Livigno Italy

In January I went to Italy to learn how to snowboard in the Italian Alps. Well so far this has probably been one of the best weeks of my entire exchange. The basics of the event was that about 20 exchange students joined a group going to Livigno, Italy for one week to go skiing there, or snowboarding in my case. This started with me getting on a train at 6 in the morning and taking the 9 hour ride to Gorzów Wielkopolski, the city where one of the exchange students from a city near Chicago lived, Luis Cepeda. One of his Polish friend’s dad was the Rotarian who organized the trip for us. So we went to Gorzów the day before we left and were given temporary host families for the night. I stayed with a nice old lady and one of the Brazilian exchange students. That night they gave us a brief introduction to the trip and then let us spend a few hours going through the city. The next day, we had several hours before our bus to Italy left so once again we explored some of the city. One ironic thing was that we found a restaurant selling “New York Hot-Dogs” which, after 6 months away from home, excited the Americans. But after we bought them we found they put Bigos on them, which is a Polish stew made primarily of cabbage. They were good, but obviously not actually American. Then after going shopping for last minute things, like ski pants in my case, we boarded the bus for the 16 hour bus ride through Europe to Italy. We went first to Germany, then to Austria, then on to Switzerland, and finally we went down a narrow tunnel through a mountain and came out in Italy. From Austria to Italy though we drove through the mountains, and this was some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. I’ll post some pictures at the end to prove my point, but I only have so much room so I can’t give a whole lot of them.

Now for the first day, we did very little. We walked through the city of Livigno, rented our skis, or snowboards in my case, and pretty much talked about what we hoped to do the next day. Then we had dinner at our hotel, which was a kind of buffet and it had the first decent steak I’ve eaten since I came to Poland. They also had several other things that were delicious, but I don’t know what they are called, and I don’t want to waste too much time talking about food, I’ll do that in a moment. Anyway, the next day we traveled up the mountain, which makes P mountain look like an ant hill. One of the exchange students who went with us often snowboarded in the US, so he agreed to teach me and the Brazilian guy how to snowboard while the other beginners went with our skiing instructor. After a lot of falling, and having to take my snowboard off a few times, I finally got to the bottom of the first run. I learned a lot that day, but had trouble putting it into practice. The most important thing I learned is snowboarding is hard and that it hurts. Eventually me and my snowboarding partner were tired and cold so we had lunch in the restaurant at the top of the mountain. This was the second steak I had after coming to Poland, though not quite the last. After this we snowboarded a while, got tired and cold again, and then decided to wait for the others when it was time to go back. Though after no one returned we went down the ski lift and waited with the Rotarians, though once again no one returned. After the ski lifts closed we called someone (we didn’t want to before because it was very expensive to use Polish phones in Italy) and found out that everyone else had gotten bored and gone back to the hotel earlier. After dinner that night we went out in the city to see if we could find something entertaining to do. But we also found out that night that in Livigno everything closes very early and there wasn’t much to do.

The next day I decided to stay at the hotel and go see the city with Luis, who was injured and was not allowed to go skiing for the whole trip. We had slept in quite a bit, and just as we were about to go out to find something fun to do, Felipe (the Brazilian) walks in with Pablo (The Mexican/ American [it’s a long story] who taught me and Felipe how to snowboard.). Apparently, Pablo had fallen and gotten a concussion, and Felipe brought him back to the hotel for help. So we took our concussed friend (who had a very comical memory loss) to the hospital, and then tried to get ahold of the Rotarian. It took a while, and a lot of bus/taxi rides, but eventually Pablo was ok, and even then we started playing with him and his memory loss. In celebration that he was alright, and, more importantly, to kill time, we went out to buy some pizza, it was Italy afterall. We found a nice restaurant there and settled in. It turns out though that our waiter was from Argentina, and since most people at the table were fluent in Spanish, we all had fun with the waiter. The waiter even decided to make fun of Pablo and his inability to remember events that had happened five seconds before. The food was absolutely delicious, I had a spicy pizza with something similar to pepperoni and some other stuff on it that was the best pizza I ever ate. And then Felipe ordered a steak, that we realized when they brought it out it was bigger than my head. Not only that, but it was a very delicious steak. I ended up ordering one myself the next time I went to the restaurant, the day before we left Italy. The rest of the day was rather uneventful, so afterwards we went snowboarding the next day. I actually have a video of me snowboarding, but since it is mostly of me falling, I won’t be posting it. If you really want to see me falling and rolling around in the snow, then email me at coycrf70@gmail.com  saying so and I will send you a copy of the video.

Plainly put though, the rest of the trip was just snowboarding, snowboarding, and more snowboarding. I won’t waste your time writing about how to snowboard, but I eventually got a bit better, and since leaving Italy I have gone snowboarding with my host family and I’ve actually gotten pretty decent at it. To end the story, right before we left to go home I bought a new balisong (butterfly knife for most people) and it so far is my favorite one. Then we had another long bus ride back to Poland, and I stayed one more night with the nice old lady from before, and finally ended with another incredibly long train ride back to Krakow.

Polish New Years

Alright this will be a fairly short post even though it is an important holiday. The fact of the matter is that New Years in Poland is celebrated almost identically to New Years in America. So there isn't a whole lot to tell you other than skimming through what I did on New Years Eve.

On New Years one of my classmates invited me to a party at his house, so I accepted. My host parents drove me (after I had spent the entire previous day getting explicit directions on how to get to my friend's house by bus.) and then I met my friend's parents, and was surprised that they spoke fairly fluent English. It was pretty much a normal party with people standing around and talking to eachother, some of the guys played poker and such. At one point some of the more fluent English speaking girls were asking me about their accent, as one was very proud that I told her that she spoke English with a British accent, and the other mad that I told her she sounded more like an American. (In Poland they learn only British English, so when they speak many want to speak with a British accent.) Later we went outside and shot off some fireworks and welcomed the New Year with a bottle of Russian Champagne. Then we went back inside, talked for several more hours and eventually went to sleep. The next day I slept through my bus so my friend's dad drove me to the city, I wandered around for a couple hours waiting for my bus home, ate a kebab (one of my favorite things to eat in Poland), and then finally went home. My New Years wasn't all that exciting, but it was still interesting enough. Oh and I should mention, in Poland the traditions of "The Dropping of the Ball" and kissing your significant other at midnight don't exist. And after new years day, school started once more. :'(

Sorry but I didn't bring my camera to the party so no pictures this time. Look forward next time I get around to writing (hopefully sooner rather than later) because it will be about my trip to Livigno, Italy and me trying and failing to snowboard. I'll also have plenty of beautiful pictures of the Italian Alps.

Polish Christmas

Well of course, now I'm going to talk about Christmas in Poland. I'm sure you're all very excited to hear about this, but to tell the truth it wasn't all that exciting. Being away from my family and all of the normal traditions simply didn't make it feel like Christmas, only another strange Polish holiday. Still, there were some interesting new traditions.

First I should mention that on the last day of school before Christmas Break (we get 1 and a half weeks off, but don't confuse this with Winter Break like in America, we get two weeks off in January for that.). School ended much earlier than usual, at about noon. Then we brought in all kinds of food and turned the class room into a giant table. Then we passed the food out, passed out the opłatki (O-pwat-kee) which are little wafers that have some kind of Christmas picture in them, and had a little Christmas dinner right in the class. We started with the tradition of the opłatki, where you walk around, break bits off other people's opłatek, and exchange wishes. I only knew one wish in Polish, but it was a really nice tradition. The only thing I disliked was with a large class it took a long time to finish it, and I couldn't eat until we were done. After this I had some kind of Polish burrito with cabbage inside, but it was really good, we had barszcz (borscht in English) which is a soup that is almost only eaten at Christmas time, and of course cookies. After an hour or so I had to leave though to go see Skyfall with some of my Polish friends. A lot of movies in Poland are simply American movies with Polish subtitles, so I can watch movies here without needing to try and translate it.

Moving on, Christmas also features a Christmas Market in the Main Square. This is a bunch of wooden stalls selling little gifts. During Christmas break I actually bought a balisong (butterfly knife to most) there as a Christmas present to myself. But my favorite thing about it was that they had big stalls where they sold grilled meat, such as kielbasa. Very delicious kielbasa, which I had a few times. It is also there I got my host parent's Christmas presents.

And now I'm sure you're excited to hear about Christmas dinner in Poland. On the first day of Christmas (in Poland Christmas lasts 2 days) we got dressed up in suits, and my host mom's father and sister came along, with her German husband and their 1 year old child. Then we started dinner. First we wished each other well with the opłatki, and then started the 5 course meal (it is usually twelve courses in Poland, but my stomach was spared from exploding.). First was my favorite part, the czerwone barszcz, then we had a mushroom soup that I choked down, followed by pierogi's, carp (I was saved from eating it by their daughter calling from Colorado where she is currently on an exchange), and finally cake. But back tracking a bit, the skype call with their daughter was interesting. She had sent a giant box with presents from America for her whole family, even one for me. So they all opened her presents on the webcam and we all thanked her. I got some American candy (Red vines and a gingerbread cookie). Then we had the cake and opened the other presents. From my host family I got a big winter coat, a sweater, and so much candy that I'm still finishing it 2 months later. Honestly if Daly is reading this, I'm going to have a lot of work until I can get back down to 195's. Then after that we just kind of sat around talking for a while before people had to start going home and bid everyone farwell. The next day we went up to my host aunt's house and had obiad there. This meal was one of the better that I have eaten in Poland, with pork tenderloin, mashed potatoes, green beans, and some kind of tomato soup that was delicious as well. Other than that though I kind of just read a book while everyone else was watching the Lord of the Rings on television, or I played with Bartusz the baby, he seemed to enjoy my yoyo.

That's about all for Christmas, I'll try to get my New Years written down in just a few minutes as well. As for pictures, honestly I never really took a lot because it would have mostly been pictures of my host family and such, and those aren't all that interesting. Sorry again, but I'm not any kind of photographer, so my last thought is usually to take pictures of things. So I'll give you pictures of some of the more foreign foods that I ate for Christmas, and a funny picture from my class during our dinner.

Wojtek acting like a Roast pig. We even stuck an apple in his mouth.

Czerwone Barszcz

Pierogi

Class Christmas

Alright, this post will be rather short, and I'm sorry once again that I'm so far behind. But eventually I'll find a way to get everything written down for y'all. I'm just a bit lazy, doing nothing school related and purely having fun for the last 6 months kind of does that you.

Anyway, I'll be talking about my "Class Christmas". This is basically a Secret Santa that I did with my Polish class. I drew the teacher so my present was fairly unexciting, simply an extra calendar with pictures of the Arizona that I had because I give them as a present to my host families. But still, I wrapped it nicely and she seemed to like it (oh and she's also an English teacher at the school, so I had no trouble telling her anything.) My present was from one of my friends, but since he started the school day by telling me "oh and when you get your present, don't let the teacher see it." I probably shouldn't tell y'all either. Needless to say it is funny, and since I got it I hid it in my suitcase so my host brothers don't see it. All in all, it was fun and cute, and a lot better than anything we do for Christmas in PHS.

Below is a picture of Kascpar, our class President, and Ignacy. Kascpar was in charge of sitting in the chair at the front, reading off the names of who gets the present and giving them out. Ignacy decided he'd sit on his lap like Santa Claus.

Birthday in Poland

Well I think it is time to write about my Polish adventures for the month of December. Of course the first thing I have to mention is my birthday, as it is first chronologically. Sorry in advance though, I didn't expect to really celebrate my birthday, so I don't have any pictures. Surprises usually make it hard to have a camera on hand.

Anyway, that morning luckily I didn't have school since it was a weekend. So I got out of bed at roughly 11, something that hasn't changed whether I live in Poland or in the US. Then I showered and tried to go to the kitchen for breakfast. My host family told me to stay the hell out of the kitchen and handed me a bowl, cereal, and milk and told me to eat in the living/dining room. Then I spent most of the day goofing off at home, watching movies, or other random ways to kill time, as I didn't actually plan on doing anything for my birthday. My friends had a lot of tests the following week so all of them were busy studying for the weekend.

Still, later that day I had obiad, which is kind of like dinner eaten at 3 o'clock or so. It turns out my host family kicked me out of the kitchen so that my host brothers could cook pizza. It was completely different than the idea of pizza that popped into your mind. A normal pizza in Poland doesn't use tomato sauce and has odd ingredients, like corn. Still, the pizza was really good, and I still didn't realize that they made it for my birthday. So I went back to goofing off once more until several hours later, my family walks into the living room and asks me to turn off my computer. After I do they bring in a home made cake and start singing "Happy Birthday" which was really surprising because no one in the house really speaks English except one of my host brothers, and even his English is about as good as my Polish. Anyway, they then had me blow out the candles, served the cake, which had my name and 17 written on it. Sorry I can't give you pictures, but it was a really nice cake, it had several layers and was all kinds of little chocolates on top to decorate it. Then while we all had cake and tea (in Europe everything is eaten with either hot tea or coffee) they gave me presents. Those I'll look forward to showing people when I get back, because they gave me two books, both in English. One was about Krakow and has some pictures of my city that I can show you, and the other was a book on Poland which is my favorite because it has a lot of beautiful pictures of Poland, plus it is even cooler because looking at it reminds me of the times I saw those places in person. I also got a scarf that had Polska written on it, which is one of the several ways to say Poland in Polish (sorry but I'm not explaining why). By now I'm starting to get a pretty nice collection of scarves, except I only wear one of them because they others I don't want to get dirty or lose.

After all this they explained that while doing something at my school my host mom saw my birth date on a piece of paper which is how they learned that it was my birthday in the first place. So I spent my birthday happily surprised and, as always in Poland, full of cake. Still, I then felt the need to personally celebrate my birthday, so the next day I went into the city alone.

For the most part my trip to the city wasn't extremely eventful. I went around the Christmas market in the Square for the most part. This is basically like the Potpourri (or however it is spelled) in Parker, except with wooden stalls, hot wine, kielbasa, and a lot more traditional things sold. I ate dinner in the city that night, a big kielbasa from one of the several meat stalls. I listen to random plays and singing that was done on a stage in the Square, and I also looked around for Christmas presents for my host family. Not a completely exciting night, but it was fun, even if it ended with me waiting for my bus for an hour in -5 to -10 degree (Celsius) weather.

Next y'all will get to hear about my Class Christmas, which wasn't too exciting, but I found it funny so I figure I'll write about it. Look forward too it, hopefully I can get it out soon. :)

Sorry

Thank everyone who has been waiting diligently for me to make another post. The reason I haven't posted in a while is simply because there wasn't much happening that I thought worthy to tell all of y'all about. But the funny thing about an exchange is that one month can be completely uneventful, and the next is so busy and crazy that I barely get an hour to sit down and type about what has happened. This is being posted on Christmas day, because I got a little bit of time while my family is sitting around me singing Polish Christmas carols, but since I don't know the words I just get to listen. Christmas lasts 3 days in Poland, and I have one more day to go, so I won't get around to posting about it for a couple days, but after that I have a few days of Christmas break to talk about all the things that I've done this month, like my birthday in Poland, my trip to Wroclaw, the concert I went to, and of course Polish Christmas. It might take me a while to write about that all. But I wanted to let everyone who is still looking at my blog know that I'll be getting back to informing you of my exploits soon and to apologize for leaving you in the dark for so long.

Freshman Orientation

Well it is about time to get my butt in gear and catch up on this blog. But one of the reasons that I haven’t written in so long is because there are very few things to write. A lot of my time is spent at school where I sleep and read because other than me everyone has to do classes. I’ve learned I hate trying to learn French even more than Polish and I’ve explored the city a few times. But even then there was nothing specific to really say went on. But at one point of walking around the city I realized that what makes a foreign exchange great isn’t the big events such as meeting Holocaust survivors and visiting different parts of the country, but the small differences that emphasize that you are in a different country and culture. Of course the big events are still more exciting and fun to do.

So I have decided that I am going to start giving you guys some of the differences between Poland and the US. And because the Monday of the week I am writing this blog post for (October 14th-20th) was my Freshman Orientation in my high school (Here I was demoted to Freshman again.) I will talk about the difference between my Freshman Orientation in America and the one in Poland.

First I’ll explain what happened in Poland since I’m sure most of you know what my orientation in America was like. The first big difference is that we were asked to wear formal clothing to school on the day of the Orientation. That itself can tell you a lot of the differences of how schools are run here versus how they are run in America. At the end of the day we got out of class about a fifteen minutes early and we were taken to an auditorium that the school had rented in a big conference building. At the time I was helping one of the English teachers with her advanced English class so I at least got to talk with people pretty well. The actual ceremony is hard to describe because my Polish still isn’t great and I couldn’t really tell what was going on. They made some people swear oaths to the school and then they made each class of the school say a little thing together, which I managed to do even if my pronunciation was a little off. Then when everyone wanted to leave we had to wait and sit through a mini art show of paintings by students and one little orientation video some of the Seniors (called third years here) made.

During most of this time I kept pointing out the differences between this and the Freshman Orientation for Parker High School, personally I prefer the American way of doing things. The formality doesn’t work well with most American teenagers (how often do you see kids in Parker High School all wearing suits, and I mean the entire student body, not just the wrestling team before a bus ride). Beyond this is the fact that we did it before high school, which really didn’t matter much between here and there. And the biggest difference between American Freshman Orientation and the Polish one is that the American one was more fun, the student council dresses up like idiots (I still have the picture of Mr. Daly dressed as Peter Pan on my phone and my classmates couldn’t believe a teacher would show up to school dressed like that, though they said the same thing when I showed them a faculty picture from the Parker High School website.), there are interesting games, and it gives you a sense of school spirit, something that completely doesn’t exist in Polish schools. Though I was also told that one high school in Poland did do a little game thing, but theirs was gross. They had to lick whipped cream off the knee of the headmaster or a priest, which got the school in a lot of trouble from what I understood.

Anyway that is about it. Not much else to report, but I’m going to try to get caught up this weekend and manage to write about All Saints Day which happened a couple days ago.