Blame Russia

I’m not sure if any of you have been bored enough to check up on the latest weather here in good ol’ Poland. But it sure feels like home to say the least, -30 for the last few days. This morning as we were leaving our apartment, we met one of our elderly neighbors, and all we could make out from her polish rambling was that Russia was to blame for the cold weather. It seems most people here think that nothing good can come from the East, and I guess it’s understandably so, considering their past. But things still haven’t changed much as far as trying to communicate with the old ladies, they still seem to think it helps if they keep repeating themselves in polish and that we’ll eventually understand.

Speaking of old ladies, another thing we’ve noticed here is that all of the “older” people seem “tough”. You notice small things, like we haven’t seen a wheelchair, let alone a medichair yet, and everyone has cane-type-braces. And very, very few of the towering apartments have elevators, so imagining how these people manage the stairs is another thing. We’ve also noticed that the “grandmas” are quite often the ones on the street corners, selling whatever they can trying to make some zlotys.

a lollipop crossing

I sure find the history fascinating here, and we’ve been lucky enough to be able to talk to different people about what it was like back under the “iron curtain”. Most people can’t understand why we want to talk about it, but its nice cause no-one is hesitant to share their memories. People our age don’t remember much, mainly just having to stand in long, long lines with your food stamps waiting to be served whatever you were given, and their parents bringing all of the kids along, because no matter what age you were, you got an equal portion. Quite a few people have talked about how they missed the old times of socialism. Where everyone was equal, employed, able to spend more time with family and everyone wasn’t so caught up in work and making money.

Another thing we’ve encountered in our Polish journeys has been strange sports fans. We quickly learned that whistling is bad, and the fans love to whistle away at the opposing team or ref. Most fans are also decked out in their team colors, and spend most of the game chanting something or other, we’re not quite sure what though. We went to a pro basketball game last weekend and got to see an all-out fan protest. At the start of the game people were handing out these signs, and of course we took one, not knowing what it said. After the game had to be postponed from the rioters littering the court with toilet paper we began to wonder what our nice poster really said? We’ll have to get out our polish dictionary.

“What does this mean?” and “some hoops action, and the climbing wall in the background”

Chris and me have also been able to visit a couple different public schools so far as “special guests”. I guess it’s pretty rare that a Canadian comes to Poland so its lots of fun talking about home and everything Canadian. This coming weekend we even get to go judge some English plays that local elementary school classes are performing.

an amazing benefit of having bad windows

But things are good, miss you all, are waiting for visitors, looking forward to non-Russian weather, and we’ll talk again next week…

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“Chris! Chris! Hey Chris! Do you got me?” calls a distant voice filled with fear. “Don’t worry, I got you, trust me.” Still half-clinging to the holdings he looks down to be reinsured. “Casey, I have you, you don’t have to hold on!” Nervously he pulls himself away from the wall and trusts the rope to catch him. I slowly lower Casey safely to the ground with confidence. He touches the ground with a sigh of relief.
So, we have been taking advantage of the rock-climbing wall that is quite near to us, and last Friday we learned to belay each other while climbing.

We have also been taking some Polish lessons from one of our friends. We can now count to 10, say the days of the week and a couple of phrases. We still have a lot to learn, because Polish is a confusing language. Like French, it has masculine and feminine words, which change the ending of the words. So, people in shops are constantly correcting us on what ending to use. I don’t think that we will ever be able to blend in.

It’s been cold here and walking anywhere is a challenge because of the polished ice-covered sidewalks. But, people have it down to a national sport here, racing across the ice, passing people to catch the bus or make it across the crosswalk in time before the light turns. We have been surprised by the way people abide to the crosswalk, because people tend not to follow rules here. But, when we saw some boys that j-walked get a ticket written up by the police, we soon understood. So, we have resorted to following the signs also.

We had our first Polish sleep-over this weekend at our friends house. Every 2 weeks we meet for Bible study at this house, which is in a small village about 20 minutes away from Inowroclaw. We had an early morning because we had to walk 3 km to catch a bus that took us to Bydgoszcz to attend the baptism of one of our brothers in a Pentecostal church. (everyone refers to fellow Christians as brothers and sisters) The church is bigger then the one we attend with about a congregation of 200. We could sing along with the songs easily because they sing English songs that have been translated into Polish. But, the sermon on the other hand is a little more difficult. After the service we were invited to another pastors house, who is the pastor of a small Pentecostal church in Inowroclaw but lives in Bydgoszcz for some bigos, his wife is claimed to make the best. (polish traditional dish of cabbage and sausage) But this time we did not feel sick, and we ate helping after helping. I am determined to learn how to make this dish, so that all of you can have a sample of Polish cuisine. Then came out the 3 plates of dessert, poppyseed cakes, pineapple cakes and of course always served with lots of tea. (we have never drank so much tea in our lives). We were also able to help their children study for upcoming English tests. This weekend we were well-fed and shown an abundance of Polish hospitality.

Chris

Oh yeah, back home when we inquiring about this teaching job in Poland, we asked about the dress code, and we were told that teachers had to dress smart. So, I brought some skirts, and nice shirts along and Casey brought his suit and a couple dress shirts. But, when we were in Chicago he realized that he only had one tie, so we made a trip to a second-hand store and purchased some more ties. But, since we have been here, the dress code is more relaxed then we thought, so Casey ties haven’t made any appearances until this week. There is a questions in our teaching method that asks “Is it the fashion today to match your tie with your socks?”, so there were many students asking him this question when he showed up to teach.

Normal Things??

Sometimes new years is a good thing… yes, despite all of the commercialism and what not. Anyways, for whatever it is to you… a time to reflect, or just another excuse to have a few, it got Chris and me thinking about some of the things that seemed so strange and foreign to us only a couple months ago that now seem pretty normal…

First off… you know the rumor that Eastern Europe is grey? Well, it’s true. From the weather to the buildings. Have you heard how in the Inuit language there are around a hundred different words for “snow”? Well, I think the same might be true for “grey” in Polish.


“Pastelish-Easterish-Tackish” I think is the best way to describe the rest of Poland’s buildings. Well, not entirely true. We have found some very old and historic places that are pretty amazing compared to our relatively young prairie box stores we’re used to. It seems though that once communism left and people were free to spice up the massive grey looming flats, that they simply went to the paint store and were happy to take anything, long as it wasn’t a shade of grey, and apparently the only colors in stock were the “Pastelish-Easterish-Tackish” ones.

We’ve also gotten used to the idea that basically as soon as we walk out our door we are entering a big game of “charades”. We’ve come a long way from when we first landed in Warsaw and were kind of wandering around in a daze and in disbelief that people didn’t know English to where we are now. Yes, our hands definitely are busy trying to act everything out, and we are slowly picking up some Polish, but I don’t know if there’s been a time where we haven’t left a deli where we didn’t have to “mooo”, “oink” or “cluck” to get what we wanted.

And firecrackers, fireworks and more firecrackers. So since we’ve been here the sounds of firecrackers has gone from being a bit of a shock to where I don’t think we notice anymore. It turns out that people here, (I should say “hooligans” as they are referred to in Polish, which are young boys looking for something to do in the afternoon cause school here ends at 1) take their firecrackers pretty seriously and have been “practicing” for the last couple months getting ready for new years. And wow, new years. No, not the typical walk down to “the Forks” and watching a beautiful light show. More like chaos in the town square, as close as we’ve been to a war zone… with everyone half tipsy and lighting off their own little show trying to “out do” their buddy. Most would end up falling over in the snowbank and firing off towards people or would just be lit and then thrown at a crowd. Chris and me were hugging the wall pretty tight during all of this but I don’t think we stopped laughing the whole time.
Oh, another story to do with firecrackers. I think it was around the first week of December that we had a knock at our door (and its very rare that we get a knock, unless its our elderly neighbor telling us its our turn to mop the stairway…) anyways, there were three young boys singing Christmas carols.. yes, polish Christmas carols, and yes, the first week of December, but still nice nonetheless. So when they were done we said the one phrase we’ve learned “dziekuje” (jen-coo-yah) which is thank you, and closed the door. Well…. “knock knock”… more boys. So we realized that they wanted money for their little number, so we found some zlotys for them and they were off. After we figured out that this was the way they got money to buy firecrackers… little hooligans. Now we’ve learned how to use a “peephole” and to pretend we aren’t home.
(fireworks pics)

But we are glad to be back here in Inowroclaw, back working and back to a slightly more familiar place. We also figured out that its nicer typing out these blogs at home on our computer and then just transferring them online… which saves us some $$ and our pink lungs at the internet café. Ok, this is getting way too long.
Later…


the Gunshows!!!!

christmas out of a backpack...

well.... chris and me have made it back home. its a little strange that our little apartment here in inowroclaw feels like home, but it feels pretty good to be back. but here are some pictures from our trip... hope you like em, and you can click on them to make them bigger..
our trip started with a 4 hour train ride to the city of wroclaw. our bus left from there and it was fun cause we had a few hours to explore before we had to sit on the bus all night. the bus trip on the other hand was a little scary, well, sort of. i ended up feeling pretty sick (something to do with eating bigos from army dudes off of the street(a polish goulash of cabbage, spices, some kielbasa (atleast we think its kielbasa)), and nightmares of having to hurl on a packed bus was not the most pleasant thought.














Ok, its Chris now. Happy New Year to everyone! We had a great trip...and we can't tell you everything about it because this blog would be a novel nor show you all the pictures, so this is only a sample. But, I would suggest that everyone should go someday. The first picture is of one of the oldest resturants in Europe, it also shows some of the beautiful buildings that dorn the streets. The next picture of the colouful building is the Hundertwasser muesum. He is an artist from Vienna, started out as a painter and then designed buildings for the city and surrounding areas. His buildings have lots of colour, designs and plant life...they are very interesting to see and tour. Vienna does Christmas well, the streets have beautiful light displays, buskers on the street corners playing Christmas music, lots of hot punch sold in the streets and very quaint Christmas markets.
While we were in Vienna we got to see lots, but KC and I would agree that the best part was visiting with 'Auntie' Marne and Gisela and meeting other Canadians. We were throughly spoiled with presents and full stomachs. Gisela is an amazing cook and great artist so we got to sample some traditonal Viennese cooking as well as view her portfoilio of art work. They also took us to where Beethoven spent his summers composing music. Lots of history. We felt very blessed to spend Christmas with family.

ok, my turn again... so after another all night bus trip, of trying to sneak a few hours of sleep in, and trying to peer out the window at all of the scenery, we made it back to poland, to the city of krakow. we were greated with tonnes of snow! which made it feel more like christmas. this pic is of the big castle that used to house the royal family for centuries before the wars and the moving of the capital to warsaw.






here's a picture from our walk from our hostel to downtown. our hostel was pretty nice, and kind enough to let us in at 5 in the morninng when our bus got in an hour early.

while in krakow one hte the highlights was going to this massive underground salt mine. it was amazing, complete with statues, an underground cathedral, and of course, everything is made of salt. we were also pretty excited to find some chinese and mexican restaurants, something that we dont have here in inowroclaw.

so we kept seeing these big mound things on postcards so despite the snow we decided to make the long trek out to try to find one for ourselves. they were really strange, i guess built as a monument to some guy, and peoople from all over poland would bring dirt from where they lived in order to build it. suposedly the view is amazing, but as you can see, ours wasnt. oh well, i guess we have an excuse to go back. anyways, we hope all is well.

chris and kc