was pretty.

We found some very interesting gems in Lviv that seemed to be dropped straight out of the 1950’s. The market we visited, where we found good instant coffee (no, that wasn’t a typo—it was actually delicious) and florescent yellow eggs, weighed all of their bulk goods on a white scale (pictured) that was as old as the hills. And instead of typing your total up on a cash register, they used a wooden abacus (shown in the bottom left-hand corner of the market picture). They shuffled the wooden balls quicker than anyone could type—it was wonderful. The cars were another thing. Most of the cars in the city were oldies with a strong Soviet flavor. Probably from the 60’s, these cars were consistently in tiptop shape and chugged around town with attitude. We found an old Red Cross van one day, deep olive green with perfectly round headlights, parked right outside a church. We goggled for a moment and continued our walk. Quite a few of the trams seemed to be from the same period. By far the most quirky thing we found was the drink machine (pictured). We’re still not sure how it works, but there is a glass glass already loaded and you can choose between two options: one costing 25¢ and the other 10¢. We wondered: does everyone share the same glass?

The small, cobbled streets on the Rynok (the main square) were little packages of the past. Cellar coffee shops deep under the streets, soaring Orthodox churches topped with silver domes, tiny shops with Catholic bishops’ and priests’ gold embroidered silk robes displayed in the windows, the healthy-looking stray dogs laying belly-up to the sun on the green grass, the merchants selling their boxes of turnips and beets on the sidewalk, the cars zooming past pedestrians and missing a collision by inches, couples walking hand in hand, licking their ice cream cones on even the chilliest day.

The architecture on the square was amazingly well maintained and charming, similar to Krakow. But it felt very different from it’s Polish equivalent. We rarely, rarely heard English spoken and it seemed like we were the only foreigners in the city. No one gawked or got angry with us because we were tourists, it was like Lviv hadn’t had the international exposure yet to make the locals hate us. In every archway there was a courtyard, filled with laundry draped over long lines, wooden balconies sloping at a dangerous angle, and other archways, windows and doors that kaleidoscoped your view. The signs and advertisements where all in Ukrainian/Cyrillic so we couldn’t figure out where we were or what we were looking at until we peeked in a window or popped in a door. Every city block held a new mystery.

Spring is Gone, Harmonicas, and Language Barriers

2007-03-21T04:10:00.000-06:00

Spring was here for 3 days. Now it's gone. Yesterday it started snowing, then it melted during the day. Last night, the snow fell again, and it's starting to melt again today. Who knows how long this could go on for! Poland is crazy. I just hope all the birds, bees, and flowers that were fluttering the in breeze last week have found some warm shelter.

Bhadri has taken up the harmonica. He's getting pretty good at it, and it's only been a week or two. He figured out how to play "Amazing Grace" all by himself, and has pretty much mastered a train noise (it's really cool!). He downloaded a few song guides from the internet, including "Oh Susanna," "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and "How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down."

I've been thinking a lot about the role of language. This so-called language barrier. It's something we encounter a lot here. We teach our language, first of all, but also we struggle with not knowing the local language everyday. When we go to the store to buy food, when we walk Booster and an old lady with her own dog stops us to chat, when we want to know the weather on tv, when we want to know what party won the last election, when we want to know where we're going while on the train...it's always a challenge. I always thought that language is a communication tool--that we'd be better off knowing the language of the country where we lived. But I'm not so sure now.

Because we don't know the words, we can only observe people's expressions, movements, and intonation. When we go to the store and say "dzien dobre" (good day), the shop workers smile and give us a hearty welcome back. It's a game now to order cheese or coffee from behind the counter, and it's smiles all around. When we meet another dog walker on the sidewalk, we end up giggling at all of our inability to speak, and leave each other in broad smiles. Is this not communication? I'm starting to think it's a much more pure form of communication than using the correct grammar and essentially using each other as a means to an end. It's always an experience in itself everytime we encounter someone that doesn't speak English. We are all aware and conscious in these encounters, and it feels authentic.

My Little Sister

2007-03-21T04:02:00.000-06:00

My sister Molly got her dress for the wedding the other day. She's my maid of honor. So she took a picture in her dorm room and emailed it to me to see what I thought. First of all, the dress is great. But when I looked at that picture I realized, maybe for the first time, that my sister is grown-up and she is gorgeous! She's always been a cutie (especially in her eye-patch and magnifying glass glasses days, but also in her high-waisted/highwater jeans pre-teen days, too--sorry Moll, had to say it). But I didn't see the same curly headed, silicon snorting, confetti printed glasses wearing baby sister of my childhood.

Molly has a spark about her. She glows when she smiles. When she laughs, you can't avoid laughing with her. Every move, every face she makes, is so expressive. She is, at the same time, brilliantly funny and truly insightful. She uses her time to help create a better world in small ways. And she doesn't know she's beautiful, which of course lends her charms that much more power.

That's my little sister. All growed up.

Blame The Boss

2007-03-19T02:51:00.000-06:00

Once a month at International House Katowice we have Conversation Club – a get together where teachers and students hang out, drink beer and talk. Grant, one of the 25 or so IH teachers, planned a successful pub quiz and sing song of Molly Malone and Wild Rover (complete with pounding on the table) in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. And once the quiz winners were announced and they had received their IH pocket calendars, the pub pretty much cleared out. Only a few of us from the school and a guy at the counter in a Guinness Top Hat made of foam remained.

Ready for my second pint, I headed to the bar and introduced myself to Mark, the guy in the Guinness hat. Clearly well beyond his second pint, Mark was a 45-year-old businessman from London. He was short and round in the middle. Sweaty gray hair peered from beneath his hat and stuck to his neck. Mark had relocated to Poland five years ago, he told me, to teach English and start a chain selling leather-cleaning products at local malls. Short on specifics, Mark had a quick mouth and a love of music from before I was born.

“You like Springsteen?” he asked. “Na. A little too much denim for me,” I replied. “If you ever get the chance, go to his concert -- when he sings it looks like his neck is going to explode,” Mark admired as he finished his beer and switched to Long Island Iced Tea.

Not halfway through his Long Island, Mark had already professed his love for David Bowie, Bowie’s alter ego Ziggy Stardust, The Beatles, Phil Collins, and Elvis. And before I knew it he was once again talking about The Boss.

“It’s amazing.” Mark continued. “I said to myself as soon as he started Born in the USA -- by the way he always starts with that song, which I don’t particularly care for -- I said that’s it. He’s fucking done. No way he can sing another note. He’s done. But he did. And he sang for four hours. The entire time his neck was …” Mark trailed off gesturing to his neck, his hands on either side, miming swelling. He was clearly impressed.

“Man, sounds like you really like Springsteen,” I said.
“I tell ya, he sang this great version of American.”

And before the ten of us left in the pub knew what was happening, Mark was five bars into a 6-minute performance. And to his credit, as drunk as he was, he knew every word of that song. Feeling partially responsible and a little embarrassed about the impromptu performance, I stayed perched on my stool with an uncomfortable grin. Mark was strutting and stroking the bar. He had clearly done this before.

I invited Mark over to the table, where the rest of the group was sitting, in an effort to avoid another outburst. After a brief discussion over the relative little value of music being produced today as opposed to 30 years ago (at least that was Mark’s position), we all grabbed a taxi, minus Mark, and headed up town. I’m convinced he hung around until closing time or he fell asleep.

Either way, I’m just glad he wasn’t a Madonna fan. I don’t know what would have happened if he had chosen to sing Like a Virgin.

A day trip to Pszczyna

2007-03-19T02:47:00.000-06:00

This past Saturday we visited Pszczyna (pronounced pish-chin-a), a small market town, its origins dating back to the 11th century. In 1847 after centuries of changing ownership, it became the property of the powerful Hochberg family of Prussia. According to our guidebook, Pszczyna is home to “a perfectly restored palace that could have jumped straight out of Germany.” Sounded good to us. So we checked it out.

We strolled the town and popped into the palace for a self-guided tour. Beth told them we were teachers at the ticket window and got us a 50% discount. This teaching thing has its perks. The palace was awesome. Loads of antiques, hand-carved interiors and furniture, high ceilings with huge crystal chandeliers, 30-foot tall mirrors, probably 500 pairs of antlers to show off the great hunts that had taken place here, muralled ceilings, and a real feeling that we were getting a peek into the recent past. Here are some photos I was able to smuggle out. Sorry about the occasional blurring. There were no photos aloud inside the palace so I was forced to shoot quickly and hide the evidence.

Spring is in the Air

2007-03-15T07:17:00.000-06:00

The other day, I cracked our kitchen window open to let in a bit more sun in for Booster. And to my shock, a bee flittered around the opening for a moment and buzzed off into the distance, as if to say "hello, I'm here and I've brought Spring!"

The sun has been shining every morning for at least a few hours. And Booster's gotten comfortable with sitting on his blanket in the window and soaking up the rays. Bhads and I are loving it, too! We didn't have much of a winter, but when the sun returns it sure is noticeable. It's like people on the streets are walking around with Zippity Do-Dah playing in the background.

On Tuesday, the three of us went to a coffee shop around the corner from our apartment called Amader. We're not sure what "Amader" means, but it sounds like how the British say "Armada," so that's what I think of everytime I hear it. We had the place to ourselves. So we picked a table by the window, the one with the most sunlight shining through, and plopped down on the leather sofa. Booster arranged himself on my sweater that was laid out on the wide window sill and watched the passers-by as he showed off his pretty belly. Bhads and I had coffees and talked about life, while children on their way to a field trip skipped past, pointing at the pup and laughing. It was a beautiful day.

We're thinking about taking a day-trip to Pszczyna this weekend. Maybe on Saturday. It's a small town, outfitted with a palace and royal gardens...and we love exploring the area as much as we can. And, I'm just excited to have a cup of coffee outside in the sun--the street cafes will be opening soon! On Sunday, I think we'll try to go back to Auschwitz for the day. We went last October, before our CELTA's started, but we feel a need to go back. This time, we won't take a tour, we want to just walk around and feel the silence. And it IS something you can feel. There's a new Jewish history museum in Oswiecim (Osh-vee-on-cheem: the Polish name for the town) and we'd like to see that too. We're going to start taking weekend trips more often. We still need to go to Warsaw, Poznan, Gdansk, and the Bielowiza National Forest near Belarus. We're starting to plan a trip to Lvov, Ukraine, during the Easter/Passover week. And, of course, we will keep you posted!

Sending you sun and smiles from Katowice!

Let's Talk Fashion (Bhad)

2007-03-13T06:44:00.000-06:00

Let’s talk fashion. As I’ve come to realize learning English is something of a status symbol over here. In that same vein, so is wearing English – shirts that have English words on them are sold and worn everywhere. And what I find hilarious, especially since I’m teaching English, is that it doesn’t matter whether the shirts make any sense grammatically, conceptually or often artistically. These images are of a few of my favorites. I have done my best to recreate the original designs that I’ve seen.

In case you can’t read the fine print of the shirts, here’s what they say:
1) Wildness
2) City Warriors; Los Angeles Washington New York; Watching the streets and keeping surveillance by
3) New York; 1998; Motorcycle Brotherhood
4) 22 Mystical; 46-LYG Department; General Air Force; M-2 Operations
5) D/7 135-92; Silver Sounds; Summer Wonderland

Chiquita Banana!

2007-03-08T12:38:00.000-06:00

I am about to head home after a good, long day at school. I've been sick for the past 5 days, and today's my first day back. It was nice to laze around the apartment with Booster, read some good books, and eat my fair share of homemade apple crumble. But, it's back to business now. And two day work weeks are mighty fine by me!

I wanted to blog about my class that just got out an hour ago. It's a group of ten little 9 yr olds at a satellite school about 30 minutes outside of Katowice. They are the jewels of my Thursday! Each one is bursting with personality and enthusiasm. Some have no social awareness, and others I'm convinced are old sages. They can be so serious and focused one minute, poring over every detail of their work, and the next they'll be slung over their chairs backwards with their tongues hanging down their chins tapping their heels together and clicking their pens. It's great!

So at the end of my lesson we played pictionary with new vocab they'd learned today. There were two teams, pretty much evenly split. The first of each team had a marker (with which to draw on the white board), and the other team members would guess what are the drawing. First team to guess gets the point. Okay, you also get the point. I always ask them: what's your team name. It's more fun than Team A and Team B, and they come up with all kinds of wonderful names: Dog (not dogs), Gorilla, Mouse, Skittles. This week, my star student Mieszko (pron: Mee-ish-ko) wanted Chiquita Banana! Soon after, the whole class is muttering: Chiquita Banana, Chiquita Banana. I couldn't help but giggle. It was Chiquita Banana versus Skittles for the pictionary championship.

We played pictionary for about 5 or 10 minutes (Chiquita Banana won), when I had a revelation. Why not teach them the famous Chiquita Banana song that I sang for hours on end as a child? We had 5 minutes left in class, and that was plenty of time to teach them the lyrics and movements. So we all stood in a circle, they repeated after me:

Chiquita Banana.
Chiquita Banana.
You peel it to the left,
You peel it to the right,
You open up the center and--
UMPH!--You take a bite!

At the "UMPH!" we all jumped up and landed with a big thud (opting for a less grotesque body movement of the original). Needless to say, they ate it up! Pun intended. We did the song and movements 5 times until it was time to go. They were all singing it on the way out the door. Now that's an English lesson! Haha, more like an American lesson.

Morning Coffee

2007-03-07T03:55:00.000-06:00

My Bros, Josh, emailed me a short story he wrote about a month ago. It told the story of the events of an unusual day – really a few hours out of that day – as they unfolded, with vivid detail. It inspired me. So, Bro, here is my story. It is set in Wroclaw. Bethanie and I visited the beautiful city over our winter break a few weeks ago. As I type this it is 1:35 on a Sunday afternoon and I am listening to Wolf Parade on ITunes. The sky is grey and the roof drips with what’s left of the rain that has come and gone.

Morning Coffee

I took a 10-minute walk from the Wroclaw Rynek (town square), zigzagging 5 blocks southwest. This was my third time in as many days to stop into this pub. But it had a different feeling this visit. It was 10 in the morning and only a few laptop users had staked out seats near the side row of windows in the back. Two evenings before we were lucky to get a table, but now I had my pick. After a quick consideration of the layout, who was already sitting where, how much light I would need to read my two-day-old copy of the The Guardian, where I could stow my umbrella, and which tables provided the most overall comfort, I opted for a corner spot – a round wooden thing, dinged and scratched, wobbly from years of use, four feet across and just to my liking.

The pub still smelled of lamp oil the staff used to fuel the tens of tea lights that lined the sills and shelves. The floor was hard wood in the front and brick from the bar in the middle of the room back. It seemed as if an old alley had been given a roof and bar. There was still a hand pump that was just taller than me built into the floor. Our first night here the room was filled with silent smiles when someone tripped over its base on the way to the couches at the back. Other than a smacked palm and a small case of embarrassment, he was fine.

I grabbed a kawa biala from the bar and spread out my paper on the table. I skipped from page to page looking for where I had left off. The top two stories of the day couldn’t have been more different. Readers would find that Baghdad had suffered four car bomb blasts during a 15-minute moment of silence for the anniversary of a similar attack one year ago. They might also be surprised to see that the Dixie Chicks took home highest honors at the Grammy Awards, winning for best song, album and record. The two stories fill the majority of the first and second pages, respectively, along with a few other eye catchers like “Cadbury Faces Court Over Food Poisoning” and “Confessions of a Dinosaur,” an in-depth look a the man of the ’70s.

As I read, I work hard to ration my 6 oz. of latte. I realize I’ve only been here 15 minutes tops, and already I’ve enjoyed half of it. At the risk of ending up with a cold cup of coffee, which inevitably happens, I slow my drinking pace to stretch my 5.50 pln into 45 minutes of pleasure. The woman at the table next to me is enjoying her coffee with a piece of apple cake and a Polish women’s magazine. She is clearly far less concerned than me about conserving her purchase. She races from page to page, apparently mostly enjoying the pictures, while opting to wash her cake down with big gulps of coffee rather than the faithful chew and swallow technique that I usually employ. In less time than it has taken me to read three more articles, my favorite being “Police Impound Illegal ‘Mafia Town’ Built on Broccoli Fields,” a little piece hot off the wire from Naples, my neighbor is gone and I have the corner of the pub again all to myself, upping the pleasure of my reading that much more.

Soon, however, a couple sits down at another table within arms length of me. At the bar, she orders a coffee and a cold-cut sandwich and he a pint of Zywiec. In a brief moment of worry I lose track of time, assuming that it must be early afternoon for him to be having a beer, and I’ve probably missed my train. I check my watch. It’s 11 am. Any earlier and I might think a beer was out of bounds. But 11 is within earshot of noon and for some people it’s already lunchtime. I’ve never been one to frown at a midday pint myself, and I’m reminded of Bethanie’s and my trip to Prague in 2002.

Legend has it that it is Czech law that every adult of legal age should be able to afford beer. And based on my experience this could well be true. Beer in Prague can run as little as $.50 for a half liter. That’s cheaper than any other beverage, even water. So it was there in a small Czech point-to-order diner that I found myself taking the budget option at 10 am and having a pint with breakfast. As we ambled about the city that afternoon my gate was clearly effected – a little slower and lazier. Since then I’ve always opted for coffee or juice with my eggs and generally prefer to save the Pilsner Urquell for later in the day.

But now as I finish off the complimentary chocolate that accompanied by coffee, I’ve got a close eye on the door, expecting Beth to rush in fro the downpour at any moment. Soon she does and after a hug and kiss hello we are out the door, on our way to pick up Booster and our bags from Hotel Savoy and then head to the station for the 12:05 to Katowice. Huddled close under the umbrella we hurry off, sharing stories of our mornings and looking forward to home.

Sledding in Bielsko

2007-02-09T08:01:00.000-06:00

I think most people agree that sledding is a general good time. But when you add meters of snow, a chair lift, a mountain, and skiers and snowboarders on the same path you get "xtreme sledding." (Sorry, I know that 'x' was inappropriate, but it's so it's the style these days...)

Alex, our bud from CELTA, is living in Bielsko-Biala teaching at another IH. So he invited us to come to his town for the day to go "sledging." I thought he was chewing something as we spoke, but--no--people from the UK add a g. It works well enough. So we took the train down to B-B and had the most interesting sledding experience of our lives to date.

Alex and his roommate Jared took us to the outskirts of town to the beautiful mountains. B-B is in very South Poland, close to the Slovakian border, and is a mountainy resorty town. So we took the chair-lift up the mountain (it was huge!) and hiked around the top for quite a while looking for the ideal sled run. It really wouldn't have meant much for us to find the best sled run in the country b/c Bhadri had put his knee through his cheapo plastic Tesco sled as we were walking through town (he thought he could sled down the sidewalk), so his sled was outa commission. Alex and Jared had opted for more expensive sleds with brakes, but we soon found out that they were very poorly designed and wouldn't go. At all. So mine was the only sled that worked. And, boy, did it work! It flew down the mountain.

We all took turns using my sled and Bhadri's flat rubber "sled" he got at the bottom of the mountain for 10 zloty. The best part of this was that the sled run we found also doubled as a ski and snowboard run. Jared got hit twice by snowboarders, Alex got hit once by them...we were the lucky ones. So we dodged the skiers/snowboarders, and scooted down the mountain. Ah, and we saw two different skiers flying down the mountain with their dogs running behind them! It was great!

We stopped off at a mountain pub and had hot wine and beer before making the final run down the hill. We were soaked to the bone and my chin was apparently frost bitten to a mild degree (skin started flaking off the next day...what?!??). But how cool was it to sled down a whole mountain!

Eurobusiness

2007-02-09T07:50:00.000-06:00

Facts about Eurobusiness that you might not've known before reading this blog:
1. It is Monopoly's long lost twin.
2. It is completely in Polish.
3. The currency used is dollars.

We learned these facts a last week, when our friends Piers and Emilia invited us over to their apt for a friendly game of Eurobusiness. It was a grueling 5 hour event, with lots of bargains, and hotels turned paperclips, and in the end...I won! I have never won Monopoly before (still haven't I guess technically).

In short, we learned a lot and fun was had.

Katowice's Snowy Days

2007-02-08T12:42:00.000-06:00

Our blogs are like a bad cell phone connection, always delayed. It's now wet and sunny here in Katowice, but a week or two ago, life was much different.

Here are some photos from 'round town when the flakes were a fallin'...

2007-02-06T09:53:00.000-06:00

Howdy folks! Well, I am waiting for my class to start. I have about 20 minutes. Bhadri is behind me, poring over the resource shelf for practice tests for his kiddos. Punishment for being rude teenagers, probably. We make our students do tests when their annoying.

So, I don't have any picts at the mo. But I do have the gift of letter formation (aka words). A big thank you (!) to those who have left comments--you know who you are (and so does everyone else, I guess, too). We love them!

Here's a mission for all ye faithful blog nerdies: You leave these great comments, but individually. We'd like to see some dialogue between commenters (commentators?), a little discussion, ya know. It's your challenge, should you wish (eh hem, care) to fulfill it.

So we're in our last week of classes now before a 2 week Winter Break. Whew! We need it. In case you didn't know, teaching is hard. (That was for you, Mom and Sue.) But it sure is nice to get some actual vacation time (That one's for you, Seiko and Goodwill!). The plan is to go to Wroclaw for a few days next week. Wroclaw is a city a bit smaller than Krakow about 3 hours west of here. It's supposed to be gorgeous, with a huge main square and lots of great cafes and pubs to hang out in. We don't know where we're going to stay yet, but we'll figure that out this weekend. And afterwards, we'll be designing our wedding invites, getting them printed (hopefully!), and sending them out. So if we don't have your address, please-please-please email/comment it to us!!!

Other things: It's warm here. And sunny. It's the strangest thing. It snowed and snowed for about a week, then it thawed and it hasn't snowed again! It was sunny out and probably in the high 40s/50s today! Can you believe it?! Everyone keeps asking us if we're freezing, assuming Poland is cold, but we are toasty bugs. No worries there!

We miss you guys very much! And hope all is fantastic back home. We'll be thinking of you while we're lazily hanging out on the square in Wroclaw, sipping hot chocolate at a fancy pub and watching the people flurry by.

Recap: Inaugural comment challenge has started. We're having fun. Please send us your addresses. We are not cold.

Our Day-Trip to Krakow

2007-01-22T08:57:00.000-06:00

We'd been wanting to go to Krakow for a few weeks. But between having Saturday stand-by (in case teachers that normally teach Saturdays fall sick) and being too tired to catch an early train, we hadn't been able to go. But we decided that this weekend would be the one.

We took the 8:48 train from Katowice to Krakow, and arrived to a mild and cheery morning in the city. First things first: coffee! Bhadri confessed that he'd always wanted to drop into this little drink bar on the square, but had never done it b/c...well, b/c we lived there and didn't like to splurge on outrageous things like coffee. So we decided, we're tourists we can splurge today. So we went inside to this ancient shop called "Vis a Vis," occupied by a few old men at the window, smoking pipes and gruffing out conversation, a young man with a pony tail who seemed engulfed in his book, and a older gentleman holding a porter and preferring to stand. The tables were thin and tall, several stools around each, and a lamp post with a dim light shining at the base of the table. If more people were there, they'd have to share the communal tables. But they weren't, so we had our own. We had white coffees and a poppy seed roll and pretended we were sophisticated and it was 70 years ago. Well, at least I did. It was exactly what we like to do on our vacations: drink coffee and relax.

We went on to Kazimierz to check out the antiques market. It was buzzing with life: the elderly vendors with their stamps, antique glasses, and jewelled brooches. The young patrons with the leashed dogs, looking for treasure. It always rattles me though to see the old Nazi regalia, the swastika pins and medals of "honor," right next to the dull silver star of David pendants and faded postcards written in Yiddish. We looked thoroughly at the stock and took our leave.

For lunch we went to one of our favorite Krakowian restaurants: Alef! Delicious...the best hot chocolate I've ever had, ahh. And our friend Fran, from Katowice, joined us for a leisurely and very friendly 3 hour lunch.

After an hour or so at the Galicja Jewish Museum, it was dark. So we walked up to Wawel Castle (it was closed), and walked down to Grodzka street to find a good bottle of wine to take out on the square. We found the perfect bottle of Chilean wine, they shop keepers opened it and gave us two plastic cups, and off we went. The square was so alive! The lights of the old buildings danced in the shallow puddles scattered across its expanse. People were strolling, running, gazing and enjoying life. We had our wine (so good!) and watched the excitement.

Dinner at our favorite pizza place and back on a late train home. A lovely day in the city.

The Biggest Outdoor Park in Europe...

2007-01-22T08:45:00.000-06:00

is a 30 minute walk from our apartment!

So we decided to take a stroll. We'd heard the place was massive, that it could be beautiful in parts, and to avoid it at night b/c of the soccer hooligans. (I'm not kidding about the soccer hooligans. In Poland, they don't have 'traditional' American-style street gangs; but they do have fanatic soccer fans whose loyalties are so deep that there are frequently deaths at the stadiums and surrounding areas on game days. Their grafitti is on almost every building.)

But we went on a sunny Sunday afternoon, with plenty of families and puppies trotting about. No hooligans to fear.

The park is really cool. There's a planetarium, a lake, and a zoo! So, we spent a while baa-ing at the sheeps, goats, and llamas at the front of the park. Booster was definitely amused. And then we stopped into one of the park's pubs for, Bhadri a pint of local Tyskie beer, and me a steaming glass of hot, spiced beer. We had cheese, crackers, and beer outside on the pub's porch while Booster scoured the deck for crumbs.

We walked a while in the sunlight, and soaked in each others' company, before deciding to head home for a cup of homemade hot chocolate.

A Cluster of Trees

2007-01-22T08:21:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago, we were on our vacation, driving through Eastern Poland on an inter-city bus. Sanok to Zamosc. I was dozing on Bhad's shoulder, waking up for a few minutes, and then back to sleep. I opened my eyes for a moment and was stunned at the beautiful countryside--how golden the grass was, how green the forrests were, how blue the sky was. Then, just to our left, appeared a small but not insignificant cluster of trees in the middle of a large field of golden grass. I had this strange sense that something was hidden there, it was such a strong feeling. In my mind, I urged the bus to stop and let me explore. But I resolved that I'd never know and to leave it at that.

Yesterday, we were in Krakow for the day and stopped into the Galicja Jewish Museum. This day there was a Polish Galicja photo exhibit on.

I felt my gut turn; there was the image of the same cluster of trees, unmistakeable, on the road to Zamosc. Enlarged to 3' x 2' and sparkling with brilliance were the same golds, greens, and blues; but with its beauty it carried such a weight.

A plastic sign with commentary hung under the photo. It read: Jewish cemetary, Stary Dzikow; no graves or markers remain, but the town's residents remember it being a cemetary before the war and have took measures to preserve it.

Even though this image was an absolute reflection of the image I held in my memory, I needed more. How could I, a non-Jew from Oklahoma just passing through on holiday, have known anything? How could I have felt it so deeply that my bones surged with energy?

When we got home, I peeled off my warm layers and set down my day bag. It had been on my mind all day: was it really the same landscape? Was my intuition justified? So I went for my Polska map and opened it to the city index...Stary Dzikow...coordinates: P27...

It couldn't have been clearer. Exactly in line with our route from Sanok to Rzeszow to Zamosc was a tiny dot labelled with the words Stary Dzikow.

Mid-January Update

2007-01-18T06:20:00.000-06:00

I realize that we're not the best at keeping up with our blog. We sincerely apologize for that! So, even though nothing spectacular has been going on, I'll write a note about what's up.

We've been working. A lot. I gained about 3 new classes when we came back from our 2-week holiday break, so it's been keeping me busy. One class is an advanced, late teens and, boy, are they obnoxious! I have to give them extra homework to make them stop speaking Polish (I know they are just sitting there mocking me and laughing at how they get--eh hem, got--away with it), I can't talk to them about anything fun or personal b/c it gives them ammo to be cruel, I have to give them tests instead of doing engaging activities b/c, again, they become cruel and sadly childish, and I even had to keep one kid behind from class the other day. It was a show-down. Actually, it was very anti-climactic. I thought we'd have to duke it out for control, but as it turns out he was very quiet and scared when it was just me and him. The same happened the next day with a pre-advanced, teen class. I had to keep a girl behind after class. Why can't we just have a good, fun, learning environment where we laugh at bad English jokes and give hi-fives for getting answers correct?!

Bhadri lost about 3 classes, and gained a few back...then lost another...it's an on-going ordeal. That's what happens when you're under hours and are contractually obligated to teach 20 hrs/week. You get bumped around a bit. But he's bouncy, and is dealing with it well.

Another Bhadri update: have you seen his beard recently? Of course you haven't. We haven't posted pictures. Well, we will soon. But it's getting very long and, I dare say, it is a proper beard now!

So, when we're not planning lessons or teaching, we are planning the big event. Our wedding. We decided against Ireland (it would've been beautiful, but really, it's just too much to expect our families and friends to be able to make it half-way across the world); and decided for Tulsa. Hey, Tulsa's a beautiful town! So we're looking into this really cool looking mansion/lodge on a hill, trying to find a good photographer, and are scouring the city (or my Dad is) for some tasty kegs of beer. I bought my dress a while back, so that is taken care of. Unfortunately, I can't post it on our blog b/c I'm not allowing Bhadri to see it until our wedding day. He's cool with that, don't worry.

Tonight is Conversation Club Deux, and our Mr. Verduzco is organizing it. CC, to re-iterate, is just a bunch of our adult students and teachers getting together at a local English pub for drinks and convo. I really think it'll be a good time. He's created 5 pub quizzes: 1 is America-themed, 1 is Australian-themed, 1 is UK-themed, 1 is Poland-themed, and there's a general category, too. Lots of ridiculous trivia questions like: who invented the toilet? what is the heaviest land mammal? and in what year did Britney Spears get her first UK single?

This weekend, we're planning a day-trip to Krakow. I have a couple shops I want to visit for wedding-gear, we want to go see the Kazimierz antiques market, we want to buy some good, English-language books, and probably most importantly, we want to get a steamer for milk. We have had quite a few delicious, delicious cups of cappuccino at various bars/coffee shops these past few months; and although we have the same brand of espresso, a good espresso maker, and the additional ingredients to make the capps sing...it's just not the same as in the shops. We've decided that the reason our coffee is sub-par (it's good, it's just not AS good--in case you're worried :) is that we heat our milk on the stove. It needs to be steamed. And there is a kitchen shop (about 30 sq feet) in Krakow that just sells specialty kitchen goodies--so we owe them a visit. I love that, though. There is a specialty shop for EVERYTHING here. And they give you the best service, too. They will plug your item into a test socket to make sure it works before you take it home. They will wrap your item up with so much care and place it gently into a well-designed bag. It's just so far from the Wal-mart culture of crap, and I love it!

And, undoubtedly, we just want to hang out in Krakow again. The Rynek/main square, the Planty gardens surrounding the old town, the soul-filled Kazimierz district...Krakow just has something special.

But we did go out for breakfast and coffee the other day. We went to this great place called Cafe Europa. It's celebrating it's 100th anniversary, and it really does feel that old. They've renovated it with gold crome accents and white spray-painted wreath-like things--but under that thin layer of cheese is a very historical and real place. The ceilings were 2 stories tall, there were booth nooks with old men smoking pipes, grannies gossiping closely at reserved tables, and then us. On the wall was an old newspaper reproduction from, I assume, the early 1900s. It was from when the cafe had just opened. There were the normal other adds on the page, and then several recognizably Jewish names--the owners of shops, advertizing in the paper, like it was nothing, just normal life, and no one would care 100 yrs from then. It always gets me. Everytime.

Let's see...what else? Oh, Booster. He's lovely, as usual. We've been giving him lots of "naked time"--basically all this involves is taking his collar off and yelling "NAKED TIME!!!" And then he gets all excited and does his famous wiggle-dance. It's great! We've set up a spot on the window sill for him to sit and watch the passers-by...we even put a big, down pillow up there for max comfort.

We watched a couple of good movies this past week. And, more importantly, we found a dvd shop! We are members now. It's official, we are residents of Katowice. That's how we gage that, based on dvd-membership or no-dvd-membership. The goodies were: Everything is Illuminated (we saw this back in Austin, but had to watch it again. It's on my top 5 fav movies list right now), Jestem (very good Polish film), and My Life Without Me (watched that this morning. I give it a thumbs up!).

Other updates: my hair is getting long. We found peanut butter and have been eating it on toast every morning. I am getting tired of Polish beer (and am now loving Pilsner Urquell and tasty, vodka Zolakowa--pron: Zh-o-won-ko-vah). Bhadri is fantastic and we are loving life...what more can ya say :)?

We have 3 more weeks until "Winter Break." It's another 2 week vacation just for the sake of Winter, I assume. We're hoping our good friend, Patrice, from Ireland will come out and visit. Otherwise, we want to spend a few days in Warsaw and then hang in and do more wedding planning. I know, we are boring. I had noooo idea how much effort it would take to plan a wedding. But, in fairness, it's really fun too.

Oh, note to readers: please, please post comments when you read. We get online every few days and check our blog for comments and, if we have one in a month, we get super excited. So write anything. Write what you ate for lunch that day or what your plans are for the evening or how you are successfully avoiding work at the moment or how you have something greenish stuck in your teeth. Anything! We would be much appreciative. We love you all!

Beverages

2007-01-11T13:45:00.000-06:00

I love Polish beverages. They come in all shapes and sizes (as do beverages from other sovereign states). But they are special.

Carrot juice for 3 zloty (1 USD) that is branded: Jednodniakowy, which means "one day." This juice is so fresh and delicious that its lifespan is only one, miraculous day. It's right on the label!

Barszcz (pron: Bar-sh-ch). Hot, beetroot soup served in a mug. It might sound disturbing, but it is a treat for the tastebuds. But a bit confusing. Is it a soup? Or is it a beverage?

Maslanka (pron: mosh-lahn-kah). Fruit flavored yogurt drink that you can buy by the liter for less than 2 zloty ($0.75). Good on granola or in a medium sized glass, sipping slowly. If you're lucky, there will be tiny bits of peach or strawberry or even grapefruit floating through this delicacy.

Sparkling water (also called Woda Gazowana). Underappreciated? I say yes. I feel excited...I am becoming European by the glass! It's fizzy and my brain thinks it tastes like pop, but my body says "thank you for drinking water." It's manipulative, that sparkling water. But with the best of intentions. It's good on its own, but add a few tablespoons of raspberry syrup and you're in healthy (or semi-healthy) Heaven.

Along the same lines. Beer with raspberry syrup: also delicious. And so simple at just two ingredients. Syrup and cold beer. Not too bitter, not too sweet.

Mulled wine (or Wino Grzane) pretty much tops my list. But it's not to be drunk (drinken? drunken?) on just any old day. It waits in the wings for a cold, dark night, and knows that it's only mission is to warm up your heart, soul, and most importantly, your tongue-esophogus-belly route. Ok, here's the recipe: good red wine, whole cloves, cinnamon, some kind of pepper (it's called ziele angielski here), sugar, and a big, fat orange slice. Heat to hot (not boiling) and enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

Na Strovie (cheers)!

Our Teaching Schedules

2007-01-05T08:22:00.000-06:00

Our holiday break is over and we are teaching once again. I taught two 90-minute lessons yesterday and have one today. Bethanie had a one-to-one cancelled this morning and she teaches two 90-minute slots this afternoon as well.

In case you’re wondering, here’s how our schedules work. International House, the school we teach at, teaches students English at 10 competency levels, including beginner, elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper intermediate, advanced, and super duper advanced (obviously not the technical term.) We teach ages 6+. Right now, Beth and I each teach about 10 classes per week. Each class lasts 90 minutes. And we can teach up to three a day, not exceeding 14 classes per week. Most of our classes are with late teens and adults. However, Beth does teach students as young as 9. Class times generally run from 3:30-5, 5:15-6:45 and 7-8:30. Sometimes we have classes at other times for business classes. These are classes where we have to dress up a little bit – I wear a tie – and we go to the business to teach the class. The topics we teach business students don’t differ much from a regular class, but usually we try to make the lessons more business oriented of course.

The planning time for each class takes 1 to 2 hours, depending on the level we’re teaching. Generally, it takes more planning for higher level classes because they cover a lot of material and it’s more complex than lower level classes. Hopefully as we get this whole thing down, we’ll be able to plan much faster.

So there you go! That’s the gist of it. Probably more information than you ever wanted to know. All that teaching and planning makes it a 40+ hour job. But it’s loads of fun as well and the good thing is that if a lesson bombs, it’s easy to forget about it because I’ve got so many other lessons to prepare for and make better.

Zamosc Photos

2007-01-05T08:19:00.000-06:00

Post-Christmas fun in Zamosc

2007-01-05T08:08:00.000-06:00

The day after Christmas some of the buses purred back to life after their holiday slumber. The three of us (if you’re wondering who the third person is, don’t forget Booster) hopped on a couple of well-connected buses and 6 hours later we were in Zamosc, a town with a population of 70,000 in eastern Poland, very near the Ukraine border.

In Zamosc we decided to hop a taxi into the town center to save some time and cut down on the foot travel with our bags in tow. The bus station sat about 2 km from our hotel. It was 4:30 and the sun had already set. The sky was slowly fading from purple to black.

A couple minutes into the taxi ride I noticed the meter wasn’t on. In more Polish than I could understand, the driver told me it was broken. When he finally delivered us to our destination, a nice hotel in town center (a little splurge for our Christmas holiday), he scribbled 50 zloty in his notebook and flashed it to us. The going rate, as we would find out from the tourist office the next day, for a trip from the station to our hotel should have been 8 zloty. He was trying to charge us 6x the going rate! I realized that my bag was in the trunk and felt trapped. As Beth and I got angrier and angrier, the broken Polish we had been using in an effort to communicate clearly crumbled away and we were nearly shouting in English. Beth talked him down to 20 zl and once I put the money in his hand he agreed to open the trunk. I got my bag. We checked into our room and I spent the next 30 minutes or more trying to calm down.

Eventually, we managed to get our mind off of the taxi ordeal and we enjoyed a nice dinner in the empty hotel restaurant before heading out for a stroll. The town was beautiful. Zamosc, a modern day renaissance town, was built in the 16th century by and Italian architect over the course of a decade or so. As the photos show, it is beautiful. The old town center, measuring 600m x 400 m, was our home for the three days we were there. The streets were uneven and slick with cobblestones that have been around for centuries. The historic architecture, featuring beautiful stucco work and archways, was a welcome relief from the post-war architecture of Katowice. The highlight of the center was the center square, lined with old Burgher houses once owned by Armenian merchants.

Our days were filled with strolling and lots of hot cocoa. We kept the new thermos that we bought for the trip full the entire time we were there. No snow was on the ground, but the air was cold and crisp and the cocoa really warmed us up. A skating rink was set up in the middle of town and we could watch the kiddies make laps from our hotel room. We even enjoyed a little skating ourselves on our second day there. You can see Bethanie skating in one of the photos. It was great. She’s really good – very graceful. She didn’t fall once. The only fall I had was from goofing around with her. I bumped into her on purpose and I was the one who ended up falling down.

We also visited a number of antique shops, a gourmet coffee shop where I had Kenyan coffee brewed in my own small pot, the local museum, a number of ornate churches, and the old synagogue that is now closed to the public but may become a museum by the next time we visit.

Zamosc like so many other Polish towns was hit hard (that’s an understatement!) during the holocaust. We also visited a round fort, now an open-air museum, which was used by the Nazis to kill 8,000 local inhabitants from 1939-1945. Those killed there included Jews and Poles, intellectuals, rebels and political opponents, among others. The constant reminders of the holocaust that remain in every place we visit shock me. It’s difficult to put into words.

We awoke on Dec. 28 at 3 am to catch the 5 am train back to Katowice. The ground was dusted with a thin coat of snow. We enjoyed being the first to leave our tracks in the white powder on our 1 km walk to the train station. The highlight of the 8-hour train ride happened at lunch time. Bethanie and I were enjoying crackers with flavored cream cheese, when a young guy around my age asked me if I had ever had Polish sausage before. I had once in Krakow I told him. He then offered me two huge links of sausage, the length of my forearm two times over, that his grandfather had hunted and made. It was the best sausage I have ever had. “Now you can say you have had Polish sausage on a Polish train,” he told me. It was delicious! I’ve still got half a link left in the fridge. I think I will have it in some soup tonight.

Photos from Sanok

2007-01-05T07:59:00.000-06:00

As we mentioned, we spent Christmas in Sanok. Here are some pics from our hike.

Merry Christmas

2006-12-24T12:29:00.000-06:00

Beth, Booster and I all hope that you have a great holiday season back home. We have a two-week Christmas break. And since we usually spend this with our families who we miss so much, we thought we would get out of Katowice and travel a little. So we are now in Sanok, Poland, a town of about 45,000 in SE Poland. It is a very charming town surrounded by hills and forests. We are waking early to take advantage of the 8 hours of daylight that this time of year allows for, and doing loads of walking. Today we went to a Skansen, a local outdoor museum featuring Polish dwellings from the past few centuries. It was very interesting. The best part was the two timber churches. They were ornately adorned inside and have beautiful wooden shingle exteriors. We will post photos when we get back.

Beth and I did have our own small Christmas Eve feast, featuring Smoked salmon and soft olive cheese on ciabata bread, served with sides of cashews, carrot, beet and cabbage salads. We started the feast with a shot of vodka and washed the meal down with hot chocolate and local beer with lemon. DELICIOUS! We are about to return to our room and finish it off with cake and more hot cocoa. We picked up a thermos before our adventures and it is saving our lives.

We will be in Sanok on Christmas day, but then plan to shoot off somewhere else. We were originally planning Slovakia, but now we are leaning towards staying in Poland. It is tricky this time of year. There are few tourists and everything shuts down on Christmas and the day after. And since today is Sunday, everything was shut down today as well. But we are having a wonderful time to say the least. Of course we wish we could be spending Christmas back in the states torn between Tulsa and Austin as usual with our families. But maybe next year. This year my Grandma Betty made it into Austin from California. I am sorry I missed you, Grandma. But I'm glad I got to see you a few months ago when I visited Cali.

Anyways, we love all of you guys. And we are thinking of you in between our long walks and vodka shots. By the way, if you're wondering what we got eachother for Christmas... we are planning on having lots of fun travel adventures together and exchanging bites of cake while we're at it. Love ya. We'll post soon.

A Jewish Poland

2006-12-18T11:59:00.000-06:00

Poland has, at the same time, a very rich and tragic Jewish history. The holocaust's Jewish victims total over 3 million in Poland; and although first the Nazis and then the Communists devastated Jewish communities across the country, a few remnants of this past-life remain. Only traces are left of Jewish culture here, but the traces compound into something larger and slightly tangible.

Matza (maca) is displayed in storefront windows, challah (chalka) sells on bread shop shelves, six-sided stars wrapped in garland and lights adorn the tops of lamp posts in a few streets in the city center, the elderly walk slowly on the sidewalks and I can't help but think of what they saw, what they know, and what they pretend to forget.

We've taken a few pictures, mostly in Krakow, of Judaica we've spotted. A stained glass window in Tempel Synogogue in Kazimierz, an old building with paint, stars, and Yiddish flaking off its walls, our friend Alan and Bhads at Alef (an amazingly tasty Jewish restaurant in Kazimierz...best hot chocolate of my life!), the musicians in a Jewish music concert we went to in Krakow, and a Star of David decoration on Wawelska street in the city center.

It's the holiday season, which means that the city is singing Christmas-Christmas-Christmas everywhere. But it's hard not to consider what life here in Katowice, and across Poland, was like 70 years ago...60 years ago...50 years ago this time of year. Families could have been celebrating Hanukkah in their homes, maybe even without their curtains drawn. Then, without reason, there was silence. The silence is still here, but it's a different kind. The culture here has not completely vanished...but then again, how could it?

1st Conversation Club at IH Katowice

2006-12-18T11:34:00.000-06:00

Our school has lots of clubs: Kids Club, Help Club, Conversation Club. Although we're still learning what many of these clubs are all about, we feel like we've gained a decent understanding of Conversation Club.

About once a month, the adult students are invited to a local pub to hang out and speak English with their teachers in an informal setting. None of my students showed up, but I only had one class that applied...and I forgot to remind them to come! The large majority of my classes are "Younger Learner" classes, kids. It's challenging, but I really enjoy the little ones. Bhadri doesn't have any kids classes, but he does have quite a few late-teen classes and a couple adult classes, too. So we went to the Convo Club with our teacher friends and sat at a table with more teacher friends and a few of their students. Long story short: out came the vodka. At most events in Poland, people start ordering rounds of vodka for everyone at the table. Everyone wants a turn to be generous and return the favor, which means there is way too much vodka for any non-Poles' health. Na Strovie!

Here are some pictures of us with our buddies Grant, Bozena, Lewis, and Mirte.

Funny Things You Might Find in Poland

2006-12-18T11:21:00.000-06:00

1. Tile mosaics of Pope John Paul II on the wall of the Polytechnic Institute.
2. "Ensalata Verde," or green salad, that consist entirely of several sheets of iceberg lettuce.
3. Political posters with glasses and mustaches drawn on them
4. Political posters advocating some guy pasted next to fraudulent political posters condemning the same guy. Kudos to PhotoShop.
5. Paintings of a puppy on a tile next to an electricity or water meter.
6. Musicians dressed up in traditional garb, playing outside of United Colors of Benetton and other modern European boutiques.
7. Big, inflated puppies next to big, inflated dog food ads that, unbeknownst to Pedigree, look like the dog food killed the poor, poofy puppy.
8. McDonalds McFlurries, Subway Cokes, and St. Edward's University shirts on display in the mall.
9. A United Colors of Benetton van advertising a new line of condoms. What's up with UCoB?
10. Shoe posters boasting "street style."
11. Menus that read: Potatoes dumping in mushroom sauce.

Home Sweet Home...again

2006-12-18T10:57:00.000-06:00

We are settling in to life in Katowice. It's not Krakow, it's different. Although we do love Krakow, Katowice feels more liveable. People in stores here are friendlier, and will start up conversations with you if they recognize you from previous visits. Some of the local shops are cheesy and feel very Eastern, which is lovely b/c Krakow is so cosmopolitan. There is this one restaurant a few blocks from our school called City Rock; the decor is American diner style and they have cars and motorcycles and guitars bolted to the walls. Just think Hard Rock Cafe...total knock-off. It's really funny! There are a few malls and a new tram station that give it the air of a big Western city, but then there's the Spodek. The Spodek is a massive, flying saucer shaped concrete building (and the funny thing is that Spodek means saucer in Polish, so they totally know). It has a good pub in the bottom (maybe the alien entrance section if you were watching a sci-fi movie), and it makes us laugh when we see it. Unless you're willing to spend a pretty penny, most of the apt buildings are very Soviet. There are some that seem to never stop in any direction, they're just built for thousands of people. But the city is really endearing. There's a flower and fruit market that's open every day but Sunday down in the center, and delicious bakeries and chocolate shops that line the pedestrian area. Ooh, and another nice little shop sits right on one of the most beautiful pedestrian zones in the city: my favorite wedding dress shop. I went to try on dresses about a week ago and found the perfect dress. I went back two days later (after obsessing about it constantly for the two days previous) and bought the dress! So, we're officially getting married now. Unfortunately, I can't post pics of the dress on our blog b/c Bhadri will, naturally, see them and it would spoil the whole affair. We've agreed that he won't see the dress or know anything about the dress until our big day. It's kinda fun!

We feel like we really struck gold with our apt. Say goodbye to the days of the rickety twin bed we had to share, the sporadically working heaters, and the poop-covered pigeon perch of a porch (oooh, alliteration is fun!). We are living the high life: fully furnished and remodelled flat with almost everything you could ever want. We even have a tree in our living room! And Booster is starting to feel very at home (hence the pillow in the bookshelf), and we even rigged up a seat for him by the window so he can stare intensely at the passers-by. It's really great to come home to such a warm and comfy place, with our boy cozed up in his blankie on the window sill.

The pictures are a mix of photos inside our apt and the view from one of our windows. We're happy to get to share them with you!

A Very Krakow Christmas

2006-12-18T10:35:00.000-06:00

Although we've deserted charismatic Krakow, we can't help blogging about it. The days before we left the city were filled with eating up all the food in our fridge and packing away our belongings, but they were also filled with as much Polish culture as we could squeeze into those hectic hours.

The Krakow Christmas market is a joy. We realized why Poles seem to love Christmas so much--it's b/c Santa and his real reindeer really do make the trip from up North, and the edible delicacies on display are out of this world. I know I go on and on about the oscipyk--the goat cheese from the mountains--but it really is worth going on about. First of all, there are 4 huts stationed around the rynek (square) that look like oversized barrels. Well, they are oversized barrels. But people sit inside these big barrels and serve you your choice of hot mead or mulled wine. I highly recommend the mulled wine. Why hasn't America caught on to the mulled wine yet?! Get with it America. So you grab a steaming cup of wino gzone (the Polish name for this delicious beverage), and move on to the cheese stand. Here, they will serve up a dripping, hot, roasted nougat of oscipyk from right off the grill and give you a dollup of raspberry jam on top. They're 2 zloty a piece, which is a bit expensive (relatively), but I kept going back...and back...and back. I think my lunch that day consisted of 4 or 5 nougats of cheese and, of course, my wino gzone. Could it get any better? Bhadri says yes. The big log of meat at the end of his fork is real-deal Polish sausage: kielbasa. He was just about as excited about the kielbasa as I was about my oscipyk--and that's saying something. Once you get your food (and you might want to grab a few warm, fresh, honey-roasted pumpkin seeds or almonds from the stand next door), you can make yourself at home on any of the wooden benches set up around the market exterior. It's freezing cold, and you're having a hot picnic lunch in Europe's biggest and grandest square. Seriously, folks, it's something special.

Oh, and how could I forget? The live reindeer. They are the cutest, albeit awkward, animals (Booster=exception) I think I've ever come face to face with. I stood there and stared at them for minutes upon minutes. Bhadri had to drag me away. They have the largest hooves, they just look too big for the rest of their bodies. You know, like big-dog puppies when they're all feet! And they really didn't seem to mind hanging out with Santa and getting their [illegal] photos taken all day. Hence the "no photos" sign. Ok, I know it's unethical or whatever, but they wanted to sell poster sized professional photos in lieu. Come on. Besides, I think one of the reindeer winked at my after I snapped the shot!