It was a gray August day

It seems like a lifetime ago, that gray August day I arrived in Poland for the first time. The whole long plane ride from New York or was it Newark, I can’t even remember now, I kept thinking What am I doing? This is crazy. I looked over for reassurance at the three other American folks I met at the airport but they looked as unsure as I did. The plane was also pretty under-booked. This doesn’t bode well, I thought, nobody wants to go there, so why am I going there? I was really tired from the two domestic flights it took me to get to NY. No one in my family would drive me to the airport :( Fortunately, I had two seats to myself to spread out, but I was still uncomfortable. A reason for my discomfort may have been my shoes, cowboy boots! Yes, I was wearing cowboy boots, but not the fashion kind, the real ride- on-a-horse kind. I must have looked like such an arse, a totally conspicuous American out and about in the world.

After about 9 or so hours, we reached our 1st destination, Warsaw, and collected in our new survival group - 2 sisters destined for the City (Curly and Red), me destined for a small town and the Man of our group destined for a town about half-way between the City girls and me. We began searching for the domestic terminal. We looked all around the ground floor of the airport and couldn’t find it. We packed all of us and our luggage for one year into the elevator and went upstairs hoping it was up there, but it wasn’t. We packed ourselves and our stuff all back inside the elevator and went down to the information desk. Unfortunately, no one working on that shift could speak English and we were not adept enough at foreign language charades to get our message across. Finally Red wanted to have a cigarette. I stepped outside with her. We both leaned our backs against the building in silence but surely thinking the same thought - what are we doing here? I turned to look at her and say something when I saw it - DOMESTIC TERMINAL. I forgot what I was going to say and cheered triumphantly that we had found it, accidentally but who’s counting? To get from the main airport to the domestic terminal (which is all located in the same building) you had to go outside and come back in another door. Triumphant I was, but I felt a little like Mr. Bean.

Our next challenge was to get on the right plane. The domestic terminal had one waiting room which all flights boarded from. At that time, they did not give you a boarding pass and there was no sign to indicate which flight was boarding. The only way of knowing that your flight was boarding was to listen to the loud-speaker announcement. Imagine the Charlie Brown teacher wah, wah, wah-wah-wah waaaah but now in Polish. We couldn’t understand anything. We devised a plan. Most people had their tickets out. We decided to split up and sidle up to different passengers until we found one going to the same place we were going. When the Man finally found somebody, he gave the thumbs up and we diligently watched that passenger’s every move until we were safely on the plane. You may think that this is very funny or even sad but a teacher from the same program who was headed to Wrocław (which used to be Breslau) got off the train in Breclav in the Czech Republic and almost didn’t make it for the first day of school.

With all that activity, I had almost not even noticed that it was cold, gray and raining in the middle of August. On the short flight, I stared out the window wondering if the weather was always like that, what my town would be like, if I would make any friends, if I would do a good job teaching English at high school, if I would be able to learn Polish, where I would live, if I could survive on a teacher’s salary, etc. I also wondered why I had not thought about any of that prior to coming to Poland. There is such a thing as selective memory. Is there selective worrying? The plane landed, and we anxiously collected our carry-on bags. We got off the plane to the still cold and gray day and found that we were on the tarmac with, as far as I could tell, no airport in sight. We (I mean the whole plane of passengers) stood around unsure of what to do when the flight attendant shouted something at us from the door of the plane and pointed in the direction of 2 buildings which I will call barracks to be polite. There was a bigger one and a smaller one. We headed off in the direction of the bigger one which we figured had to be the airport. That caused the flight attendant to start screaming again pointing to the smaller building. (She probably wasn’t actually screaming but when you don’t understand a language you get the impression that everyone is screaming or fighting.) We headed in that direction and it was quite a way away.

We finally made it and each of us found our contact teachers right away because then there was no barrier between arrival/baggage claim and the waiting room. An English/German teacher and her husband were waiting for me. After some time, our baggage arrived but there was no carousel so it was a free for all of people tearing the bags off of the trailers. I got my things as did my new friends and we departed as if we had known each other for years and we may never see each other again. We gave heartfelt promises that we would find each other again somehow. Sounds dramatic but give me a break. I was really tired and I was wearing cowboy boots. We packed into the car and I began the journey to my new life for the next year.

I had no idea what to expect.

Parenting Tips

As mother of 2 small children, I have learned some things about myself and about parenting in these past couple of years. Surprising, since I feel that I am actually losing brain capacity due to sleep deprivation. (Rosie could work for the CIA.) I suppose that the parental learning process never ends and that is kind of scary. When will I figure it all out? As I mentioned at the top, I have learned some things not everything. Here are some of the things I have learned. These tips are not comprehensive and are not in any particular order and will stop as soon a I have to take dinner out of the oven.

#1 Take the plastic off of the cheese before giving it to the child.

#2 Playdough is a major food group for 1-year- olds. Don’t turn your back (to write your blog, for example) on a 1-year-old armed with a handful of the stuff. It will soon become a mouthful.

#3 Children cannot be allowed to bark orders at parents.

Misiu has taught Lizzie to ask for something in this manner, “Something to drink, please. Daddy, I love you”. “Cartoon at work (she means Cartoon Network), please. Daddy, I love you”. Sometimes she is so excited she forgets to add what she is asking for and comes out with a quick “Please, Daddy, I love you” which is also a nice, if not sneaky, way to get your kid to tell you that they love you a few times each day.

#4 Teach children to respect breakable items that are on low shelves

…but put the valuable ones (sentimental or otherwise) somewhere out of reach. We had a glass candy dish from the 1926 World’s Fair in Berlin. It was left in our house when we bought it and most likely was originally left there by the German family that was removed from this part of then Germany, now Poland after WW2. It survived the new Polish family which had 6 children only to be smashed to pieces by my Rosie. Here’s the bottom part that is left.

#5 Teach your child a foreign language from birth.

If you have such a possibility, it is a fantastic thing to do for your child. Believe me, I know. I teach English to adults and every last one wishes they had started to learn earlier.

I never imagined that I would have bi-lingual children. Me, a rural Pennsylvanian girl whose closest encounter with foreigners was meeting Amish kids at the market ;) But alas, it has happened and practically without any effort.

While pregnant with Lizzie, I read up on all the latest information I could find about bringing up bi-lingual children. Most authors recommended that each parent speak to the child in their own native language. That’s how we began, with me speaking English only which makes sense because my Polish isn’t very good and Misiu speaking Polish only although his English is excellent. We were prepared to wait a long time for Lizzie’s first words. That’s what most of the literature suggested but around her 1st birthday she started speaking and she started in English. It was no surprise because she spent most of her time with me.

We have 2 children now and we have changed our tactics a little bit. Misiu speaks to the girls more in English as we see that they lack contact with the language. I never ignore the girls when they use Polish but I encourage them to speak English more. Lizzie mixes the two languages, but usually consciously for fun. At the beginning, she learned that there are 2 languages in a very concrete way. If you ask Nanny for chocolate, you get nothing. If you ask Nanny for czekolada, you get chocolate. She also knows that she can ask Mommy for either czekolada or chocolate and she will get…nothing. Through trial and error, she started to distinguish the words that got her what she wanted in different situations. I think also the brain sorts out the different language sounds and patterns easily at this age. Sometimes when Lizzie doesn’t know a word in one language, she asks us. Lizzie understands that some people know Polish, some English and some both. Recently, she was surprised to find out that I don’t know German. She thought her parents know all languages. Rosie’s understanding of both languages is very good so far but she’s not a big talker yet. She’s doing what Lizzie did, choosing the word which she is more familiar with or the one that is easier to say. Babcia or Baba is easier to say than Grandma (and it doesn’t help that Grandma is on another continent and has never met her grandchildren, sniff, sniff).

Some language hits:

Tatuś + Daddy = Daduś

żelek (singular) żelki (plural) gummy bears or other gummy treats = in Lizzie speak żelk and żelks

I will never sprząt all the mess. sprzątać=to clean

I want to syp out the toy box. sypać=pour out

raspberries are witaminki :0) that was taught by the girls’ nanny. so cute.

I need a break because my nogs hurt. nogi = legs

Moja mama mówi English. My mother speaks English.

Idziemy na soccer place. We are going to the soccer place.

I kop-ed a dziureczka in the sandbox. dig and hole

The cake is piek-ed. pieczone = baked

We can magic the car, I think but it will not uda. (succeed) My hands are not magically.

More to come!

Ain’t no sunshine when you’re gone

I like to read the newspaper everyday, actually several if I can find the time, in Polish and in English. Spending a lot of time with two little kids, I need to keep in touch with the outside world for my own sanity. In Polish, I usually pick up Gazeta Wyborcza because it provides general news, and I like Thursday’s supplement Duży Format and Saturday’s magazine Wysokie Obcasy. You could say that I am regular reader. That said, I have never grabbed my copy, looked at the headline and thought oh my, I have to read that, until today (which was actually last week) with this headline: “Już nie kochamy Ameryki” (“We don’t love America anymore”). Why not, I ask, why not?

The article has data from a research study to back up the claims that, in fact, it is true (sniff, sniff).

The article:

http://wyborcza.pl/1,75248,7018159,Juz_nie_kochamy_Ameryki.html

The research institution:

The German Marshall Fund of the United States http://www.transatlantictrends.org/trends/

President Barak Obama is said to be more popular than former president George W. Bush was, but considering that W. was hugely unpopular that is not saying much, and the general fall in support of the US which started during the George W. era remains in effect today. I think that maybe the fact that Poland and Polish soldiers have supported the US in Iraq and Afghanistan and have died there while Polish citizens still need a visa to visit the US may also have something to do with our weakened relations. Misiu says that being treated as a second class citizen/poor relation is getting a bit irritating. According to this article, military participation in Iraq and Afghanistan has also increased pacifist views among Poles. What, WW1 and WW2 weren’t enough? The article also suggests that the difficult negotiations between Poland and the US concerning the US’s request to build an anti-missile defense system on Polish land may have contributed to the worsening relations and that generally Poles (I almost wrote we!) are losing faith in both the US and in NATO.

I am American and I have a healthy patriotic attitude. I am not fanatical, but I am proud. I remember as a school girl praying to God (it was Catholic school) to give our thanks that we had not been born French or German or Spanish. Seriously.We thought that it must be just plain awful not to be American. After saying the daily Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, at my school we added the phrases “God Bless America and keep it safe”. That is a nice sentiment but it was a kind of “screw you” to the rest of the world, just keep us safe. Ok it was the cold war time, and I think our teachers were a bit revved up. We also had to do a lot drills at school like the fire drill (close all the windows before exiting the classroom), severe storm drill (under your desk and hug your knees), and nuclear war drill (under your desk and hug your knees…they forgot to add, kiss your arse good-bye). My husband who was a Polish school boy at the same time felt proud to be Polish, but he was aware that there was something wrong with the system, that they weren’t free. His small protest was to listen to the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe. They didn’t have fire drills or severe storm drill or even nuclear war drills. After the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor meltdown, Misiu and all the kids of Poland were given Potassium iodide liquid to drink to protect their thyroids from the radiation and hopefully prevent thyroid cancer. Let’s pray that it worked.

If Poland has fallen out of love with America, that means that at one time Poland must have actually been in love with America, but why? Just because we think we are the best doesn’t mean that everyone else has to. Maybe it is because just about every Polish person has got a family member or members in America. According to wikipedia, there are about 10 million people in the US that identify themselves as Polish American, one of them being my father whose grandparents (my great-grandparents) came through Ellis Island in the early 20th century. Misiu says that it can be because America symbolized a true, free democracy when his country was not free. Maybe it was also the role of Ronald Reagan and his talks with Pope John Paul II (who was Polish) in helping to bring down communism in Poland. It can also be the idea of the American dream that through hard work you can achieve success because during PRL the best success was to be had by being clever not necessarily by working hard. Maybe it was because $20 was a whole months salary and when your wujek (uncle) from America sent you a ten-er you were a gość, a real somebody and you could go to Pewex (shop selling western goods paid for in western currency only) and buy yourself some jeans.

It can also be the soap opera view of America that we broadcast all over the world. Dynasty and other American soap operas were a window into an American life that for most American people did not exist. (Do you mud-wrestle your romantic rival in designer duds with humongous shoulder pads? You do? Oops, my mistake.) Polish soap operas also depict America as the promise land. A common plot thread is that you go to America for 6 months and come back mega rich and successful. Ok other plots have been that you go to America and get killed (quite possible) or that you go to America, get tricked into working in the porn industry and come back gay (difficult to blame that on America) and then later go to America a second time and become rich and successful and not gay anymore (hey, it could happen). Now I know why everyone is so disappointed to find out that my family’s life in America is less than soap-opera like. For example, my mother in her early 60’s has only 6 vacation days this year and my father at the height of his career had 2-weeks which means 10 days. They don't take exotic vacations around the world. They don't even come to Poland. My parents don’t know how we live, what are home looks like. They have never met our children, their grandchildren, because it is pretty difficult to do it in 6 days. The worst part is that they think that having basically no down-time is normal. You can gather that I disagree, but I’ll save that for another post.

I have felt the Polish love of America first hand. When I was teaching at high school in a small town, one nice young man from the town hunted me down to make me his own. It didn’t matter to him if I liked him or he liked me or that we could not communicate. The most important thing was that he had to have an American girlfriend. I declined even though he was cute and had a car. Come on, that was something back in the day. Misiu was only cute.

I felt the love, well, kind of, in the local government office when I was applying to renew my stay in Poland. I asked if my application would be accepted for sure. The reply, “You are American. Of course, it will be accepted. It’s not like you are Bulgarian and you came here to work at the bazaar.” If you are Bulgarian, I apologize on her behalf. At least she didn’t say brothel.

I also experienced it at the American Embassy of all places. After fighting my way in (One person waiting in line grabbed me and asked what right I had to go ahead of the line. I flashed my passport and said, “This gives me the right!” I know, it was stupid but I couldn’t resist.), I was surprised to find everyone speaking Russian to me. When the third person in the American Embassy started speaking Russian to me, I almost shouted, “Do I look Russian to you?” whatever it means to look Russian. Then I noticed a distinct lack of Polish or American people for that matter (in the waiting area). The American Embassy in Warsaw must have served part of Ukraine as well then. While waiting in line at the kasa (cashier) to pay for my husband’s immigrant visa, I observed the treatment of the Ukrainian people ahead of me. Shouts from the lady at the kasa, “Please do not ask me! Can’t you read? Kasa does not give information! Can’t you read? Only one at a time! Can’t you read? Stay behind the yellow line!” And then it was my turn. I was afraid. I stayed behind the yellow line. I approached the window alone and I didn’t ask for any information. What did I get? This, “Oh hello. Welcome to the American Embassy in Poland. Is this your first time in Poland, sunshine? (Yes, she really said sunshine. The other people were not Polish either but she didn’t ask them about their visit.) Are you adopting?” I answered, “Something like that. It’s for my husband.” The cashier replied, “Oh ho ho (fake laugh) here you are. Please take this card to window XYZ at 3:00 (this was the information asked for by the people before me) and have a nice day.” Come on, she had to say it - it was the American Embassy…which by the way has American toilet paper in the bathroom. That’s when I realized that that kind of love is just as arbitrary as hate. It is meaningless.

The American Consul official that we met with at the Embassy treated everyone politely and fairly. I did find it odd that she could speak neither Polish nor Russian and Misiu was perturbed by a neon-flashing error in English, her own language. I didn’t care about any of that. I was just waiting for her to stamp our papers which would allow my husband to become a US resident. I was especially worried because the Embassy had been sitting on our application for 2 years. That’s how we came to stay in Poland. We didn’t have a choice. When the official realized that the fault had been on the side of the Embassy, she immediately stamped everything and said to me with a beaming smile, “Now you can go to America!” There was no doubt that she was feeling the love for her country. I answered that I could always go to America because I am American but of course she meant that Misiu and I could finally go together. Next came the hard part. “What should we do if we don’t want to go?” I asked. Her face couldn’t hide her surprise and I’m sure that somewhere in her Embassy rented apartment she had a calendar with the days until she returned to America numbered in red. “Well, you kind of have to. The visa documents must be presented in person by the two of you,” she explained. So we did go to America a month or two later and then came back to Poland where we had jobs and a mortgage and everybody loved us (Did I go too far with that part?).

I also felt the love or maybe it was the sympathy on September 11th. I’ve never had so many phone calls in my life expressing concern and sympathy and asking if I am alright. Physically, I was alright. I was at my parents-in-law’s in a small town in Poland. I was probably the safest American girl on the planet that day. It was another story for my Polish brother-in-law and his son, my nephew (it’s weird to call him that ‘cause we are the same age) who were stranded in Manhattan and couldn’t figure out how to get home above ground. They usually hopped on the subway. (That’s why I like trams. I can see where I am going.) When the phone lines were finally opened, we tried to set them off (separately) in the right direction home among the crowd of people. Can you believe that they were able to find each other in that crowd of hundreds of thousands of people? If physically alright, mentally, I was not alright. While glued to the TV fighting off waves of nausea, I expected to see the next attack on London, then Paris, then Berlin. When I realized that it was an attack just on America, I was in greater disbelief. You see, despite my university education and travels, I was still very naive. Somewhere deep inside me, I believed that not only Poland loved America, but that everyone loved America. So now that Poland doesn’t love us anymore, who have we got left?

The Lottery

I need to win the lottery and I’ve even bought a ticket. Maybe we’ll win. Somebody’s got to. If my posts take a sharp turn in the direction of exotic vacation destinations or how to wallpaper a room in 200 złoty bank notes, then you’ll know that we’ve won.

I mentioned before that I like to ask my students what they would do with a million dollars. It’s not just my sick curiosity. It is a good way to practice the 2nd conditional. Travel around the world is the answer given by most. Actually it goes like this, “If I had a million dollars, I would travel around the world.” I make my students answer using the complete structure. If I had a million dollars, I too would like to travel around the world, but that is something which requires a bit of planning. I started to think about what I would do immediately, today, if somebody handed me a million dollars. Misiu has reminded me that a million dollars isn’t what it used to be, but I need a nice sum to use as an example and come on, someone handing me 10 million dollars is just plain ridiculous.

The first thing I would do is buy new socks. Actually, I think I would buy 365 pairs of new socks. I’m serious. I have a real sock crisis going on. I have only 3 socks (not 3 pairs) that do not have a current or recently mended hole in them. That’s a pretty serious problem because usually when you visit someone in Poland you take off your shoes at the door. I have to strategically plan my sock-wearing to make sure I have a hole-free pair for public viewing.

Next, I would hit the kids book section at empik (it’s a large book store chain also with music, films and games) and the toy store where I would buy Lizzie the bike we keep visiting that she wants.

For Misiu, I would buy an entire new wardrobe. I mean I would like a new wardrobe for myself too, but that would require more time and some serious help of a stylist ‘cause I don’t have any fashion sense at all. Have you heard about my socks? For Misiu, clothes are something you need to keep yourself from being naked. He hates shopping for himself and the last time he bought anything was when we were in the US about 5 years ago. In case you are wondering how long it takes to wear out your clothes, it is about the 5 year mark. Misiu has holes on holes and is starting to look like a scarecrow excluding one very nice Gap jacket that he just started to wear last season after discovering it in the back of the wardrobe with the price tag from America still on it. “I thought it was yours,” he said. Yes, ‘cause everyone knows at the Gap I wear XXL.

Next, I would buy Misiu a monocle. I imagine that every rich guy has one. Then I would drop him off at Biedronka (OK, we don’t live in an exclusive neighborhood, so he could just walk there…or to Żabka. We’ve got 3 of them.) where he could inspect the ingredients list and prices of their grocery items and ask loudly, “Excuse me, please. How much does this block of lard cost? I absolutely must have it.”

I also got to wondering what it feels like for people who have that level of wealth or success? Now that I have children, I think about wealth in a different way. I used to think that it would be cool to travel somewhere or to buy something. Now I think how fantastic it would be to secure my children financially, to afford a top-notch education for them and, of course, to spoil them a little bit. It would be great if my wealth were a direct result of my hard work and achievement. Having said that, if someone handed me a million, I’d take it for sure. I’d also like to show my parents that I can take care of myself and my family because I know that they worry about us, and I’d like to put them at ease. Not that I’m all deep like that. I’d also like to show off a bit to some people from my past who were less than supportive of me. Do wealthy people once they are wealthy lose that desire to rub it in? I have to find a wealthy person and ask them. It’s like when Agnieszka Chylinska, Polish rock vocalist, accepting her Fryderyk music award at the beginning of her career gave a big “fuck off” to the teachers who said she would never make it in the music industry, but in later years when receiving an award said “nie będzie żadnych fucków” ("there won’t be any 'fucks'") in her acceptance speech. Did she lose the desire to rub it in? I will have to ask her because we run in the same circles. I wish.

I would also like to have a Pretty Woman moment. You know, being snubbed in an exclusive shop for looking too poor to shop there and then coming back to show off your shopping. There’s a simple explanation as to why that has never happened to me. I am too poor to shop in exclusive shops. Once I was told by the shop assistant at Coccodrillo (It’s a kids clothing store and not considered exclusive.) that I couldn’t come in with my shopping cart. It was one of those car ones and I had Lizzie in the “car” part and Rosie in the shopping cart seat part and a lot of shopping in the cart part. I explained that my shopping cart is not any bigger than our baby carriage that we usually come shopping with and that I can’t very well park my family outside. “Sorry, store policy,” she explains. “But it is a weekday morning, the shop is large and there are not any other shoppers in sight,” I reply. Unfazed, she answers, “ No. Store policy.” If I had had the time and more importantly the money, I would have spent a bundle at Reserved Kids and come back shaking my bags saying “Big mistake. Huge.” just like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman sans the big hat and Richard Gere. (Notice my use of the 3rd conditional above.)

All joking aside, this is what I would really do. First, I would pay off all my debts and then check if I had any money left ;) If I had some left, I would arrange to install central heating in my house. I know, dream big. After that, I would book flights to America so that I could visit my family and introduce them to my children. (Before that I would have to get my children some US passports, but that part just takes all the fun out of my plan.) Next, I would get pregnant. I absolutely would and would continue to do so until the money or my womb gave way, whichever came first. If I were rich, I just might turn into the next reality TV mom with tons of kids and super pouty lips. Who could resist a huge bi-lingual family with a monocle-wearing Dad and a new-pair-of-socks-every-day-wearing Mom? Don’t laugh. You know that you’d tune in.

Autumn is coming!

How do I know? A few reasons…

We had to wear jackets in our yard for the first time since Spring. Luckily, we were prepared.

We could only hunt out a handful of wild strawberries in our strawberry patch instead of the usual weekly bowlful. I recommend a wild strawberry patch for anyone with children. It’s is so much fun to see them happily stuffing their faces with juicy little berries.

Our crazy wild rose bush behind the barn has fruit on it. This rose bush is taller than most trees and has managed to foil all my attempts at taming it.

Our red apples have ripened (the yellow ones ripened last month) and it is cool enough to use the oven for apple pie without overheating the house.

Lastly, we took our annual Autumn trip to the city of Bolesławiec to buy some Polish pottery.

Every year in Autumn, we go to the city of Bolesławiec in South-West Poland and stock up on our Polish pottery. Why is it that we go every Autumn? It is for a simple reason. The city has a very nice festival celebrating ceramics-making every year in August and every year we miss it and then say that we should go soon. Soon means September and Autumn.

I fell in love with this pottery the first time I came to Poland and saw it in a department store all stacked up making a beautiful display. Knowing how I am, I walked around the display in a huge arc not wanting to risk bumping into the dishes and having them crash down like in the old Mr. Whipple-Charmin toilet paper commercials. Later, after marrying and moving back to Poland I decided to start my own collection.

I have visited almost all the pottery shops in Bolesławiec but I have to say I am partial to the Factory Store on Kościuszki 11. That’s where I tend to buy the most and they are open on Sundays too. It is also very popular with German tourists (they were full up this time with a bus on the way to Wrocław) and also with Americans from the military base in Germany. Hey, if I could get the military shipping rate which I suppose is free, I would stock up, too. Sometimes those Americans can get a little rowdy in there so we prefer to speak Polish then and listen to the staff gossip about them after they’ve gone. Once, I tried to reach around an American shopper to take one small cup from the shelf. I was curtly ordered to drop it as she used her body to guard the shelf from further invasion. She was planning to buy everything and I mean everything from the shelves. “Sorry, but it’s my pattern,” she explained practically chewing my hand off.

inside the shop - all the German tourists are standing in line to pay

my girls who did not break anything, thank goodness

Check out their webpage in Polish, German or English. It is really interesting.

http://www.ceramicboleslawiec.com.pl/

We purposely do not buy everything we need so that we have a reason to come back. We also use the tableware everyday so something always gets broken and that gives us another reason to go back. (I am not into having good dishes and everyday dishes. Whatever I have, I use and suffer the consequences.) Also purposely, we mix the patterns. We could never decide what to buy, so we just started buying a little of this and a little of that. I like the effect.

Here’s what I bought.

Here’s what Lizzie bought ;)

a closer look

new things with an old purchase, my favorite coffee mug

This pottery sucks the heat right out of your coffee and soon you are left with a warm cup and lukewarm coffee. Pre-heat your cup with hot water then pour it out and add your hot coffee.

Another part of our annual Autumn pilgrimage to Bolesławiec is going to the restaurant Opałkowa Chata. http://opalkowachata.pl/boleslawiec/

It’s a quaint family restaurant with traditional dishes. The dishes are very colorfully described in Polish in the menu, so much so that I have to check the much simpler English translation to figure out what to order.

The kids of course didn’t want to eat anything after they discovered there is a playground around back but I managed to stuff some pierogi into them. They were good and tired for the car ride home.

What are your Autumn traditions?

Get the lead out!

Renovating an old farm house is something that sounds like fun when someone else describes it. Usually that someone else has an eye for style and deep pockets. We have neither.

Our house renovation is a never-ending story. We started from the roof, changing the original cement roof tiles circa 1935 to blachodachówka – brown sheet metal which mimics the look of tiles. Some people think that this is a blasphemy and if you are a renovation purist, you will not like my home. I have antique next to IKEA and I don’t give a shyte. When we did the roof, we also needed to replace and rebuild the top meter and a half of the chimney. The workers also cleaned out the chimney. Our next door neighbors got back an iron frying pan and a set of grocery weights that they had lost about 15 years before. They were in our chimney. Don’t ask. We also have a przybudówka (a porch addition) that needs to be torn down and rebuilt. For now, I’ve just decorated it (like lipstick on a pig) with a wind chime that my mother gave me. It is just like the ones my mother has at home so every time it chimes I think of her and home (sniff, sniff). We decided to install wooden windows but now I think plastic might have been a better idea. After that, we did rozpierducha totalna ;) (complete gutting) and removed all the plaster on the walls and removed the floor/ceiling exposing the beams. We put wooden planks upstairs and built an open space room, a bedroom, a bathroom and an open attic/loft. Downstairs, we put tiles in all rooms. The tiles are dirt colored which is quite handy with 2 kids. Each room has 2 doors so you can go around our downstairs in a circle from room to room. We have all the original doors except the bathroom door (here on the left) which we had made because there was not a bathroom before. We still have the original stairs and we are debating to keep them or change them. I wanted finished concrete stairs, kind of industrial looking but not one single ekipa (work crew) will make them for us. “People don’t make stairs like that. You’ll never sell your house.” I hate that kind of unsolicited advice. It was the same thing when we wanted to put the bathroom upstairs next to the bedroom. Everyone advised us to make a przybudówka downstairs. You can make one up to 20 square meters without a building permit if you are adding a bathroom (the first one) to your house. Our neighbor politely inquired if it wasn’t going to be burdensome traipsing upstairs and tracking in mud when I am working in the field in my Wellington boots. I wanted to ask when have I ever been known to work in the fields but instead I replied that in that case I would do my business behind the barn or take off my Wellies first.

Our house renovation is at a standstill. We are at the stage of just thinking about what to do next, not in any “designer’s” kind of a way, more in a “we’ve run out of money but when we get some what are we going to do next” kind of a way. We have to do something about our old doors. I really like that we have old doors. They make a nice contrast against the fresh walls and exposed beams.

kitchen doorliving room door

living room door (other side)

playroom door

playroom door frame after sanding

The one problem is that paint is in very bad condition. I even like that look but in some places it is peeling off. My plan was either to scrape off the worst places and paint a clear sealant over it or to sand down everything and then wax them. As I scoured the internet looking for info about paint removal, I noticed a lot of warnings about lead in old paint. I had some students in the US who were affected by lead poisoning as children so I really started to get scared. I found some information that lead paint was banned in Europe for home use in 1930 and my house was built in 1935 but that is no guarantee. I didn’t want to sand the doors and door frames down making potentially toxic dust. I also didn’t want to scrape off the paint and put it in the regular garbage. I began searching for a laboratory who could test the paint chips. Thanks to the recommendation of some fellow English teachers on the Gazeta Wyborcza forum, I was able to contact a laboratory to test the paint for 146 złoty. If you are one of those teachers, thank you again. We are waiting for the results.

pictures from upstairs

What do you know about Poland?

I have to admit that before coming to Poland for the first time, I did not know a whole heck of a lot about the country. I knew the basics of history and Poland’s unfortunate geographic location between the Germans and the Russians. I knew about Wałęsa and the Solidarity movement. I also knew that Polish people eat a lot of kiełbasa, cabbage and pierogi. As a typical all-American girl, I thought that little bit of info, a Polish/English dictionary, 200 bucks and a smile was enough to sustain me in this foreign country.

I do have some Polish heritage on my paternal grandmother’s side, but in practicality that was of no use to me. I knew only 2 words of Polish from my Grandma, szafa and dupa (wardrobe and arse). I cannot think of any bind that I could get myself into that these two words alone could save me. I didn’t realize that szafa was even a Polish word until going to school and asking the teacher where the szafa was. I had never encountered that word except at my Grandma’s because who has wardrobes in America? Not too many people I think. I discovered the word dupa as foreign during a school recess game of “duck, duck, goose”. My cousin was “it” and when she hit the goose she screamed “I hit you on your dupa!”. None of the kids knew what we were talking about. I asked my mother what was up and she explained that it was Polish. Huh? Polish, another language. People in Poland speak Polish. Huh? Grandma’s parents came from Poland where they speak Polish. Huh? People from different countries speak different languages. What?! Yes, I was a sheltered child.

Armed with szafa and dupa, I applied for a few jobs abroad. I thought it would look good on my CV. The job in Poland was arranged through a non-profit organization that finds you a job and…that’s about it. I had to buy my ticket which I did not earn back in a year!!! of teaching in high school in Poland (and that is with trzynastka even -the 13th salary which is a bonus for teachers). I was able to meet with the organizer of the job in person. That’s where I got some strange information about Poland. The strangest being that there’s no soap in Poland. C’mon it was about 10 years ago and I somehow survived each day without Googling everything but this was a fact I didn’t even need to Google. I was pretty sure that Polish people were washing and they were using something resembling soap. After a bit of grilling this man (who has been coming to Poland for the last 20 years), he conceded that Polish people do use soap but that it is very hard to come by and that I should bring soap along with me. Soap for a year?! I don’t think so. I decided to check out this information with a friend who had been on a student exchange to Poland a few years earlier. She assured me that there was soap in Poland but that there wasn’t Secret antiperspirant. Ok, that I could live with. In addition to putting my mind at ease about the soap issue, my friend had a few more pieces of advice.

Piece of advice #1-When offered flaki, decline. (Flaki is tripe.)

Piece of advice #2- Carry about 50 złoty in your pocket so when you are mugged, you can give the money quickly and escape. (Useful, except the first time I was attacked, the attacker wasn’t interested in my money. The second time I was attacked, my attacker stole my shoe…from my foot.)

Piece of advice #3-When you meet someone with gold teeth, they are probably Russian and you should be careful (Never needed to use this advice.)

Piece of advice #4- Budapest yes, Bucharest no. (Went on a trip to Budapest organized by the Dept of Agriculture with a bus full of farmers and retired farmers from the Leszno area. Fun!!)

My next source of information about Poland came from none other than the Polish Tourism Bureau. After looking at their brochures, I thought Poland was an awesome country where everyone either spends time on the beach or climbing in the mountains with intermittent visits to luxurious spas. Sign me up!

Later when I became more knowledgeable about Poland I liked to make fun of those less knowledgeable than I. I’m cruel like that. My parents were quite worried about me so to make them feel better I sent them a couple of pictures. First, I sent them pictures of our school’s basement and told them that was my apartment. Next, I sent them pictures of some garden sheds (szopki i altanki na działce) and told them that those were people’s houses. It was in revenge to my complaining that I didn’t have access to a washer and my father telling me to just go and buy one. It would have cost me 3 months salary at the time. My sister had other concerns for me such as worrying about my access to hot water. She also wanted to know if we have bread in Poland. I informed that we do, but second hand from Germany. “Second hand bread from Germany? How does that work?” she asked. “Yes,” I wondered, “how does that work?”

What do you know about Poland?