I can’t believe I’ve been here three months! Time really flies by. And it’s scary too, because I have plans until Christmastime- and then it’s January! Crazy. I really don’t remember everything from this past month, as life here is now completely normal- so I’ll do my best to remember everything.
Week #9: Life continued as it usually does- soccer three times a week, piano lessons, etc. I found out at my rotary meeting that my next host family will be located close to the city, and I will have older siblings living at home. I went to a gym a couple times during the week with Kaitlyn, a rotary student from Cooperstown who is a really, really good friend of mine now. During the weekend, Kaitlyn and I toured around Wroclaw, just getting to know our city a little better. We mostly walked around, but we also climbed a cathedral tower to view the city and we went to the zoo! The zoo was really cool, I was especially excited because there were wombats there. My host sister and her boyfriend, łukasz, were staying for the weekend too, so it was a full house! I love it when my host sister is here. Her name is Magda and she’s 27 years old. She’s really the greatest. She and łukasz took me to a pub to meet with two of her friends, and we drank coffee and between the five of us, we spoke English, French, Spanish and Polish. It was pretty cool.
Week #10: This week was pretty much devoted to laundry, buying food, and preparing for my EUROPEAN CAPITALS TOUR! School was the usual, except French class, which was pretty cool this week. This was the first week I was able to hear a Polish word and know it in French. My teacher would ask (in Polish) “How do you say ________ in French?” and I’m proud to say I could answer before the Polish students. They weren’t hard words in French but the fact that I recognized them in Polish and could then translate them into French was really an incredible feeling for me! My classmates were very surprised too. It was actually a weird French lesson because there were about 10 students who I’d never seen before in class. I asked the guy who sits next to me if they had just started the class, and he said no, they only come when they feel like it. Apparently this was a special day. We also took a test that day, and right in the middle of writing my essay (yes, an essay in French) one of the girls in my class shouted “Czekaj! Scad jestes?” (Wait! Where are you from?) I turned around, and when it was apparent that she was talking to me, I told her I was from New York, at which point she got really excited (I’m not going to break it to her, yet, that I don’t live in the city…haha). Then she asked me if I could count in Polish, and I said that I could but that we were taking a test. The teacher then said to everyone that the test was “on pause so that Addy could count.” And then everyone was silent and listened to me count to 50 in Polish. It was really weird. When I was done, we resumed the test.
Kaitlyn spent the night Friday and Saturday night at my house before the big trip. Saturday was All Saint’s Day, when Polish families visit graves of their relatives. My host mom was traveling across the country to visit her mother and wouldn’t be back before my trip so I couldn’t go with her. And my host father drove to another city and I wasn’t really invited to go with him, so Kaitlyn and I spent the day at home. We took a walk into the city in the afternoon looking for potatoes so we could make kluski. It was extremely eerie. There wasn’t any traffic, first of all. And there were no people in the city. No one. And, nothing was open. It was like a big cloud of “hush” was placed on the city. Ironically, the city felt dead. It was very weird.
Week #11: My eleventh week was spent touring Europe with the rotary group. No surprise that it was the best trip I’ve ever taken in my whole life. It included visiting Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden, Prague, Vienna,, Budapest and driving through Slovakia. I wish I could write about every detail (I always wish that) but I could write a whole separate update about just my trip. I will say that it was amazing to see Europe. My jaw literally dropped every day. It was moving to see the places I saw. I loved seeing my friends from Rotary, too. It was pretty funny- when I was in Germany, I went by Schneider and while in Hungary I went by Horvath. Everyone was pretty excited to meet me. Apparently (or according to the clerk at the tourist shop in Budapest), everyone there has that name so I fit right in.
Prague was definitely my favorite and it was the place where I was most “inspired” so to speak. There were so many buildings and they were so old! I was amazed and literally in awe with the architecture and age of everything. People throw around phrases such as “oh it’s only 400 years old” and think they’re being boring. Whereas in the US, we rarely get to hear 100 years old. I wish I’d had more time in each city, but the trip was fascinating. I think you’d get a better idea of my trip by looking at the photos- there’s too much to tell in words. Plus each pictures says 1,000 words anyway.
OH I would also like to say that I spent the ELECTION in Prague! I was very excited because the hostel had free wi-fi, but alas… the only night it’s ever been broken was the night of the US Election. I was heartbroken. I think by election day, everyone wanted to kill me and they were all very careful not to mention anything that could possibly relate to the election because I would break out in song. I made sure to wear my Obama shirt on November 4th and I checked bright and early (7AM) on the hostel’s computer to see the results. I was very relieved, and SO HAPPY! I even have a newspaper from the Czech Republic about the Election that an exchange student bought for me. The nicest gift I’ve ever received, honestly. That’s the only thing I wanted in Prague, was a newspaper about the election, and I couldn’t find one. But right before we left the Czech Republic, he saw one in a petrol station and bought it for me!
Week #12: The last day of my trip, we left Budapest at 4 in the morning and rode the bus through Slovakia and into Poland, so I was exhausted. I had a big surprise waiting for me at home, though! A week ago, Kaitlyn and I were riding a bus home from Polish lessons when a woman came up to us and asked “Girls, where are you from?” When we answered New York, she said “beautiful!” She then explained that she was a student at the University studying journalism, and had an assignment due the next day entitled: How Americans View Wroclaw. She asked if we had time for an interview, and we answered that time is ALL we had. We decided to meet in an hour, and then met with her for an hour or so over coffee while she interviewed us about our views on her city. She spoke English very well, so there was no language barrier. She even had a professional photographer come and take about a million photos of us. The newspaper (actually, 10 of them) was waiting for me when I got home. It was really exciting. Kaitlyn and I later had my host mom translate the article to us and we were literally hysterical, it was so funny. The journalist spun our words a little (or maybe that’s an understatement) so we were said to have said some pretty hilarious stuff. It was still a nice article, just really funny for us.
Because Tuesday was Independence Day in Poland, there was a Rotary banquet on Monday night. Most of the Rotary students went and five of us did small presentations. Mine went very well- I’m really happy with my progress thus far. I introduced myself, told my age, where I was from, my interests, I talked about my sisters. I made a small error, however. Instead of saying “I am interested in classical music, sports and politics” I said “I am interested in classical music, sports and a male politician.” The endings of words are so confusing in Polish! I had wondered why everyone laughed when I said my interests but it wasn’t until later when my host mom told me what I had said that I understood. I also sang the national anthem, which people seemed to enjoy.
It took the whole week to recover from my trip- I hadn’t really slept in a week. I spent the week again doing laundry, running, and learning Polish. My host mom is now teaching me what she calls the “key” to the Polish language. It’s all about cases, conjugations and such. It’s really hard though, and I get very frustrated because we have no equivalent in English so I have nothing to compare it to.
Something really odd happened Friday, also. I had a mind explosion. I came home from having dinner with a few friends and didn’t speak English. I just started speaking Polish and things just came out of my mouth that I didn’t know I knew. It was literally a mind explosion. I could say everything I wanted to in Polish! Though it wasn’t perfect grammar and not nearly perfect Polish, it was still NOT English. I even opened my journal to write and instinctively wrote in Polish. Weird. I loved it! I was basically high on Polish. The next day when a rotary student called me, I again spoke in Polish and they had to ask me to please speak English. It was hard though! Words kept coming out in Polish and I couldn’t remember the English words I wanted to say! It’s coming, it’s coming.
Oh and another thing- I am no longer going on my Ukraine trip, which stinks. The company decided to tell me less than a week before the trip that the trip was being moved a week later. That was okay- I could live with that. But then they decided to tell me yesterday that the starting point of the trip is now different, so I have no way to get there.
In the coming weeks, I’m traveling a bit around Poland and then coming home for a rotary meeting in my city! Then I have a week of baking to do, because I’m having American Thanksgiving for my family and some friends… 2 weeks late, but whatever. It’s also going to be like a birthday party because it’s my Name Day. I’m pretty excited.
Then is Christmas! I’m so excited to celebrate Christmas in Poland! It’s going to be so different and so awesome! After Christmas, I’m going to Italy for a week to go skiing! Then I switch host families (I found out who they were, by the way, and I’m happy). My host mom and I are going to speak with the director of my school and see if I can be in a different class for the second semester. The class I’m in right now is okay, but I get along with older students and I already have a few friends in the older class.
So I know that this update maybe wasn’t as detailed as the others have been, and maybe not even as exciting to read. But the longer I live in Poland, the more normal everything is and things don’t stick out as much to me. I can’t believe how fast the time is flying though. I hope it starts to go by more slowly, because I need more time to learn about Poland and learn Polish. Until month four!
Pictures from the Europe Capitals Trip:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49253&l=a2726&id=542531657
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49385&l=49730&id=542531657
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49429&l=95cb9&id=542531657
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49432&l=01a8b&id=542531657
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49463&l=751fa&id=542531657
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49479&l=1a32d&id=542531657
Prague!
Posted by rotarygirl 