Now, like almost everyone my age around the world I spend the majority of my week simply going to school. Of course I've mentioned before that this is different for me because there is absolutely nothing for me to do in school. I don't mind it too much, I like lazing around throughout the school day. Though I should mention that there is one class that I have to work in, French Class. This teacher decided that since none of the other students understand French then I could learn with them. I was put in the lowest possible class, there are students at my school who are fluent in French in the upper classes. Language classes in Europe start a lot earlier and they actually teach you in hopes that you become fluent in the language, because since their countries are the same distance and size as some of our states, they go on vacations and things to other countries rather than just to another state. Anyway, the problem with me learning about French though is that half the time I can't figure out if she is talking in French or Polish during the class. Honestly I keep getting in trouble, but I've already given up trying in the class and now I spend it checking my wristwatch to see how much longer I have, and deciding if she is speaking to us in French or Polish. Also I have to buy my text book (Schools don't provide them for you in Europe. But they are a lot smaller and cheaper so it isn't too big of a deal.) but I have absolutely no idea where to buy this book.Though, besides French class, my days are almost all lazy and uneventful. After school I often am really sleeping and go take a nap. I've started to run for an hour every couple nights because I still haven't been able to find a sports club (I'm still trying to wrestle but it is beginning to look like I'll have a year off the mat.) and with the huge servings of food my family gives me I'm getting fatter. And since I refuse to end up like Nelson I shall find some way to exercise all this Polish food off.
Now for the fun stuff. This weekend skipped school Thursday and Friday because I spent 4 days in a part of Poland called Mazury, which is very far from Krakow. Mazury is where Poland's form of the "Great Lakes" are and it is absolutely beautiful. I probably won't write too much about it because this is one of those places you can't describe with words. Hopefully you can get a small glimpse at what I saw through the pictures. Though sadly I have to steal my fellow exchange students' because I have the bad habit of forgetting my camera.
But before that I'll explain a little of what we did. First I got to ride on a train for the first time. This actually isn't a big deal since I will be doing this every once in a while. In Poland if you want to go a decent distance you don't drive, you take a train. I found that they don't all look like Hogwarts, the first time was actually seats similar to a plane, though the second ride was a little booth with random people in it, just like I remember from Harry Potter. From here we got on a van-bus thingy and they drove a few hours to Mazury. Most of the people on the trip were Brazilian or Mexican so Portuguese or Spanish was the languages spoken most during this trip. I spent the bus ride asleep because I rarely knew what was being said.
That night we went and had "the best pierogis in Mazury" at least that was what Pawel claimed. They were very good, but honestly almost all pierogis are starting to taste the same, all of them are just very good. And them we got to the two cabins that we would be staying in. The first thing they did was ask two of the biggest guys to help move a couch bed upstairs, so me and a Brazilian, Iuri, headed over to the girls' cabins to help. After breaking the couch bed and figuring out that there was no way for it to fit through the door leading upstairs, we kind of left the broken bed where it wouldn't cause too much problems and someone could still sleep on it. Then we got back to our cabin and had last choice of best for our troubles. I ended up sleeping in the living room on the boys' couch bed, which wasn't the most warm or comfortable place to be. After all this they told us that we could have a little party and left us to do our own thing. We all went to sleep at about three in the morning and got up at 7 the next day.
The first thing I noticed was that I forgot a towel, so I had to get as dry as I could after my shower and then just go to breakfast wet. This was especially uncomfortable since it is about 40 degrees in Mazury at this time. After breakfast they got all of the guys together and we went to chop down a tree with the two axes we found. It was fun cutting down the tree, though I was blind in one eye most of the time thanks to a flying wood chip from the tree. We then had to carry the 20 foot tree down the road back to camp, which we got a lot of pictures of..... well everyone else did, I didn't have a camera. After making some of the only clothes I had dirty and covered in wet tree and mud we started cutting the tree into small logs for the campfire that night. This was fun, but it soon became clear that a few people could use the axes and others would take all day to cut the tree and would probably hurt someone. A few hours later we left to go explore the area.
We drove through some of the large towns that are around the lakes. The first thing we did was go to the Wolf's Lair (which is the translation from German to English). This was one of Hitler's most important bases during WWII. He had lived there for several months and there was even an assassination attempt on him by a German officer while he was there. It was cool, but it was supposed to be hidden in the trees and everything was mostly large broken cement buildings covered in moss because the Germans blew the whole place to bits when they left it. Then we saw a Bishop's Palace, an really big old castley building with a great view from the tower, and I had a weird "French hot dog". It was a hotdog put into a breadstick sleeve thingy. It didn't taste bad but Polish people use way too much ketchup, and it was just really weird to eat. After this we went to see an organ concert, one of those giant church pianos with the giant pipes that makes Baby Grand pianos look like a childs toy. This one was really cool because it was largely automated, some of the sounds coming from the angels decorating it shaking bells, or spinning wheels or whatever. After this a lot of us guys got cheap airsoft guns (though I really wanted to get one of the switchblade knives they sold. I love how some of the things that are illegal to own in the US are perfectly normal here.). Most of the guns were broken by the end of the night, but we did have fun shooting eachother and cussing in several languages when we were shot. Dinner that night was kielbasa or Polish sausage, and some weird stew thing they cooked in the camp fire we made. We would have made smores but the only marshmallows you can get in Poland are little bubble gum flavored ones and those are hard to find, plus they would be horrible for smores.
The next day we went to explore some of the other towns in Mazury. At one point we were being led somewhere and I was walking with a couple of the Mexicans and the Columbian kid. We got left behind and lost because they went nuts over seeing a duck (and it had nothing to do with them never seeing one before which is usually the reason exchange students go nuts when they see something. They all have them in their countries but they just seemed to love the duck...I named it Aflac.) When we called to tell them we had gone missing they told us that they were on a tight schedual so just to meet them back at the bus in an hour. So we went to a pizza place and had second breakfast. While we ate we found the group, and it turns out they had just gotten turned loose for freetime too. Since they didn't have as much time as us they couldn't get their own pizzas and went off to find different food. We then had some ice cream before loading onto the bus to head off to go on a cruise on the lakes. It was cool, the Rotary club of the town we were in took us on this big party boat and invited a bunch of teenagers from the Polish high school (I never learned what they had to do with Rotary but there was something.) A bunch of the guys thought it was really cool to meet an American so I spent the entire boat ride talking to them about random things. I was happy however to find out that one of them was a wrestler, mostly because I miss wrestling, I haven't found a club for it in Krakow yet. Wrestling isn't very popular in Poland, most people don't even know what it is. After that we were all pretty tire so we went back to the cabins and got to have another little party again, though this time half the people were outside dancing with the bus driver. (His name is Arthur, but you pronounce it like AR-TOO-ER). It was a fun night, and the next day we went home. But the kids from Krakow took a later train so we could stay in Warsaw and see it a bit. All we did was go to the mall and then had some munchies at the Hard Rock Cafe but it was still fun.
Now what you have all been waiting for, pictures of the Mazurian Lakes!
This is the view from the front of our cabins. And yes, that is me shooting the photographer with an airsoft gun, the only one that was still working.
The view from inside one of the destroyed buildings of the Wolf's Lair. Most of them looked pretty similar to this.
This is the Bishop's Palace
The duck that got us lost
The view of the lake we sailed on. It would be prettier if it hadn't been cloudy and rainy all day.
The church where we heard the organ concert.
The Organ
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