When in Poland... WEEK 1

When in Poland-read...

So it's Monday, June 24, 2013, and I have just arrived at the lovely airport of Warsaw. Let me just say that prior to coming on this trip I was pretty proud of myself for "de-cluttering" my closet and spaces around my home...or so I thought. Get rid of 4 bags of clothes and a bag of random junk and tell me you wouldn't feel fairly accomplished? As a result of my tedious down-sizing efforts I was only taking 1 large suitcase, a duffel bag, a backpack, and a laptop case. Two months in Poland, and I thought to myself, "Dang, that's impressive!" I was wrong. As soon I gathered all my luggage I soon realized I couldn't maneuver through the airport on my own. Seeing how there were no males to offer assistance, I used the next best thing - a cart. Call it unlucky, or just bad timing, but of all the luggage carts within the airport I get the cart that's jammed. I was just happy to find a cart as opposed to wrestling with my bags for the remainder of the walk while simultaneously also discovering what other body crevices I could sweat from. So here I was, 5'3, dragging a cart, and grinning to the confused Poles each time my cart made a squeaking/screech sound that sounded like a fart. As I was just nearing the finish line (airport exit doors) one nice man, in broken English/Polish, kindly pointed to the directions I had conveniently wrapped my hands around in attempts to drag my cart at a faster rate. After looking down for a short while I pushed down on my cart handle; the thing practically drove itself forward! Lesson learned folks, read the signs- they're there for a purpose lol.

Polish lessons + running = a productive day

Not going to lie about this one; Polish is tough. There are so many consonants it's ridiculous. Nonetheless, I'm very intrigued to learn. I've got the basics down (Hello, good morning, good afternoon, thank you), but there's still much to learn about Polish language in general. I intend to, and I will lol! After a 2 hr. Polish lesson I was fortunate enough to go for a run as the sun was setting, and this was the end result :-)

Down the river bend, Vistula's river bend that is :-p (Ps: I'm now a pierogi artisan, kinda) 

"Let's go canoeing," they said. And we were off to the Vistula river. It's not that I don't enjoy canoeing; I enjoy the outdoors, I really do. You see, water and I don't make for the most graceful encounters though. I've been kayaking before, and that was super fun. However, I practically capsized my partner's boat as I attempted to paddle at what I thought was a pretty rhythmic tempo. So here I am preparing to canoe in the Vistula river with my partner, Mishal (mind you, we were the two smallest brown girls there) and my own goal was to not flip the canoe over. Fast forward through 5 tree crashes and two miles later, and we have a successful canoe trip. It did not come without a price though. As result of a "successful" canoe trip, Mishal and I also kinda swam in the canoe as a result of our semi-coordinated rowing (See bottom picture for soggy shorts). The upside to this story is that I learned how to make pierogis. Hooray for me; one step closer to becoming a master chef!

We came, we saw, and... we met the mayor :-D

We had a really informative culture class in the morning. From food, religion, beliefs, views of Americans- our presenters gave us the inside scoop amongst the Polish people.

(Please excuse the cheer pose; we were pressed for time)

Shortly after we met one of the mayors of Poland. He was eager to have us, and even showed off his English skills by singing nursery rhymes!

To bring our day to a close we took a historic tour of the small, beautiful town of Maków Mazowiecki. I'm half convinced we walked through a forest that appeared in at least one of the Harry Potter films.

Ch-ch-eeck it out :-)

 And then it ended with a grilled apple.

Friday brings an exciting trip to Gdańsk which involves a visit to Europe's longest pier and a possible dip in the Baltic Sea (Pictures to come soon)

Happy Friday folks!