"To our queen..."

The words spoken by my Monday teenage boys, as they presented me with Polish pastries for International Women's Day. Awwww.

I'm happy to report that I cannot remember the last morning that I was not woken by the sun. Come on, spring!

Last Wednesday, I totally did my pig noise for my adult class. Why, WHY??? (Perhaps it was the knowledge that Heather's moose call was such a success in her class!) They were impressed!

On Saturday, Heather and I went out for sushi (in Radom) and then to the movies. Whoa - we actually went out! The power went out while we were at dinner...there was no apology or explanation on behalf of the staff. Nothing. They carried on as if nothing had happened. Standard Saturday night practice? Is this what we have been missing every weekend? I saw one of my adult students at the restaurant - she also happens to be the mother of one of my kiddies. It made me really feel like a teacher, to have a student see me "out" and perhaps think, "ok, so my teacher has some sort of life!" Haha. As we left the movie theatre, I saw her again! Apparently we had the same idea. P.S. We saw Alice in Wonderland. I found it so very magical. Alice was so perfectly pure. Save one minor detail (I won't tell you), I loved the film.

On Monday there was a parent meeting with one of my classes and the Polish teacher. I just sat and looked at all the mothers, and could clearly see which child belonged to which mother. I was also observed by one of the directors in another class. She said it was excellent. *phew*

I think I have become English College's new project/guinea pig. I have yet to hear back about this teaching in Lipsko plan with the company I gave a demo lesson to a couple weeks back. Now, I am being told that on Tuesdays and Wednesdays there will be a "Leah reads to the kids" session - a time where students can come and listen to stories. Haha It could be fun, as long as it doesn't turn into some sort of after-school babysitting thing. Man oh man, they are trying everything to give me more hours!

Damsels in distress

Flat. Tire.

Driving to Koz today with Eva and Gosia (my Friday Polish friends/colleagues) we had to pull over due to a spontaneous flat tire on the oh-so-trusty company car. So we pulled over in the middle of the middle of nowhere, Poland. LUCKILY we were able to do so in one of the few clearings there are on the tree-lined roads leading to Kozieniece. We also happened to be across from a petrol station...if you can even call it that. The three of us get out of the car, waving our cell phones around, desparately trying to get reception. As soon as Gosia does, she calls one of the bosses to let her know the situation. Our boss has to teach and her husband is at the mechanic himself, so she sends one of her friends who lives nearby to check out the situation. In the mean time, three (very well-built and macho-looking) men - ahem, perfect numbers, anyone? - walk over to assess the damage. They hear me speaking English and ask the girls if I am on vacation/what I am doing here. I tell them (in Polish) that I am a teacher and I'm Canadian. The rest was all Greek to me, but according to the girls, I amused them. Meanwhile, the school in Koz was alerted to our late arrival. The men thought we should cancel all our classes and grab drinks with them. Anyways, our boss' friend comes by and sees that all is well and these other now three plus one men have got it under control. They're laughing and joking and doing all the dirty work as the three of us watch. The spare tire we had in the trunk actually doesn't match the other three tires - swell eh? - and the others haven't been changed in years. Really nice and helpful guys and overall a hilarious experience. We were only an hour late to work. Would it be funny on our ride home?? Totally not.

I've started a new game that I like to play. I don't have a name for it, but it involves me and the hairdresser women who work in the same building as the Radom school. You see, they like to smoke INSIDE the building. It's disgusting. Whenever I see them in the act, I glare and cough and stomp my feet as I walk by. This week, I haven't seen them, but I have seen the plastic cup filled with water and cigarette butts just sitting inside. So, when I arrive at the building, I put the cup outside. It has been SO mild out. There is no reason for them to smoke inside. There is no reason for them to smoke inside regardless. I had to run an errand on Tuesday and when I got back to the school building, the cup was back inside. So I moved it out again. Wednesday, the same. Thursday, the cup was nowhere to be found. Coincidence? Probably. Even so, I felt good.

My Wednesday 8-year-olds were in the mood for dancing. I told them that if they finished the activity then we could do the Macarena together. We did. And I sang.

Other musical highlights from this week include the Cure's Friday I'm in Love, Abba's Dancing Queen, and the Beatles' Yellow Submarine.

Forgot to mention the mountain that was climbed trying to order pizza over the phone last weekend...I called and the people on the line kept passing me off to speak to someone new. No one wanted to speak to the anglo! There was hysterical laughing on both ends. So ridiculous.

Like I said to Heather the other day, I am just waiting for someone to jump out of nowhere and say, "Gotcha!" This experience just seems so nutty at times...Ok. I think that's enough out of me for now!

Victory

It's another fresh and sunshine-filled day. I'll take it.

You'll (hopefully) be happy to hear that I graciously accepted Sidney Crosby's marriage proposal. Seriously though, what a proud proud Canadian moment. I was lucky to find live streaming online to watch the game (although it took me the first two periods to find a working link); I really only saw the third and overtime periods. I was on the Vancouver 2010 website though, for live updates, and Heather was on Skype to keep me posted, reacting to both highs and lows. I must have woken my neighbours with my screaming, shortly before midnight on Sunday, as with the time change, that's when I saw Sid the kid score the gold-medal goal. I can't imagine the energy that must have filled Canada's streets and skies at that very moment. I sure wish I could have been in the country for it. Nevertheless, I'm quite excited to be introduced into the hockey world, you know, with the engagement and all. If it doesn't work out with Sid and me, I'm hoping he can introduce me to Cam Ward....

Last Friday I went to Lipsko, a town about an hour from Radom, to teach (with my boss) a demo lesson at a construction company. My boss did the first part of the lesson, and I, the second. With me, I wanted them to practice the questions that my boss had revised with them, to find out information about me. Rather than sticking to the set questions, however, I was asked things like, "Why are you in Poland?" "What do you do in your free time?" "How old are you?" "Do you like Polish men?" (Hardly) (N)ever a dull moment. It's still not confirmed yet whether or not I will be teaching here on a regular basis...oh English College. Don't get me started.

"Leah, what is the beach where you don't wear?", asked one of my power plant men on Friday. Ahh yes, a nude beach. This class was also filled with talk of "in sexy clothes", "I sleep naked" (to which I walked out of the class), all because the textbook section was about "a girl's night out". Always a laugh (or ten) with this group.

After speaking with a friend on the weekend, I realised that some things I see every day here, I don't really think about. However, saying them out loud to someone not living here, they sound quite strange. What I am referring to are the women of the forest. On Mondays and Fridays when I go to Kozienice, I always see women, wearing fishnets and tall boots, standing along the side of the road. The road, a single-lane back road, is lined with trees and forest. The women separate themselves, and stand alone. Friday was especially busy, with the nice weather. Me and the Polish teachers I drive with were so tempted to pull over and ask them some questions:
-is this a reliable source of income? -who stops for these women? -how do they get there? -where do they come from? -do they have tents on hand? -what are the hours like?
Such a curious thing.

Heather and I baked up a storm on Saturday afternoon. SO MANY PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES! Please don't ask how many are left. (Big thanks again to Elise for the recipe!!)

My 4 and 5 year olds' behaviour has been slowly on the decline as of late. They really like to run around and turn the overhead fan on and off. Yesterday I introduced a sticker chart. They get a sticker for, say, opening their books, or answering a question, or working quietly. Let me tell you, as soon as one student has more stickers than another, all the others are at attention because they want one too. SUCH a 180. We accomplished so much! Not sure why I didn't do this before...I know it's not rocket science, but I was so much happier after that class yesterday!

On Monday, my teens were so great as to indulge me on their thoughts about their religious education system, and their thoughts on the church as an institution.

I apologise if my classroom tales are not that exciting, but this is my life right now. Travel is limited, as I am saving for some trips - Riga in April, Berlin in May, and Italy for June/July. Lots to look forward to! I am also currently applying for jobs in South Korea for an August or Septemeber start...! I will keep you posted! xo

Missed the memo...

...on animal print. Two of my adult women students came to class today clad in zebra-print turtlenecks. The one 30-something diva woman is sassy and fun though, so she made a good joke of it. I really have a great time with my Wednesday adult group. There is such an upbeat vibe, lots of jokes and sillies. And the diva always brings something to the table. She made some comment today that she and two other females "love Peter" (one of the guys in the class). I pipe in, "Me too!" because I thought she said something else, pertaining to the text/lesson that we were doing! Hahah We had a good chuckle about that.

My 11-year-olds got really into the Romeo and Juliet lesson yesterday. In their texts, it's a a cheesy and light-hearted version, sans death, and they got really excited about the roles plays I had them do. One of the boys especially likes playing the Juliet part, while one of the girls pulls off a convincing Romeo. Both of them full of passion in their voices, hearts swelled, "Oh Romeo. Your words are like a book. I looooooove you." "Oh Juliet. You are my star. I love you and you love me. Let's get married!" They were so in character! Beautiful.

This just in. Starting next Wednesday until the end of the school year (assuming the demo lessons on Friday go well), I will be teaching two business groups, an hour outside of town. I will get a ride and receive a bus budget for those days when no one can take me, teach for a couple of hours, then return to Radom to teach my classes there. An 11-12 hour day will be in my future on a weekly basis. Not ideal, but it could be worse. I'll use this time for reading and Italy research/planning (as I'll be meeting mom there at the end of my contract)!

As for the Olympics, GO CANADA GO!

What is this thing called sun?

Do you know what I have woken up to the past four days? SUN!! GLORIOUS SUN!! Do you know how RARE that is here?

Thank you, Heather, for clarifying my long-lived past/passed dilemma. I can now sleep restfully at night.

It's a hot hot hot 7 degrees here right now. Just got back from the gym (yes, I've signed up for another three months). It must be the spring thaw or something, because the bar beside the gym was hopping this morning, all the regulars back to their standing post outside the venue. One of them used to be at the gym all the time, so he said hello, as I had to walk through the pack of men. An hour later when I finished, they were still all standing there. Once I was about 50 meters away from them, they started shouting "have a nice day" at me...they wouldn't stop so I waved to acknowledge them. Oh, Radom.

Perhaps I am being too optimistic, but I really hope this weather will stick around, and that the last of winter is fading away. I'm itching to get my runners on! However, it is still February, and I should know better.

Heather and I had an EVENTFUL weekend. Saturday we went grocery shopping to get all the fixings for Heather's delicious chili recipe. Then we marathoned through five of the six Harry Potter films. We had intended to watch all six, but we started too late in the day, and alas, will have to complete the series this upcoming weekend. We had some surprises for each other (as we hadn't seen each other since parting ways in Bristol after Spain!). WE GAVE EACH OTHER THE SAME THINGS - Mini Eggs and oatmeal (thanks, Karina, I had to share the love). Nuts. We are nuts.

Sunday we went to the cinema in Radom. I know. Really branching out. We saw "Valentine's Day" and had the theatre to ourselves. Yey! Cute movie. Really cute.

And here it is Tuesday already!

Moments

I saw way too many leopard print-clad Polish women today than I care to see. Thank you, Radom.

Two men stopped to talk to me on my way to work today. Strange.

It's Ash Wednesday. Perhaps that explains my 4/9 attendance in one of my classes this evening? It was my 9-year-olds...they are ALWAYS all present. It was nice though. They were extra wonderful. One of the weakest students really excelled today and it made my heart smile. He was excellent!

Walking down the street in Munich with Kathleen on Saturday morning, we passed two people. After crossing paths, the guy and I dramatically turned around to face each other, at the same time. We both turned away, then a couple paces later did the exact same thing. I realized that we recognized each other from our Bristol - Munich flight. Insignificant, I know, but a moment, nonetheless. It's usually me that remembers faces. It was nice it was mutual.

Heather and I had THE BEST ORANGES EVER from a grocer in Bilbao. We ate them while in the car. I almost lost control of the wheel because I orgasmed in my mouth.

Planes, trains, and automobiles

And buses.

Hello, Dali. Spending our last day in Spain at the Dali Museum in Figueres was the perfect way to end our Spanish adventure. So crazy talented, this one. I loved it all, and was especially loving his rock works from 1978. I also couldn't get enough of "Gala naked watching the sea..."

Far away and close-up!

I am very proud of Heather and myself. We were awesome road trippers. Heather was an excellent navigator, and I was (mostly) confident behind the wheel - parking is not my forte. Rock solid tunes, cheese and baguette, a trip to remember. Clocked a solid 1645km on the road trip portion of our journey over five days - Barcelona to Santiago to Compostela. Stops included a night in Torla, at the base of the Pyrenees mountains - where the town, pop. 7, knew we had arrived as I had driven the too-narrow single climbing street in search of our hostel, only to have to back up because two cars needed to leave. This involved two Spanish men taking their turn at the wheel, as clearly, doing such a reverse on such tight and descending roads is not in my comfort zone, and these people had places to go. I was a stress case, and Heather, though supportive (thanks dear), had a good chuckle. I was able to smile once the whole ordeal was through. Getting there was our first stretch of driving, just over 300km, which involved leaving Barcelona (we successully got out of the bustling city) and winding mountain roads, in the dark. We came across a rare species, the geep shoat (shoat, as the locals call it), standing in the middle of the pitch black road. We had a good chuckle about that. And we had this middle-of-nowhere hostel to ourselves. It was so cosy and cabin-like, and provided us with a solid rest, before our three consecutive nights of sleeping in the car. The next day, en route to San Sebastian, we picnic-ed in Pamplona. Unfortunately, no bull sightings.

I could live in San Sebastian. It's the perfect combination of mountains and seaside, sun and surf. Big enough, but not too large. A diverse population of young and old, everyone happy to be out and about. Ahh.

We spent some time in Bilbao after San Sebastian. Perhaps it's all relative, but this wasn't so much our scene. Look at the circumstances though - we had just left San Sebastian, and we were going on our third day of sleeping in the car. The Guggenheim was a DEFINITE highlight though. There was a Frank Lloyd Weber exhibition, in addition to the other fabulous displays (favourites include Bird Effort - Pollock, Stables - Franz Marc, Newspaper and Fruit Dish and Houses in Paris - both Gris, and Landscape with Rolling Hills - Kandinsky), and the architecture and building itself. Such sensual curves - modelled after Frank Gehry's subconscious fascination with fish. The titanium (scales?) on the building's exterior was created just so, such that light reflects it a certain way. No detail goes unnoticed eh? "The Matter of Time" exhibit is such a psychological trip...messing with your perception and balance as you wander the curves and toruses and spheres and ellipses and spirals...the physics just boggles my mind.

Our biggest driving stretch was Bilbao to Carballo, about 700km or so. We did this starting around 4:30 one afternoon, driving well into the night. We couldn't resist stopping in a tiny town to dramatically run into the Bay of Biscay. Refreshing. The next morning we drove about another hour, to Fisterra, Costa de la Muerte, the coast of death and the end of the world. We hiked to the peak, with lighter and clothing in tow, with plans to perform the ceremonial burning and cleansing of the soul. It was really more a metaphorical cleansing of the soul for us in the end, as our concern for safety and the environment took over. Views and feelings that go on forever...and of course a stop to run into the Atlantic ocean was a must as well.

Sleeping in a car went something like this: night one - just outside San Sebastian. We found a small port village, and checked it out. We had pulled over at one point to check our map. The police did not like this, so we decided to leave that area. We ended up finding a parking lot just off of the highway. It was a nervous first night in the car, and both of us had nightmares. The second night we found an industrial area outside of Bilbao. There were other cars around, and it was a success. The third night we opted to check out another industrial area, just outside of Carballo. We had parked and were in our pjs, just shutting our eyes, when a car flashed it's headlights, signalling us to get out. I didn't even get a chance to put my shoes back on...we just beelined it out of there. Eesh! We drove around, so exhausted, trying to find an alternative. We settled on something obvious - a spot in a Carrefour/gas station lot. We figured we would look less troublesome since we weren't trying to hide. So we finally got to sleep by about 1am. Around 6am, we get a wake-up call, via headlights from a police car behind us. Correction, Heather gets a wake-up call and desparately tries to get me to come to. The next thing we know the cop is shining a flashlight into the car. Shoot. Heather frantically grabs our map and her translation dictionary, and opens the door with a heart-breaking "no comprende!". Of course, nothing has been said yet, and the officer smiles and says "Buenos dias?" Heather explains in purposely-broken Spanish complete with actions, just to ham it up as she had actually studied the language in Uni, that we had been driving for a very long time and were too tired to continue and had to pull over to sleep. He is very friendly and understanding, and points us to a place less than 100m from us, that it is legal for us to park. *PHEW!* So we relocate and get some more sleep.

Giving the car up in Santiago to Compostela was bittersweet. It provided such freedom, our own timeline for travel, our living space in the back seat, but all the one-way streets in our final city were enough to drive us bonkers, so it was a fond farewell in the end. With only a few minor directional hiccups (thank goodness for multiples goes around the roundabouts), it was a definite success. And Heather and I haven't killed each other!

Before our 3 helpings of paella, we had some time in Bristol and Bath in England (both of which I could easily live in as well). We arrived on virtually no sleep, as we hopped on an overnight bus out of Radom, right after work, on the Friday of our holidays. It took us to Wroclaw to fly to Bristol. Our ambitious sight-seeing plan got wiped and we ended up spending our first day at a pub, sampling the many wonderful local ciders. And eating pie and mash. Our second day was more productive, as we made our way to Bath, and got a tour of the surrounding area and Stonehenge. We made a stop in Lacock, and saw Harry Potter's house, and walked the streets of (Colin Firth's) Pride and Prejudice, and The Other Boleyn Girl. We saw Peter Gabriel's house on the way too.

Then we flew to Girona. (M-m-m-my Girona!) We stayed half a day wandering, then headed to Barcelona. Ah sunshine. Thank you Spain. Such a treat. We spent what felt like the better part of that day plotting how to get to oranges down from the trees...how juicy and perfect they looked. We jumped. We threw sticks. Heather climbed on my back. We looked for a ladder. Fail.

Barcelona's fabulous. It's vibrant, the market on La Rambla is awesome, there's water and palms. We weren't feeling the club-style nightlife however. Of course we ended up befriending some Scots and Irish and went out with them one night, but we stuck to the pub scene. Heather chopped her hair, we shopped unnecessarily, we ate, it was a good time.

Five flights later, I ended my winter break in Munich, to visit Kathleen (high school friend)! Of course the one time I miss one of my train connections is when I am meeting up with someone and the battery in my cell-phone has died. It all worked out though. I stayed with Kathleen in Bad Worishofen the first night, where she is the au-pere to a delightful family of four kids, who own an inn. We went out for dinner and caught up, and every so often would catch ourselves and say, "Oh my goodness. We're hanging out in Germany!" For lunch the next day, her host grandmother made kasespatzle...it was sooooooooooo good. Then Kath and I headed to Munich for a night out. We checked into our hostel, grabbed some dinner, grabbed some beer, hung out, then headed out to a club. It was a wonderful night for sure. Saturday we wandered, and enjoyed the city, until we had to part ways. I took an overnight train from Munich to Vienna, Vienna to Warsaw, and arrived back in Radom, just this morning. Felt like I was away for a long time. Very nice. Oh. And I read two books.

The Spanish are a lovely people - so friendly and happy and laid back. The German train system can't be beat. When I missed my second connection, I had to train further then backtrack. The conductor was so nice and told the train I had to catch that there was a mix-up (I had been travelling for about 24 hours at this point, on little sleep, and thought I only had one transfer, not two) and not to charge me another ticket. Polish rail, on the other hand (see stories in previous posts), will do ANYTHING to get more money from you.

Happy Valentine's day to all. Love. xo