Czesc!

Dobry wiecor!

I'm in the middle of planning my 2nd lesson, in day two of school. It's a good, small class. Five of us are teaching 'Pre-Intermediate' people, aged 14 to mid 50's. There's about 10 of them. My first lesson yesterday was teaching about a true story of mine. This was the shortest and briefest rendition of the Pacific Crest Trail through hike I'd ever given! I was very animated because their English is pretty lacking. There are 2 students who stand out, but aren't quite at the Intermediate yet.

The students were a bit shocked of my story of freezing rivers and lakes, hungry bears and high mountain passes. They were also shocked that it took 5 months!Anyhow, a good first day, and I hadn't slept a wink the night before. It's awfully stuffy in our flat and the city a bit noisy outside.

Jilly J is landing in Warsaw right this second (hopefully!). She flew from Minneapolis where she was viisiting family, to Amsterdam, then changing planes and carrier (KLM) to make it to Poland. We hope she gets all her luggage! If all goes really really well, I'll see her this weekend...but she has lots to do up in Warsaw...we'll see!We finally spoke on the phone last night. Phones here are difficult and expensive. You can't even call a local cell phone from a LAN line...unless you want to pay high mobile charges! It looks like we'll probably get cell phones once we're settled, and some have better rates to the states.

One quick note about the food. Once again, every meal is damn tasty. Poland restaurants and markets don't offer 'organic' food, because it basically all is. Everything is extremely fresh, even boxed items like juice and milk (they don't have a 3 year best before date!). They use no hormones, fertilizers and synthetic sugars and preservatives, even the candy is pretty pure. In the states, my teeth are so bad my dentist advised me to avoid the 'oses' -sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, destrose, etc.) Here, I haven't spotted anything close on the label.

Looks like we picked the right country!

I met my first Pole who'll let me say 'Czesc' to. Her name is Maria and has a prosthetic left arm. She's one of the many students here learning English at International House. It is extremely very cheap to take lessons from us struglling teachers. They pay 50 zloty to start, and that entitles them to intensive lessons for the first month, and they can join any other lesson for one year. 50 zloty is equal to about $14. Not bad for them! Maria just returned from holiday hiking around the Tatra (or Tatri) Mountains, Poland's rugged granitic southern border shared with the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We hope to get down there in September, if not sooner.

Btw, 'Czesc' is the informal way to say hi and by to friends. You don't ever say this to a stranger, especially anyone your senior. It's kind of pronounced 'chesh-sha' with the latter 'sha' being almost silent...but still noticeable. Hard to say! If you say 'Czesc' to someone without being on a first name basis yet...apparently you're flirting!

Anyhoo, I need to complete my lesson for today, the students will be here in 20 minutes!

Dobry wiecor!
JR