Updates and Downdates

Hi y'all,

So pokey me still hasn't put up any pics from our summer adventures...anyone know of a fast way to load a few dozen on to this site?!

So what's happening in Warszawaland?

Well, Jill and I just taught/helped out the 9th graders at ASW with an adventure trip to the Jura Krakowska-Czestochowa, a craggy, limestone area in the south-middle of Poland. The (usually well-pampered) kids got to rough it in the sticks-setting up AND sleeping in tents (oh, my!), cooking their own food (Egad!) and got to do some cool things like caving, hiking, bike riding, a 'high-ropes' course and, of course, rock climbing! It was a three day trip, and probably the most intensive baby-sitting I'd ever done! 60 young teens are a bit of a handful, especially with 12 adults-many of which were doing this trip for the first time, too.

All went pretty smoothly overall. More kids participated in the rock climbing and rappeling than last year, and with a lot more enthusiasm-so that was great! Unfortunately, however, the high ropes course is run by the local Search and Rescue (GOPR) and they're pretty young Poles. Their attention to detail, care and safety weren't as high as ours...and one of the kids went flying down a zip-line and into a tree-smashing his (luckily!) helmeted head hard enough to black out and not remember too much for a little while. The ASW staff doctor, who was at our climbing area at the time, took mine and Jill's car and took him off to the nearest hospital in Czestochowa (45' away). Fortunately, he's fine, but it gave everyone a good scare. We're proud to say that the climbing portion of the trip has never had an injury for the 8 years it's been going. See climbing is safer than most people think!

The poopy part of the trip was the end. Friday was the end of it all, and Jill and I hoped to finally go down to the Tatry mountains-Poland's famed, high, rugged, granite peaks-where some of the toughest climbers and mountaineers in the world were bred and crafted. But, the end of our rock climbing portion with the kids ended in rain and lots of it. News had it that Zakopane and the Tatry were getting doused, and that Rysy, Poland's highest (2499 meters) was getting a lot of snow.

Bummer.

So, in an exhausted stupor, we (stupidly?) drove back to Warsaw. I can't remember the last time I drove while being so tired. Knock on Ikea formica/particle board that we made it back in one piece, especially on these horrendous roads!

But, and there's always a but, right?

We were so damn tired from the ASW trip that we're not sure if we could've done anything in the Tatry...so we got a day to dry out and recup at home. The big bonus of being home for the weekend was that the Warsaw Marathon was happening on Sunday, and Martin was running in it. He was shocked to hear we were back in town and invited us over for his carbo-loading dinner. His German co-worker, Christian, was also in town for the run. This was both of there's 2nd marathon-Martin's first in Berlin (with 35,000 people?!) and Christian's in Bamberg, north of Munich/Muchen). Christian is one of those naturally fast runners, with 8 foot long legs and a very aerodynamic profile...unlike the rest of us! He was shooting for 3:30 (Boston marathon qualifying time!). Martin's wife, Basia, is Polish and is fluent in German and is learning English. Jill and I were curious what language(s) we'd all be speaking or translating for the night, but fortunately for us it was 96% English! ;-) Christian said he didn't know much English, but he had no problems keeping up with us native speakers, and neither did Basia, really!

We had some fine piwo, coffee and wine and some great pasta with the best tasting tomatoes from Basia's mother's garden, from central Poland. If America had tomatoes that tasted like this, maybe I'd've become a vegetarian a really long time ago! Yum!

We left there and headed to an ASW Oktoberfest party at the high school principal's house. By 10:30 there were very few people there, but the few were well soaked in Deutsche birre! It was a good enough time to warrant a late stay... but it delayed our departure the next morning to cheer the boys on in the marathon!

After several, wet and cloudy days, the Warszawa maraton had a spectacular day-sunny and a little bit brisk-perfect for a long run! Well we certainly missed the start but we were able to ride around the course and guage the 2,200-ish runners' speed and roughly figure where we'd find Martin and Christian. Marin was happily found in a matter of minutes and was fortuately still happy, too, after finishing off the first 45 minutes of the run. Interestingly, he had a yellow ribbon tied to his jersey, a mark that apparently all foreigners had to wear during the run. He joked that it was payback for the Nazis making the Jews wear their bands in the 40s. Fortunately, no harm or egg throwing occured!

Christian was just too fast or we were just always poorly placed along the course. The long-leggeder finished in a disgusting 3:20! Meanwhile, back in normal-humans-land, Martin plugged away while choking down some of the Gu energy gels we'd given him the night before and finished at an awesome 4:06, beating his last time by 10 or 20 minutes?! Awesome!

For you runners out there, I'd highly recommend this course! They really set it up to go through some of the most beautiful and historical areas of the city. There is a bit of cobblestone-hell but the course overall is flat and fast. The only ho-hum part is the long stretch from Old Town/Warsaw University area down south to our neck of the woods and Wilanow Palace, but it's still well-treed with decent asphalt...and if they can always guarantee weather like this-perfect!

So, super congrats to Martin and Christian! I unfortunately left my digital camera in the car, parked at the Oktoberfest house...of which we wisely left there and walked home...so I pulled out my dinosaur Yashica T40 and shot slides of the event and some of the city's sights. Knowing me, those will never make it to electronic copies...sorry!

OK, what else!??!

Work, yeah, that dreaded subject. I'm doing my best to get my EF students back into school with much coaxing, but my bosses aren't diggin' it. They're not happy that I'm in communicando with their clients...but I know that EF hasn't been contacting them so fooey on them-don't they want business!?! Well I do, so continues my hunt for private students. I have a mother/daughter pair once a week, with a potential friend of daughter, too. The word is getting out and so are some spiffy business cards. Hopefully the feds don't come a knockin'! Because of how my bosses are reacting and acting (to other teachers, too) I'm doing my best to find hours elsewhere, still keeping the other EF branch downtown as an option. They seem to have their poop together, at least a little bit more! For now I have 2 individual students at EF-Marcin, the 12 year old, and Agata, one of my faves. So there's a bit of grocery food!

Hmm, what else...I taught at ASW, or rather pre-taught the 9th graders about rock climbing equipment and safety. I was nervous but all went pretty well. Plus I'm getting paid for the Jura trip. Yeah! I'm also on the substitute list for middle and high school so there's some more opps.

Part of me still thinks about photography/writing/massage/etc. as other potential sources of income...we'll see. It's fun and stressful to not have a solid job...the best of both worlds!

OK, back to running:
My left hip is hurt and no idea what's wrong with it. Taking a week off and seeing what happens. Biking hurts it a bit, too. IT band, old shoes, bursitis, who knows? But we're still planning on going for Florence in November. I'm shooting for 4:30/finishing/finishing happily/finishing without injury. That should be possible, right?

Visitors:
Tamara's first, from Seattle, in October, en route to Africa! Yippee! But only for a weekend :(

Jill's oldest sis, Janice, her mom and aunt will be here in early November, and newsflash, her mom will be here for 3 weeks! Gulp! We hope to give them a tour of Warsaw, Kaziemierz Dolny, Krakow, possibly Auschwitz, Zakopane, then off to Prague/Bratislava/Vienna/etc. and back. Likely go to Berlin a different weekend with her mom, too, as she's full German blood (Koeppl, I think?).

Dawn Hoffer's coming to Amsterdam, but right when J's family's coming, so we won't get to see her, which is a big bummer. We had a great time at her and Chuck's wedding on the Olympic Penninsula the previous summer. Hi to you guys!

OK, well, I think that's about all the goings on in People of the Plains-land. Sorry it's so long, but a 1,000 words load faster than a digital picture's worth!

;-)

Do widzenia!