Don't Cry For Me, Wroclawskie

This is officially, officially my last post from Poland. After a week of goodbye parties and reflection, I think I'm ready to blow this popcicle stand. My flight leaves in four hours.

Tuesday night was my official goodbye party, held at Strefa 0 (where else?) followed by dancing at Manana. At Strefa 0, I was presented with scarves and gifts and a Polish flag that all of the interns had signed. As they handed me the Polish flag, Red Hot Chili Peppers "Under the Bridge Downtown" started playing. It was incredibly perfect, I actually thought they had orchestrated it. This song has been our theme song of the summer and it's been coincidentally playing at every important juncture of my journey - on my first night at Strefa 0, in one of the cars we hitchhiked to Krakow in, constantly in the dormitory, and finally, at my goodbye party. It was pretty much perfect.

Wednesday night, my last night with Jackie and Aydan (they left for a two-week trip to Scandenavia yesterday), we stayed awake until dawn packing and listening to music and giving each other Henna tattoos. Again, a perfect way to end this adventure.

As Marcin and Aydan and Jackie left the dormitory yesterday morning, I kept a stiff upper lip and we said goodbye in the best way possible. We all knew at the beginning that this wouldn't last forever, and it's necessary (in many ways) for it to end now. I might come back to Wroclaw someday, but I'll never be able to relive this summer. Of course, I'll miss my friends here and I'll miss this city, but more than anything, saying goodbye to this is a reminder that . . . you know, life goes on, we go through lots of things with lots of people, and if we stayed in one place forever, we'd miss out on a lot of other good things.

And now I'm on to other good things. From this point on, consider the title of this blog "The Falafel Diaries." See you in the holy land.

DreadSong

Aydan went to Prague this weekend. I did not. Perhaps I should have gone on one last adventure, but I spent the time with Jackie and our new friend Marcin (the boy who picked us up in Zielona Gora) mentally preparing myself for my departure.

Saturday afternoon, I went out with some women from DUK. We just hung out and went for coffee, then lunch, then beers, and they insisted on paying for everything.

On Saturday night, I did laundry, and we stayed in my room working on Jackie's dreadlocks (yes, dreadlocks!) and eating pierogi. Sunday, we woke up and made lunch and didn't leave the dormitory until 4pm to meet Marcin's friends downtown. We went for coffee, then dinner, then beers. It was basically a perfect, lazy weekend in Poland.


Now I have three more days in Wroclaw before my flight to Tel Aviv. Tonight is our goodbye party (Jackie and Aydan are traveling on to Scandenavia for two weeks), but other than that, I plan to just walk around and do some last minute gift-buying and sight-seeing.

Winding down and reflection. Yes.

Kobiety!

Let me begin like this: You know how most offices might have a little kitchen area stocked with a few plates, coffee mugs, tea cups? Well, the Democratic Union of Women has a kitchen with plates, mugs, and cups -- in addition to a collection of about 20 shot glasses.

The women in the office surprised us yesterday with a traditional Polish lunch and with a 500-zloty stipend that we hadn't planned on receiving. (Guess who's buying gourmet pierogi for dinner!) I realize how lucky I was to have found this internship. It was absolutely perfect (despite my early doubts) and the organization was mostly concerned with teaching us about Polish hospitality. After lunch today, and after our final class, and after receiving our surprise stipend, the chairwoman of the organization (who I now realize is a semi-ımportant player in Polish politics) made us "taste" some Polish honey vodka. Everytime my shot glass was empty (it's a sipping vodka) the chairwoman would refill it and instruct me to drink. After 6 or 7 glasses, Aydan and I said our goodbyes, and stumbled out of work.

I feel like I've been saying goodbye to Wroclaw for the last two weeks, but I still have six more days until my flight actually leaves. Everyday is filled with foreshadowing of my departure. I don't have anything to do for the next week, and though I was originally planning on traveling during this time, I think I need to stay here and absorb a bit more. And attend the various goodbye parties planned for the summer interns. Though I haven't done much since I've been back from Warsaw, everything I do feels filled with signifigance.

Wednesday night, we made pasta at the dormitory and talked about our life plans. Thursday night, right after work, we went to another intern's apartment to make French Toast and drink apple beer. We invited Marcin, the student who gave Jackie and me a ride from Zielona Gora when we were hitchhiking back from Berlin. After French Toast, we went to the main square for a free outdoor film sponsored by Era New Horizons - an intnernational film festival happening now in Wroclaw. After the film, Marcin took Jackie and I to a few clubs and I finally made it home around 7:30 am. Yesterday, after the party at DUK, Aydan and I met some other interns to watch another free movie in the town square, followed by sandwiches at my favorite restaurant and beer at my favorite bar.

I was the one leading the other interns around Wroclaw, I was the one suggesting a good restaurant and a good bar. How weird is that?

Warszawa

I'm travel weary and drinking diet coke at the office.

After Jackie and I got home from Berlin, I had six hours before my train to Warsaw with Aydan and Krisia from the DUK. The DUK decided to send us to the capitol city for three days so we could learn about Polish history and visit the regional office of DUK there.

My legs were numb from getting lost in Berlin, and then I was shuttled off to Warsaw to visit the parliament and various palaces. Let me tell you this: Warsaw has nothing on Berlin. Most of the Poles we talked to said Warsaw wasn't really worth seeing, but we went because DUK paid for everything.

We stayed in this terrible little place called a Botel - a dirty hostel that was "unique" in that it actually a boat and utilized the polluted, undeveloped Warsaw riverside as a dock. We had to climb to the top of a bridge to get a bus into the city proper every morning.

Warsaw was completely destroyed by the war, so there's nothing particularly beautiful or interesting about the architecture, and the rich history of the city doesn't make up for this. We walked around the former Warsaw Ghetto area, which is now a park with a bronze monument and unkept grass surrounded by soviet-style apartment buildings. There were a few quaint streets and it was generically European-looking, but nothing very interesting.

On Saturday morning, Aydan wants to hitchhike to Prague. I need a vacation from this vacation. It's not that I don't want to see Prague, I really do, but I also want to spend my last weekend in Wroclaw, hanging out with my friends here and making sure I appreciate this city before I leave it.

I can't believe that I only have about a week left here. I can't belive that for most people, a week is a very long trip. I can't believe that I thought two months was such a long time. I'm homesick in a very strange way. I miss English, I miss being able to ask for directions, I miss my friends and family, of course, but coming back from my weekend trips, as I walk down the street to my dormitory here, I can't believe how much it feels like home here too.

Auchtung!

Friday: Jackie and I woke up and left Pszegobowiecs around 7:30. We took a bus to the edge of town and stood by the highway. Three rides and a 2-Euro regional train later, we were in Berlin trying to find the apartment of the girl who agreed to host us for the weekend. We finally found her, in the middle of lovely Turkish neighborhood, and we dropped our stuff and went to explore Berlin.

Saturday: More exploring. First a very long stretch of the Berlin wall, then walking around some cool neighborhoods as advised by Mr. Stoler. We saw Tacheles, this bombed out shopping center that's been completely taken over by artists. Then back to our host's place to freshen up, then some parties. We were invited to a house party at a co-op. We walked there with some CouchSurfers we picked up at a previous party. We drank and shared travel stories until the sun started to rise. We walked back to our host's apartment and slept for a few hours.

Sunday: We woke up, had brunch with our host, and headed out. We got hopelessly, hopelessly lost trying to get out of Berlin. And then again in Zielona Gora, the town we ended up getting a lift to in Poland. Our last lift, though, was from a student who lives in Wroclaw and he gave us tons of advice about the town and Jackie and I assured him that if he's ever in the US, he would have a place to stay.

We were only in Berlin for 2 days, but after the first 5 minutes, I fell in love with it. We spent most of our time getting lost in the transit system, but it was still lovely. I didn't go on any tours or explore any museums, but I peeked around and took note of all the things I want to do when I can make it back some day. I could imagine transplanting myself there for a while. Maybe I'm inspired to start studying German?

Dupa Biskupa

We were in Wroclaw for two days after the conference in Mazury before we headed out for another wild and crazy weekend. Our Aiesecer friend Jacek picked us up at 7:45pm on Friday. Two hours and a 120 zl trip to Auchan (another French-based Walmart-type megamart) later, we were at some lake outside of Wroclaw with Jacek and about 12 of his friends, stocked with provisions for the weekend: kielbasa, bread, beer, wine, vodka, and ramen noodles.

Friday night passed in a virtual haze of straight-from-the bottle drinking and learning dirty words in Polish. I was one of the last to go to sleep, and again found myself with 4 Polish guys who were more than happy to practice their English. Before I went to bed, they told me that I was a really tough girl. My dream of dreams. I spent the night in a slightly-larger-than-twin-sized bed with Jacek, who looks like a NASA scientist from the 50s.

Saturday was spent recouperating from the previous night. We played cards and layed by the lake all day. We got to know most of Jacek's friends, including Piotr. After I explained to Piotr that I was studying Women's Studies at my university, and gave him a brief introduction to what, exactly, that meant, he said something along the lines of: "I think it's really bad when people have so much confidence in their point of view that they think they can change the way other people act." To which I said something placating and sweet, of course, but I was actually kind of taken aback. That's how all of human history has progressed, isn't it? But this altercation didn't end in blows, and Piotr still called me a tough girl.


Sunday, we yawned and stretched and said goodbye to the lake before returning to Wroclaw around noon.

It was another amazing weekend in Poland, and I can't believe that it's one of my last. It was almost painful to meet all of Jacek's friends, knowing that I'll probably never see any of them again. There's an Aiesec phenomenon where, very rarely, interns fall in love with the places they visit, and end up extending their internship indefinately. I don't think I've come down with this bug, but I can easily imagine it.

Where Is This Train Headed?

There's not much journaling to do. We got back late last night from our Mazury vacation. I gave my presentation about women in the US and all of the committee members came up and kissed me afterwards and told me, in broken English or half-Polish, that I was a very good young woman. There was a poetry reading on the final evening (it was nice to listen to, even if I couldn't understand it), followed by a wine-tasting. The whole conference was lovely and chilly and I ate a lot of Polish food. On the train back, all of the women from the conference were in the same car. We filled four compartments. These women, all 30-60, brought provisions of beer and vodka, sandwiches stolen from the hotel buffet, and seemingly bottomless bags of peanuts. Half of our car was actually a freight room, which eventually turned into a dance hall. As we lost passangers at each small town between Mazury and Wroclaw, the women joined in singing some old Polish song about riding the rails. It was quaint and incredible and even though I didn't understand most of what was going on around me, it may have been a necessary experience.

So maybe now I can transition into something more abstract. I found myself at the conference, as I find myself in most places, looking very closely at the women around me. I felt silly, at first, coming to Poland for an internship. From all outward appearances, it seems like I'm trying to find myself, or something else equally silly. And maybe I am, but the fact that it's Poland, that it's the land of pierogis and kielbasa and my grandparents' parents, is actually much less imprortant than the fact that I'm just very far away from everything familiar. But this certainly doesn't stop me from really staring at the noses and lips and cheekbones of everybody around me, maybe trying to find a little bit of myself in them. So I spent a lot of the conference doing this, and thinking about how I ended up where I am.

Today, when I returned from this conference, Ben had sent me this link to a recent Times article. The article is about the Jewish culture festival that I accidentally happened upon in Krakow, the very evening after I visited Auschwitz. So I'm in Poland, exploring my roots, visiting Auschwitz and Jewish culture festivals, and very soon, I will be in Jerusalem. May I quote a bit of Plath without sounding desperate? . . . "I may be a bit of a Jew." But what does this mean for me? For a shiksa who didn't know any Jews until highschool? Do I suffer from the same potentially commercial philia that the city of Krakow suffers from? Or (this is the option I've been taking more seriously lately), is there something drawing (or pushing) me towards this end? Maybe I've just had too much free time in Europe and it's making me crazy, but I can't help feeling that there is some imminent revelation about to unfold itself to me.

Action & Adventure

We went biking today.

Zapraszamy.

Currently, I'm in the library of the Hotel Oscar Panoramic in a small town called Mragowa in a region of Poland called Mazury. It's the Polish equivalent of the Poconos. Imagine lakes and forests and quaint hamlets. Voila -- Mazury!

Aydan and I will be here until Wednesday for the Democratic Union of Women's summer conference. Workshops all day and beer all night. Actually, after the first day, we were excused from the workshops because they're all in Polish. Some women were translating them to English for us, but it was still difficult to follow along and it was distracting to everybody else. However, the "beer all night" part is semi-true. Tonight we went for drinks with all of our coworkers. It was a bonding experience. Women here love their half-liters of Zywiec.

So since we're excused from the workshops, and we're kind of stuck at this resort, we've just been lounging around our lovely hotel room, eating at the endless buffett, and watching Polish cable. It sounds like it could get boring, but I feel like I'm very purposefully on vacation. I also feel like it's one of the few times I've been in a hotel room for a wholesome reason. I think in my life, hotels have always been associated with nefarious activity.

At the beginning, I decided to view this conference as a retreat. It's not quite a silent retreat, but it is five days without any native English-speakers. I've been writing and reading and laying on the docks by the lake. And the weather is brisk and windy, more like late-March weather than middle-of-July weather. I'm feeling very zen. I think, for the first time in a long time, I've stopped feeling like I'm on the verge of being late for something. Does that make sense?

And now, it's off to sleep in my very clean and very soft Hotel Oscar Panoramic bed.

Stag Night

Last night was a party to welcome a new intern. Suddenly it was 2am, and just me with 7 boys - 5 Poles, 1 Englishman, and 1 Tunisian. I think maybe I stuck around as a sociological experiment.

It's nice to see that jokes about masturbation and pornography are international.

Also, imagine a tall, pale Englishman telling me (in his funny little accent) that he used to be in the army and then explaining to me that there's a place on a man's neck where, with enough force, you can push your hand right through his skin and pull out his windpipe. Who would this remind you of? Ten points for the right answer.

The Road to Katowice

I have too much to explain about this weekend to worry about conventions, so would you mind a bulleted list?

• There wasn't room for Aydan on the trip to Slovakia, so she ended up coming to Krakow as well. Since there were two of us, we decided to hitchhike. We consulted our friend Antonio, who has hithchiked all over Europe, and Friday morning we caught a city bus to the edge of town.
• We stood next to a gas station and held up our little sign and stuck out our little thumbs and in less than 10 minutes, a guy picked us up. He didn't speak English and took us only about 60 kilometers before he had to turn off the highway. So again, we stood by the on-ramp and smiled and another guy picked us up. He lived in the suburbs of Krakow but drove us right to the city center.
• We had no idea where we would sleep or what we would do in Krakow, but we did know that there was a CouchSurfing meetup on Friday night. We arrived at 6:30 and all we knew was that we had to met a girl in a red skirt next to a statue of a dragon.
  
• While waiting for the girl in the red skirt, I got a phone call from a one Benjamin Stoler who reminded me that he was also in Krakow. He offered his hotel room for the night, but first, Aydan and I wanted to go to the CouchSurfing party.
• We met Kasia, the girl in the red skirt, and she took us to this campfire party where we met Carlos from Chile, Christian from France, and lots of Polish kids. Including Ania who owned a hostel and offered us a free place to stay on Saturday night.
• Around 11 we ran to meet Ben in the Jewish old-town. We cabbed back to his hotel, picking up some wine on the way. At his hotel, we had to find somebody to uncork the wine. We stumbled upon a Croatian high-school field trip and made friends.
• Free breakfast at the hotel the next morning before Ben's group left.
• Aydan and I went to explore the main market square before heading to Ania's hostel.
• Ania appologized that she didn't have any free beds, only a "chill out" room that didn't have electricity. So we had a free night's stay in an awesome bedoin-style room that was way better than any of the hostel's dorm rooms.
• After dropping our stuff at the hostel, Aydan and I went to the bus station to get a 7 zloty shuttle to Auchwitz (as opposed to the 80 zl tours they offered from the main square). Aydan and I seperated at Auchwitz, I think it was better for me to see it alone. I don't know what I can write here about it, I think it deserves more than a point on a bulleted list. Maybe later.
  
• After we returned to Krakow, we rested at the hostel before going back to Kasmiersz, the Jewish old-town. Apparantly Krakow was in the middle of a a Jewish music festival and we stumbled upon a raging Klezmer concert. Yes, raging. We danced with some old women and Jewish youth groups.
• On Sunday morning, Aydan wanted to see this hill that had a good view of the city. I wasn't totally enthused and we ended up walking about 3km uphill to get to the top. We were exhausted afterwards and went back to the hostel to get our stuff and leave.
• It took us about two hours to get out of Krakow because we got on the wrong bus. It was completely my fault. We were lost and frusterated and tired and hungry, but we finally got to the highway around seven. Three cars and three hours later, our last ride dropped us off right in front of our dorm. As soon as he drove away, we high-fived like nobody's business.

I am still completely high from this trip. There are a million things I could write about now, like Auchwitz, or how I only spent about $30 on the whole trip, or about the gendered implications of two girls hitchhiking, or about the cosmic alignment that helped us at every juncture of this endeavor, or about Polish hospitality. Mostly, though, I just want to say that after this weekend, I feel like I can do anything. I'm still completely amazed that we survived, and not only survived, but had an awesome time.

When we were asking Ania, the girl who owns the hostel, about the best way to get to Auchwitz, she told us that the 80-zloty tours we saw advertised were the tourist price, not the traveler's price. So there's a difference between tourist and traveler. I'm not ready to completely abandon my middle-class life, but it's nice to know that I have what it takes to be a traveler, if only for a weekend.

English?

This week has been tame. Monday night was so tame, in fact, that it almost reminded me of home. Aydan, Jackie and I spent the evening avoiding this Polish boy who always wants to hang out with us. Then we bought beer and giggled all night. Tuesday was a welcome party for the new interns at this place called Chill Out Club. I guided the new interns there myself. I looked at a guide book, then a map, and we made it there withou any uneccessary detours. I am the queen of this city. So I took the kids to their party and just wasn't feeling it so I went home to eat ramen and check my e-mail. So life goes. It's amazing isn't it?

While at the party, the other interns signed up for a camping trip to Slovakia this weekend. I missed out on the sign-up session, but I've decided to go to Krakow this weekend without them. So there. I'm going to get a train after work tomorrow.


Speaking of work, we're finally going to start teaching English on Monday. Finally. But . . . who am I to teach English, I just speak the the stupid language. So last night I conceded to a dinner date with our awkward Polish friend and his English teacher. His English teacher, Bill, is from Harrisburg and works in Wroclaw 5 months out of the year. During his time in the US he works on a lot of non-profit projects that sponser Pennsylvania teachers who want to come to Poland to teach English. He's taking two Polish university presidents to Pennsylvania next week and he was asking me for advice about where to take them in Pittsburgh. So here I am, in the middle of a Pizza Hut (Pizza Hut, again!) in Poland giving Bill directions from the PA Turnpike to the Day's Inn on Banksville Rd. How absurd.

After the dinner date, we went for a late night walk through Wroclaw. We accidentally happened upon a free reggae concert. It was happenin' and we danced all night. Reggae is crazy big here. Who would have thought. Reggae and Drum & Bass. Then we walked home in the freezing cold. Freezing cold. It's just been raining and cold here. Gloomy European. I love it.

Finally, today at work, they took us to this conference called "The Economics of Leisure." The mayor of Wroclaw was there, and lots of ambassadors and professors from other countries. The conference (which continues into tomorrow) is about the economic and developmental benefits of leisure activities, specifically the consequences of the World Expo 2012 which will take place in Wroclaw. It was held in the University of Wroclaw, which is a crazy baroque building. We were invited to a catered cocktail reception afterwards and mingled with the US Ambassador to Turkey other important people. Crazy, no?

So that's my world here. This next month is going to fly by. Krakow, English classes, gender studies conference, crazy crazy crazy. And then what? Then Israel? How is this my life?

St. John's Night

In this part of the world, the summer Solstice occurs a little later. This past Saturday was the longest day of the year. This is followed by the shortest night, of which I witnessed both ends.

After bowling with the Aiesecers on Saturday afternoon (I'm bowling . . . in Poland), Jackie and I met our friends Rafel and Domenika in the town square. They picked us up there and drove us to Rafel's house in the suburbs. Rafel's parents were out of town this weekend. You can imagine where this story is going.

It wasn't a crazy party, just Rafel and Domenika, Jackie and me, and three friends of Rafels; Pawel, Darek, and of course, Kostek. We started barbequing and drinking beers around 6 pm. We watched the sun go down over the field behind Rafel's place. Two liters of vodka, maybe 20 liters of beer, and a liter of wine later, Kostek and I were the only ones still awake, and we watched the sun rise over the field in front of Rafel's place. My personal consumption of the crazy amount of alcohol we went through that night was pretty modest compared to these Polish boys. Nothing extraordinary happened, which is what made the night so good. We just talked and laughed and listened to Polish underground hip hop and ate keilbasa and bread around the campfire all night. Most memorable highlights:

1.) Around midnight, Rafel and Domenika decided we needed more vodka, so we went to a 24-hr gas station. They were closed and in the middle of inventory when we arrived, so we had to wait ten minutes before we could go in. We walked around the building, which was, more or less, in the middle of nowhere. And we found a hedgehog. It got scared and rolled into a ball, and we were able to pet it. Maybe that wouldn't be a highlight for anybody else, but it was awesome.

2.) Jackie and I had told Rafel and Domenika that we tried to bring marshmellows for the campfire, but couldn't find any. On the way to Rafel's, we stopped at a grocery store and they helped us find them. They were, yes, basically marshmellows, but also fruit-flavored. So we showed the Poles how to roast strawberry marshmellows on the fire. They were impressed. I think.

3.) Around dawn, when we realized we had lost everybody else, I requested that Kostek give me one dreadlock. Totally my favorite souveneir. As he gave it to me, he cursed and said it was too difficult because my hair was so clean. He also (totally platonically) told me that when we first met at Strefa 0, he was really happy because my English is so easy to understand, but he doesn't feel like I dumb it down and that, generally, I'm very easy to talk to. It gives me hope for teaching English.

The whole evening was very chill and very fun. These kids are so cool, but so friendly and inviting. It's a refreshing change from all of the gaurded, intimidating, hip, hip kids I'm so used to. I'm already thinking about how I can make it back to Wroclaw some day.

Bhangra & Borscht?

So who would have imagined that I'd ever be surrounded by Polish girls dressed in full saris pretending to dance bhangra at an underground (literally, under the earth) club in this strange city called Wroclaw. Not me.

Last night we went to a Bollywood themed dance party at a club in downtown Wroclaw. Everybody was really into it. I've never, ever pretended to dance Bhangra without feeling guilty before. We drank beers and took Mad Dog shots. Vodka with a sweet black currant syrup and tabasco sauce. And we wore stick-on bindis. It was crazy.

Last night, before the Bollywood party, Jackie and I went to Carrefour to look for S'More supplies to take to this bonfire party tomorrow. We thought it would be something cute and American to offer our hosts. And we found out that marshmellows and graham crackers don't really exist in Poland, at least not in an incarnation that facilitates s'more-making.

But more importantly, here's the biggest news in my little world right now. The DUK invited me to create a presentation about equal opportunity employment and women's studies programs in the US . . . as if I'm an expert. We're taking this presentation to a conference near Gdansk on the other side of Poland. From July 7 - 11th, we're going to this conference about equal opportunity employment in Poland and the EU. The DUK will provide for everything. I'm not sure how, exactly, that will work when our classes are supposed to begin on July 2nd (as far as we know). All next week we have appointments with women who are signing up for the classes. We have to speak with them to assess their language levels. So things are picking up, but there's still not enough work to necessitate two interns. I don't really get it.

One more thing to add to this totally non-sequiter composition: My new friend Jackie has been talking to me about WWOOFing. WWOOF stands for World-Wide Opportunity to Organic Farm and it's an organization that connects organic farms with volunteers all over the world. Basically, you travel a country going from farm to farm exchanging manual labor for food and accomodations. I added the link to the sidebar, check it out. I'm not sure if it's legit, but it's worth looking into.

Okay, really, that's it.

All In A Day's Work

So I'm at work, again, sort of. Monday and Tuesday, Aydan and I showed up for work and nobody here had anything for us to do. So Monday we left for lunch and didn't come back and Tuesday we left about half an hour after we got here. Today, Aydan decided not to wake up for work at all. So here I am, again, with nothing to do but check my e-mail. Had we known that we'd basically have the week off, we could have gone to Krakow or Berlin or we could have even hitchhiked to Greece by now. But, hey, that's the way it goes. I almost feel guilty. But I guess that's why I showed up today knowing full well that I'd just sit around and check my e-mail for an hour before going back to the dormitories.

The last few days I've been almost bored. But the good kind of bored, the kind of bored you feel after you're comfortable in a new place and don't feel anxious or pressured to constantly explore.

Last night I made dinner with Jackie, Aydan, and Wajih. Just pasta, but it was the first time we made anything more than sandwiches in the dorm. Jackie and I stood in the hallway with our bottle of cheap wine until some shirtless Polish boy came and opened it for us. So we ate our pasta and drank our wine and Wajih brought some traditional Tunisian wedding cookies. Jackie and I keep joking about what we'll do if our organization decides to have a global village event where everybody brings food and decor from their home country. Jackie and I will probably just stop at McDonalds.

One of the interns who went home already left his bike here as sort of communal Aiesec property. Jackie has been riding it occasionally, but I took it to work this morning. It was 100% faster than the tram that pretty much circles the city before it gets here. Jackie and I looked at it and laughed at first. It's a cheap Carrefour (think European Walmart) mountain bike with an incredibly unconventional frame and ridiculous shock absorbers. Yes, I chuckled, but after riding on cobblestone sidewalks and jumping curbs (because everybody bikes on the sidewalks here) I was thankful for the crazy shocks.

So I guess that's it. I'm almost finished with this John Irving book I've been reading in my spare time (Europe and wresting and child molestation, oh my) so I might try to find an English bookstore today. That's it for my crazy adventures.


Polish Phrases of the Day

Czy film yes z napisami? - Is the film subtitled?
Czy wymagany jest stroj formalny? - Is formal dress required?
Jestem samotna. - I'm single.
Mamy przyjecie. - We're having a party.

We're in Poland!

First, some shout outs. I would like to thank Josh for deftly pointing out to me that my new friend Kostek is probably studying Capoeira dance fighting, not Capabera dance fighting. Capybera are South American rodents. I would also like to thank the Building JJ Collective for their gracious link and rave review. Right now, the Building JJ Collective has contributors from many corners of the globe (Ben in Germany, Josh in Hawaii, and Pat in our nation's capitol) commenting on culture, music, sports, and politics. It's worth a click.

But now back to me . . . I had the kind of weekend that makes me want to stay in Wroclaw and not attempt to travel the eastern Baltic while I'm in this part of the world. I think I might be falling in love with this city.

Friday night we had a barbeque with the Aiesecers. We ended up buying beer at a minimart and going to drink under a bridge. Sound familiar?

And Saturday was a very full day. We went to the market to buy cherries, cheese, bread, tomatoes, krakowska, and yogurt. Aside from pierogies, cafeteria food, and beer, these have been the staples of my diet. After the market, we took the tram across town to the Polish National Museum. I was desperately searching for recurring themes or styles that would characterize all the art there as Polish Art. Basically, the Renaissance-era paintings weren't as good as the Italian Masters, the impressionist paintings weren't as good as the French, and a lot of the contemporary art looked like hard rock album covers. In any case, it was a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Afterwards, Jackie and I met up with our friends from Couchsurfing. They were hosting another Couchsurfer from Perth, Australia and they brought a few more of their friends. We sat around drinking beer and sharing travel stories, like the one Daniel from Perth told us about taking the trans-Siberia train across Russia. Daniel has been traveling Europe and Asia for something like 14 months. He's not the only hardcore traveler we've met so far. Another one of the Couchsurfers we met that night was about to leave for a two-month trek across Australia. It almost makes me feel like my dinky two-month work stay is a little too tame. But I'll leave my amazing backpacking adventure for another time.

After our meeting with those friends, Jackie and I went to meet some other Couchsurfers at the University of Technology for yet another barbeque. Five guys we didn't know met us at the tram station and took us to a dark park. It would have been sketchy, but these boys were impossibly awkward. It's nice to see some things (like IT guys with ponytails and black t-shirts) transcend international boarders. We drank some beers and chatted in the park for a few hours. They were perfect gentlemen and walked us back to the town square so we could get a night bus home.

Sunday, one of the Aiesecers who took a training course to be a city tour guide took us on a three-hour walking tour of Wroclaw. Everybody's favorite tidbit of the tour was the joke about the nude male statue on the University campus. If ever a girl graduates from the University a virgin, the statue will get an erection. The statue's been there 103 years and it hasn't happened yet.

Wroclaw really is an absolutely beautiful city. It's large, but manageable -- it's a city I'm looking forward to really getting to know.


Polish Phrases of the Day

Masz ochote na ciastko? - Would you like some cake?
Nie wiem. - I don't know.
To pasjonujace. - That's fascinating.
Prosze isc w prawo i prosto. - You should turn right, then go straight.

The Polish Underground

I thought that The Pierogi Diaries would be a cute, witty name for a blog about Poland. Little did I know that I would be eating Pierogies almost daily and that the name would quickly become a too-literal-for-comfort title.

Other than my constant pierogi overdose, this week as been a good one. After my terrible, hot, hateful Monday, it really picked up. Tuesday, the other international students and I went out for Kebabs and beers. Wednesday was our official welcome party, where we met all of the local Aiesecers. Last night we met with some people we found on Couchsurfing. And tonight there's a picnic behind our dorm building.

The Aiesec party was at a club called No Name, where we just drank beers and talked about traveling. Not only was I meeting all of these Polish students, I also met Samuel from Nigeria, Monika from Romania, Whiter from New Zealand, Katia and Anton from Russia, and Antonio from Mexico. Jarek, a Polish Aiesecer, has his sailing lisence and offered to organize a weekend Yacht trip on the Baltic . Tomasz, another Polish student, offered to take Jackie and me to the flea market on Sunday to try and find bicycles.

The kids we met last night, however, the ones Jackie found through Couchsurfing, were considerably more . . . I don't know, alternative. They took us out for pizza and to this bar called Strefa Zero. The regulars at this bar sarcastically call it P-Zero, because there's an ultra-trendy techno club on the other side of town called P-One. P-One is where somebody tried to buy us. But this bar, Strefa Zero, was dark and dank and covered in graffiti. The music was a mix of Polish rock, Polish metal, and some English stuff . . . Beck, U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers. We drank cheap beer and passed around sniffing tobacco. It's tobacco, but it's a fine powder that you snort. Very strange. Our guides, Rafel and Domenika ran into some other friends, including this guy named Kostek who I ended up talking to for the rest of the night. He has dreads and he's studying engineering. He's also a fire-spinner, capabera dance-fighter, and talked to me in great detail about his pet spiders. Aydan and I were going to go to Prague next weekend, but these kids invited us to a bonfire party outside of the city. I think that might win.

As much as I'd like to collect stamps on my passport, maybe this trip isn't for that.

Polish Song of the Day

Szla dziweczka do laseczka, do zielonego
do zielonego, do zielonego.
Napotkala mysliweczka bardzo szwarnego,
bardzo szwarnego, bardzo szwarnego.

This is a song our Polish teacher taught us in our last lesson before she goes to her country house for the summer. It's about a girl going into the woods and meeting a very handsome hunter. Very handsome, very handsome, very handsome.

Fatale!

This was not a good day in Wroclaw. Nothing in particular, I was just hot and cranky and my roommate and I had a really late lunch break. Let me explain our meal plan. The organization we're working for paid in advance for three weeks of meals at the University dining hall. This means that for our lunch break, we have to commute back to the university to eat. Half an hour. Each way. On a crowded train. For pretty standard cafeteria food. Everyday for breakfast they give us turkey sandwiches. Turkey sandwiches? And for lunch, we have our choice of breaded fried chicken or breaded fried pork, rice or potatoes, and pickles or sauerkraut. I don't have a problem with any of these food individually, but that's all I've been eating for a week. Luckily, the dining hall closes for the summer in a three weeks, so they'll have to arrange something else for July.

This weekend, two of the other interns and I spent most of our time exploring Wroclaw by foot. Sunday, we woke up, left the dorm, and walked west. We came back to the dorm, took naps, and then walked east. Last night, my roommate Aydan suggested we go to a Pub for a drink after our walk. We couldn't decide on one, so we just bought some beer at the 24-hr market. Luckily, I know the words for "please", "four", "beer", and "small". And the brand of the beer was easy enough to pronounce, Tyskie. So I told the woman at the market: Please. Four. Beer. Tyskie. Small. And it actually worked.

The language barrier is not so difficult as I imagined it would be. Most people here at least understand English, if not speak it fairly well. And even those who don't are so impressed by my effort to say "Do you speak English?" in their native tongue, that they respond very helpfully to gestures and pointing even if they don't speak English. Today I had my second Polish lesson, and my instructor keeps asking me if I'm sure I actually want to learn Polish. She keeps reminding me how difficult it is and saying that only native speakers ever actually understand it. Not very encouraging. But I'm struggling through the workbook she gave me and I'm using my semi-functional Polish whenever possible. Like, for instance, to buy beer at the market. There's also something very different about speaking English when I'm with Aydan, whose native language is Turkish, than when I'm with Jackie, who is from Texas. I think that Jackie and I are ever-fearful of being labeled ignorant Americans, and we're far more reluctant to ask for help in English. Aydan, on the other hand, isn't afraid of approaching anybody. For her, I don't think that the locals are upset she's speaking English rather than Polish, when English is an obviously more useful language for her to learn. Most Polish-speakers are aware that only 40-million people in the world speak Polish and that it really is not the easiest or most useful language. The older people who we've encountered who don't speak any English are usually more helpful than the younger ones. Most people under 30 speak some English here, and those that don't, I think, seems almost resentful or embarrassed that they don't -- which usually results in sneers or hostility. But, I mean, I'm surviving here. And that's what matters.

Polish Phrases of the Day

Nazyvam sie . . . = My name is . . .
Pracuje na . . . = I work in . . .
Moja mama jest . . . = My mother is . . .
Jestem na . . . = I am from . . .

Ameriki - Pssht

We found our new favorite restaurant in Wroclaw. It's called Ladlo Stacja, which more or less means "Chow Station." It's a hip little hole in the wall with Elvis posters. It specializes in vegetarian panini and the staff speaks broken English. They were very helpful and knew the words "big" and "small" to offer us the two sizes of panini. Very good.

Last night, my roommate and one of the other interns, Jackie, and I met some of the other international students in our dorm. There are four other boys from Turkey who spoke with my roommate. After we left, she asked me how to say, in English, boys that just want to drink and dance and call to girls on the street. I said "sleazy". She told me that the Turkish boys we met were sleazy. Nevertheless, we went out with them last night. They took us around to a few clubs, all of which were virtually empty. Apparently all of the universities in Wroclaw are in the middle of exams. Outside of one of the clubs, the three of us girls were standing with on of the Turkish boys, and this middle-aged Polish man came up and asked Omar for a light. He was obviously drunk and then continued to ask Omar what his prices were like. He thought we were for sale and that Omar was our negotiator. You know.

Today, back to work. The one woman who speaks English was off today, so we just hung around and helped correct some of the promotional materials in English, then we were introduced to the woman who will be giving us Polish lessons for the rest of the week. Unfortunately, she's going to her vacation home for two months starting on June 15th, though she did invite us to visit her there for a weekend. We met her at a bar where she was giving a group of 8 senior women English lessons. They were all drinking beer and were very pleased to hear me enunciate some basic English phrases. They all looked like my grandmother. It was pretty satisfying.

So far, satisfying is a good word to describe my time here. Satisfying and jankie.

Cute Boys and Wide-Footed Women

It's strange how quickly a routine can develop, even when you're so incredibly far away from everything familiar.

Last night, we salvaged dinner from the convenience store again. It's easier than a restaurant because all the prices are clearly marked and you don't actually have to talk to anybody. So we had some bread and apples for dinner, then for the rest of the evening, my roommate chated with her boyfriend on the internet (she brought her laptop) while I studied Polish. All of our hosts are busy for exams, which they keep appologizing for and promising to be more hospitable when their term ends.

I think I'm finally over my jet lag. Tonight I'll try to convince the other American girl to do something exciting with us and then maybe I'll have something worth writing about.

Polish Phrases of the Day

Ile to kosztuje? - How much does that cost?
Jest pochmurno. - It's cloudy.
Czy chcialby pan pojsc na spacer. - Would you like to go for a walk?

Are There Any Vowels In That Word?

It, literally, seems like weeks since I left Pittsburgh. Here's a quick rundown of what's happened since then:

A Palestinian med student flirted with me on the flight to JFK. He's 30 and told me to call him when I'm in Israel.
I ran in to Ben Droz at the international terminal of JFK airport. Ben Effing Droz, of course I would run into him.
The woman next to me on the flight to Warsaw took a sleeping pill and totally passed out, but when she woke up, she helped me with some Polish pronunciation.
I arrived in Wroclaw, which I finally, finally know how to pronounce. Something like . . . Ratswav. Who would have thought?

AIESEC here isn't extremely organized. Our guides dropped us off in our room without helping us change money or showing us where anything was. My roommate and I had to borrow a few zloty and we went to a convenience store to buy bread, cheese, juice, water, and chocolate. Dinner for two - 9 zloty, about $3. Nice. Today we started our internship, where nobody speaks English and they don't really have any work for us to do. But it is exciting working in this progressive, pro-choice, woman-identified Eastern European organization. It will get better, I'm sure. They did take us out for lunch today, where I ordered a salad. Unfortunately, it was actually a mayonaise-based potato salad with apples and pickles. Good thing I'm not a picky eater.

It's strange here. Everything is just slightly different. Not enough to be exotic, really, but just unnerving. If I could choose one word to describe it, I would have to say: jankie. Nothing seems like it was built to last. It's as if after WWII, they decided to stop trying so hard. All of the linens in my dorm room seem like they're salvaged from an estate sale and the furniture all looks hand built. And it's extremely strange fitting in but not fitting in. It's the opposite of Mexico, where I looked out of place and surprised people by speaking Spanish. Here, I don't break the visual continuity and I surprise people by not speaking Polish. It's strange not speaking to anybody casually, having to choose your words carefully so that non-native English speakers can understand you. Man. Isolation.

So my roommate and I are off to salvage dinner and study Polish. Wish us luck.

Polish Phrases of the Day

Pracuje dla Democratyczna Unia Kobiet. - I work for the Democratic Union of Women.
Jestem studantka. - I am a student.
Chcialwbym chleb. - I'd like bread.
Prosze piwo. - A beer, please.
Prosze dwa piwa. - Two beers, please.

T-Minus 23 Hours

Let's imagine that this isn't a Blog. Let's say it's, I don't know, an internet space where I post observations and comments about my daily life for others to read and respond to. If you're reading this right now, you probably already know that I'm headed to Poland for the summer. I'll be using this "internet space" as a way to transatlantically update those whom it concerns.

So this is where we start: My flight from the Pittsburgh International Airport leaves in approximately 23 hours, and I'm 100% terrified. See ya'll on the other side.

Polish Phrases of the Day

Nie mowie po polsku. = I don't speak Polish.
Czy mowi pan po polsku? = Do you speak English?
Nie rozumiem. = I don't understand.
Zgubitem sie. = I've lost my way.
Gdzie sa toalety? = Where are the bathrooms?