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.