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!!!!