Wesołe Boże narodzenie i Szczęśliwy Nowy Rok!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

and, to some, more importantly: Happy Solstice!

The days will only get longer, in fact this will be the Earth's longest night in our lifetimes-next year the Earth will be tilting a bit more towards the sun, and night will be a few minutes shorter than tonight's. Hooray for our future!

So, Jill and the other ASW teachers are already in Austria. I just wrapped up my last classes and am about to jump on the night train to Vienna. Then I catch a tram to the Westbahnhoff train station, to catch another train to Salzburg...then I catch another train to Lendeck, in Western Austria-in Tirol-Austria's highest peaks! Should be quite the reward to see all those big, beautiful mountains, after all that travelling, and after spending 6 months away from the high places I love so much!

Well, unfortunately, Jill's had better days in the hills. Yesterday, at Obergurgl, near Solden, she took a tumble. The snow coverage is low as this has been a very mild winter. She hit a dry patch and hit some rocks! She cut open her jacket, cut her elbow and smashed her left shoulder pretty hard! It took her some time to get help-the other teachers were ahead of her, and she had language difficulties once back on her feet. She eventually got an X-ray and everything looked OK-but her shoulder is pretty sore and she has limited motion. Everyone send her your best thoughts for recovery! We're hoping that by the time I get there, and after we head to a new resort (Ischgl). She was in much better spirits today...but then Dawn came in all beat up, too!

Yikes-I best be careful-looks like city life is taking its toll on our bodies!

Anyhoo, I need to finish packing. Not much snow is forecasted right now...but the sun is supposed to be shining-so hopefully I'll at least be adding some nice mountain pics soon!

Take care and happy holidays to everyone near and far!

Jeronimo

Our Dom!

Our pad in Sadyba! I realized I hadn't put a shot of our place's exterior on the site! Our place was built in 1933 and survived WWII. Of course it's been remodelled in the last 10 years, I'm not sure if there's war marks underneath the facade or not. We're the first floor unit, with the tiny balcony off our 'office' where I'm typing this now, and the unique spiral staircase is coming out of our bedroom on the right side, kind of Le Corbusier-esque! The owner's daughter, Anna, and her son, Luke, live above us, and more relatives live next to them. We have 6 units total in our building, and 4 single car garages beneath us. I'm hoping to find an earlier photo of the place for you all to compare to. And yes, we have room for more visitors! (wink, wink)

Welcome Sue! Our first guest from the States! Sue stayed with us over the weekend before going to work in Amsterdam. She also handles jet lag very well!

The girls enjoying a beverage in a unique underground restaurant in Old Town

What on Earth? We hoped to take Sue to Sadhu, an Indian restaurant that Jill and I had eaten at before. But, they were closed for a private party. They did, though, let us use their facilities before we searched for another place to eat. Sadhu is famous for being an underground bomb shelter and hideout for the Jews in WWII, and these shafts above the toilets were their air pipes, reaching up over 20 meters!

Yum, enjoying conversation with our imported American guest and the Starbucks coffee she graciously brought with her!

Checkin' out the new photo exhibit along Lazienki Park's perimiter. This show was entitled, 'My Walk' and featured images from Mongolia, China, Kazakstan and a few parts of South America and Africa. Fortunately, this outdoor photo gallery continues year round, and a few other similar ones have popped up around the city. Suprisingly, very few get tagged or vandalized.

A Polish Warsaw Uprising monument, with the round Parliament Debate chamber in the background

The Warsaw Uprising Musuem. We finally made it here, and they weren't charging entry for all of December! It was an onslaught of stories, pictures, videos, sounds and memoriabilia-of the Jewish Ghetto and the Warsaw annihilation. There were definitely some images unlike anything I'd ever seen before, and will never forget. It is still truly amazing that this city picked it self up and rebuilt what they could, especially under the Ruskies control.

Sue and Dawn enjoying an influx of Art Deco at Decokedrens. They had 'normal' wine servings and beautifully patterend beer glasses-of which they would sell us for 100 zloty each!?! They also fed us the largest cheese platter we'd ever seen. Worth returning to, just for the impressive interiors (and very unique bathroom mirrors!)

Morgan's Irish Pub, just east of Nowy Swiat, in the basement of the Chopin Museum. According to Dierdre, my Irish co-worker, it's the most authentic Irish pub in town, but it's not cheap, 15 zloty per Guiness!? (Zywiec is usually 6 to 10 zloty!)

Kilkenny makes Dawn a little goofy...!

I found a fly in my Guiness! So they gave me a free 'mini pint'

We got to hang out with a Pole, her name was Sabina or Cybyla (in English it translated to Cybil). Earlier she had brought in her 'Spud's McKenzie' dog, which jumped all over me and left dirt on my pants. Fortunately, Spuds went home. Her English was good, and told us that, oddly, Parliament was voting on gay marriage rights this week. That's amazingly progressive in this 98% Catholic country! I'm sure their rights weren't improved in the vote...

Rockin' out to Polish murdered versions of classic American and British songs, mostly from the 60s and 70s. They knew the tunes, but they didn't know English!

The Palace and the Obelisk, unlike many in Europe, this one was not stolen from Egypt

Between Nowy Swiat and the Palace of Culture, this refurbished beauty houses a large language school! Maybe I'll put in my app!?!

Showing their (neighbor's) colors. The Poles have been supporting their Ukranian compadres through the rigged election mayhem-concerts, marches and protests have popped up all over the country

Tik Tak Airforce

Howdy all y'all (something I recently taught my students how to say!)

So, first off, Happy Birthday to Kris, Brian and Jamie. We hope Vegas treated you well on your special days! I'm sure there's others out there with early December bdays...let me know if we missed yours!

Secondly, we just had a great visit from Sue Long, but it wasn't a great finish...
Sue had work w/Starbucks in Amsterdam this week, lucky for us! She was nice enough to lug over a very full suitcase full of all sorts of goodies for us! She brought us some COFFEE!, DVDs!, Tasty Bite!, Annie's pasta!, MP3 cds!, Clif Bars!, some other lil' niceties and best of all: bathrobes!?!

While packing up our stuff for Poland, our piles of stuff were huge, and the bath robes were both bulky and heavy. Mine wasn't my favorite and Jill's was getting pretty beat up, so we gave them to good will...
Well ever since we moved here, and the temps started dropping, Jill wasn't too happy with her lack of a robe. We looked all over the place and nearly every robe we saw was of pretty cheesy quality, more synthetic than cotton, and if it was cotton, it wasn't terry cloth...or it was ridiculously expensive, some were 450 zloty, and if you've been paying attention to the dollar (it's dropping fast), that's a $150 bath robe?! ($112 just 4 months ago!?!) So, Sue and Sears to our rescue, and now I'm typing this in the comfort of my new, stylin' dark blue full 100% terry cloth cotton robe. Thanks, Sue!

So, the poor finish...
We had lots of home time w/Sue, just catching up, but also got out to see Old Town, the former Jewish Ghetto, Lazienki Park and the nice walk along Nowy Swiat. On Sunday, we went to the Ethnographic Museum to check out Polish arts and crafts, some of which were on sale and we were checking 'em out for possible gifts...anyhoo, we got stuck downtown a bit longer than we hoped. We bussed home, called a cab and never heard from Sue until late last night...It turns out she didn't catch her flight, so caught another flight to Dusseldorf, Germany (and her bag didn't join her!) and I think drove over from there. Sorry, Sue-We don't go to the airport ever...now we have a better idea of how much time is needed! (Gulp!) Also, Jill's been sick the last few days, and Sue thinks she caught the bug. (Yuck!)

We promise to treat future guests better!
Really!

OK, other news:
Get this, Poland just had an earthquake! The country had a big one this summer up north, along the Baltic coast and the scientists said they shouldn't have another for 400 to 1,000 years...then we had 2 last week, down south in the Tatra mountains! They're one of the youngest mountains in Europe, and are pretty spiky and sharp. If this keeps up, Europe might have another continental split!?! I hope to research where the tectonic plates are around here and see what Mother Earth might be planning for 'God's Playground'. Boy if it's not the Krauts or the Ruskies pickin' on them from either side...now they gotta be worried what's coming from down below!

Pics from the weekend up soon.

Gotta go learn transitive and intransitive verbs, 0 thru 3rd Conditionals, words which are both verbs and nouns (fall, climb, rise, drop-why are they all climbing related?!), get the Present Perfect Continuous dialed and nail down Cause and Effect. My poor students, they're getting this all dumped on them today and Thursday, and taking their final exam after class then. I'm sure they hate me for botching our schedule. Oh, well, foibles of being a new teacher. Kelly and I commiserate often. She's more experienced than I am, and is still having a hard time w/her students down in Krakow. She's ready to burst, I think she's escaping to Istanbul for xmas break. Should be sweet, but we're going to Ischgl, in the high Alps of Austria-and that's gonna be sweeter! Oh, speaking of Istanbul, Sarah S., who was one of our admin gals at International House in Krakow, who's from Chicago, is moving to Istanbul this week! And she's demanding visitors...so now we have another free place to stay at another prime destination during our time in Europe.
Sweet.

Do jutra!!

JR

Danger Week!

Wow, what is up with this place, anyway?

OK, in 7 days we've had:
4 inches of snow
Wind gusts up to 140 km/h (almost blown off my bike, twice)
3 power outages (one which lasted 2 hours for the southern half of Warsaw!)
Some of the most serious, wide-spread black ice I've ever seen. I'm learning to ride VERY CAREFULLY!
and last night our phone died. (I was trying to call my family for Turkey Day!)

WAY early this morning I woke up to an obnoxiously loud noise. I got up and it stopped, but since the phone was a problem, I thought I'd check it out. When I approached it, it made this awful buzzing AAANNNKKKKCCCCHHHHKKKKK!!!!!!! noise.
I think when I was trying to get it to work last night I must have hit the 'speakerphone' button, and this was it's way of telling me to hang the frickin' phone up!
Truly obnoxious. Americans wouldn't stand for this sound in their homes or offices!
Haven't slept since, so I caught up on emails and continued researching for our winter holiday in Austria.
It looks like we're staying in Bad Gastein. 'Bad' means thermal bath, and there's a ton of them in the area. The hostel were likley getting sounds sweet:
1 block from train station, 1 block from ski lift, right next to a steam bath, and has all amenities. Unfortunately, most of the double rooms are full. Hopefully there'll be cancellations!
As of now, I'm teaching up until the 22nd, so I won't be joining Jill and gang on their sojourn to Solden, a high altitude area where George (she/male stripper fame below) says is good, and not too popular.
Bad Gastein, though lower in altitude, does have 4 resorts in the same valley, and you can ski to two of them easily. There's also ice climbing in the area...but I'm still weighing the time vs. the lugging of the extra gear and poundage around (and possible expense of renting a car to get to the ice...!)

More later. Don't forget to work off that turkey...The average American consumes 4,500 calories on Turkey Day.

Burp.
(Smacznego!)

Happy Thanksgiving! (and a visitor cometh!?!)

Hi all, today we Americans were busy working our butts off, rather than eating our butts full like the rest of you! (Well, the folks at the US Embassy have EVERY US AND POLISH holiday off-maybe I should switch jobs!).

I just finished my second full week of teaching, as we've had a smattering of Polish holidays recently. Nov. 1 was All Saints Day, where every Pole gets gloomy and doomy and visits their past family members at all the numerous graveyards around the country. Then, Nov. 11 was Poland's Independence Day. I always teased the Poles by asking 'Which Independence Day is it?' (Officially there should be 3 or 4 different ones, as Poland has a wild and brutal history, and they oddly haven't chosen one for the separation from Russia!?) So, officially, this is Poland's Independence day thanks to WWI, 1918, and their newfound independence experiment lasted about 25 years, until Hitler attacked on September 1, 1939. Fucker.

Speaking of which, there's a new German film out, on Hitler's last 40 days of which he lived entirely underground in his incredibly thick and deep bunker in the heart of Berlin. He refused to leave the capital despite the urging of his comrades-to go south to another, stronger and more secure base and bunker, and to more likely elude the Allies in their hunt for him. Unfortunately, this new film is in the German language, and I can't read enough Polish to figure out the dialogue on the subtitles...oh, well. Guess we'll have to wait until the DVD is out.

So, great news! We have our first, lucky non-expat American visitor coming next week!
Yep, Seattle and Starbucks' own, Sue Long is coming to join us for a weekend! She works as an international inspector and has work in Amsterdam. (LIfe's rough, Sue!)
So, much anxiously awaited for quality coffee and other goodies are on their way (THANKS, SUE!). It's going to be so nice to see a friend from home. She's an avid downhill mountainbiker, skier and climber, and she'll soon get to see just how flat and non-mountainous Warsaw really is.
:-(

See you soon, Sue!

j n j

Ah, a snowy day in the 'hood. We got a few inches that lasted through the weekend.

Happy Halloween! High School Principal and his wife (Russ and Kim) held the 3rd Annual American style Halloween party, featuring excellent costumes, great food and even a live band!)

He's not a plumber, electrician or a handy man, he's the Land Shark bartender!

no comment necessary on this one...

Mr. and Mrs. Jesus Christ

Rick the Fisherman (his 'hooker' is seen in other shots below...). Rick's (singing and wiggling) fish garnered more attention than almost any other costume!

Pamela (Pawel), one of Jill's lovely assistants at ASW, drinking Poland's finest (yes, the teachers have not one, but two aides!)

Julie and Dawn, fresh from Budapest!

That's me, a Chick Magnent...and my little Pink Chick

The Hungarian story-telling dolls

Everyone boogeying down to the live tunes by 'The Expat Band'

Check out that bodacious rebel girl!

Heeeerrrrreeee'sssss Georgie! (This is our justy, trusty guide for our Austrian Alps trip! Yikes!)

A free, break dancing she-male stripper! Who could ask for anything more!

Some people should remain their own sex...

Good show, Georgie, good show!

The cook, the (host's) wife, (no thief), and the lover (who won't leave her bad husband behind) (in reverse order!)

Shake that tail, Land Shark!

My new Euro-trash shoes (and Puff the Magic Dragon's new duds!)

Yes, these people were seizing Warsaw by the tail and shaking the wicked out of it. (The group about to head to 'Organsa,' a dance club where Jill got in free, and we bartered our door entry down substantially (even me with a chick hanging from my ear!)

Pink, with her studly, armed escort, Scott (NYC)

The entourage aiming for the magnificently lit Palace of Culture & Science

Mission Accomplished...sort of

So my tourist visa was running out, actually it was past due, and Kelly's was almost out, too. Jill was still on her holiday running around Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. Kelly and I had a 3-4 day weekend, so we decided after much debate to head to Germany, and hope and pray that they would stamp our passports (the Czechs didn't stamp mine on the previous Prague trip!). Well, the Germans did stamp us going in on the train (and they were much nicer than the Polish guard)...but on the return, the Germans did not give us an exit stamp, and when the Poles tried stamping Kelly's passport, the stamper broke! So they didn't bother with mine.

So, technically, I'm not here!

Well, this time, the pics are in order when you scroll down...from start to finish of our fun trip to Berlin-my first time and Kelly's first time in 5 years-she was blown away by the changes. Enjoy the show!

BERLIN!

Me and a bird pondering our near future in Berlin. Just off the train in Oustbahnhof and now in Stefan's flat in Friedrichshein. We were successful in reaching the only two contacts we had in Berlin, and neither of us really knew our contacts-just friends of friends...boy did we luck out! (but there were hostels nearby if we needed them)

Stefan, our temporary host who had no idea what to do with us. So he fed us coffee and beer. He's Kelly's former Krakow roomate's current boyfriend, and happened to live within 2 blocks of Charlie and Jutka, whom we were meeting later that night!

Our first Berlin bar, though I forgot the name. The owner was from Chile, but had lived previously in Romania for 12 years. Fluent in Spanish, Romanian, English and German.

This was Charlie and Jutka's lucky night...their neighborhood bar (one of many) was packed when we walked in and every table was full---except for the 'special' table, reserved for friends of the owners. They didn't want us to leave, so they let us sit at the back table-Charlie and Jutka's first time! And several free and unneccesary drinks came along with our new, special status. ugh.

I think he's giving Kelly that look for a reason...Kelly woke up the next day with a massive coughing fit...and hasn't smoked since. Go Kelly!

Jutka and skinny Santa (I can't remember his name, but he lived behind the Wall his whole life, and never knew that the River Spree was just on the other side of the Wall!)

The former, ceremonial entrance that Westerners would often come through. The trees are the start of the humongous Tiergarten park, in which the Russians built a large WWII memorial when they thought Berlin was theirs for the keeping after defeating Hitler and Germany, but it was the Westerners who got to 'enjoy' the memorial after the division by the great powers

Several artists from around the world took part in painting the inner side of the inner wall, whereas the outer wall had been painted, graffitied and vandalized for decades

Yes, that's The Wall, from Pink Floyd

Hand's Up!

The Great Escape