What I Did on Sunday

After a day of almost non-stop walking, I opted to take it easy and spend Sunday doing not much of anything. Another teacher and I took a trip to Kaufland, the nearest shopping mall and picked up mostly junk food. While I was there, I also bought a cheap pack of 24 crayons and a permanent marker. Art ensued.

Tah-dah!

Cheap wall art!

In conclusion, there is no such thing as being too old for crayons.

The First Tricity

Elbląg is situated very close to the Tricity of Poland - a large metropolitan area of Poland made up of three cities: Gdansk, Gydinia, and Sopot. I was told each of these cities are worth visiting, and considering how close and easy they are to get to, I plan on doing so! In fact, last Saturday, I crossed off one on city off the list when I visited Gdansk for the day.

Gdansk, the riverside city

Gdansk is situated right on the river, which makes it a big industrial center and a historic seaport. Like Elbląg, a lot of Gdansk was destroyed in the WWII. However, unlike in Elbląg, when rebuilding took place in the 1950s, the Poles' aim was to get rid of German influences in the city rather than restore what had been there before. As a result, most of the new architecture is Italian or French or Dutch, and not the original German style.

I hopped on a bus in the morning and spent the day wandering around the city. I visited the old churches, including St. Mary's Church, which happens to be the largest brick church in the world. I also walked up and down the Long Lane (Ulica Długa in Polish) which stretches between Gdansk's two historic gates - the Golden Gate and the Green Gate (neither of which is golden or green, oddly enough). The Long Lane is filled with restaurants and vendors which extend beyond the Golden Gate and wrap around along the riverside. The rest of the lane is framed by rows beautiful buildings with elaborate pastel facades. According to an English tour guide that I eavesdropped on, the buildings along the Long Lane used to house the headquarters of the city's various guilds, and they all tried to out-do one another by making their headquarters the most grand and spectacular looking.

 

St. Mary's Church

The largest brick building that won't fit into one entire picture

Some Dutch-style architecture

Neptune's Fountain

The Golden Gate (okay it's a little golden)

I also made a visit to the Solidarity Museum in Gdansk. The museum is pretty new and extremely nice. It's full of artifacts and videos from the Solidarity Movement which began in Gdansk in 1980. I got a free audio guide and toured my way around the museum in the afternoon.

The Solidarity Museum

The cross and anchor symbol of the Solidarity Movement

Before I left to return to Elbląg, I grabbed a coffee for the road. I am a pro at ordering coffee in Polish. Although the three or four words I use to do so make up about 25% of my Polish vocabulary at this point, so perhaps I shouldn't brag just yet.

All in all I really enjoyed my Gdansk visit. Seeing as the city's so easy and cheap to get to, I definitely think I will be back to visit again in the future!

Jenny's Guide to Teaching

or 'What to Do When a Kindergartner Hugs You in the Middle of Class and Won't Let Go'

I have finished (and survived) my first week of teaching! I have a pretty varied group of classes - three groups of 3rd graders at various levels of English comprehension, two groups of 6 year olds and one group of 5 year olds who know almost no English, and two classes of advanced adults. Next week I will also begin teaching at a public elementary school here in the morning, and I may also have an opportunity to do some 1:1 tutoring, so overall, they are keeping me plenty busy! This first week was a series of ups and downs as I've been trying to plan lessons for my new classes. It's been difficult to judge what level the students will be at before meeting them and to prepare accordingly.

For my very first class, a group of 3rd graders, I had taken hours to carefully plan every detail of the lesson, only to find that they understood surprisingly less than I had been lead to believe, or so I gathered from their blank stares as I tried to speak to them in English. I did what I could to simplify the lesson on the spot, but by the end of it, I was flustered and convinced I had just confused the kids more. It wasn't until one of my students, a little blonde girl, came up to me as she was leaving, gave me a hug, and said, "That was great, thank you Mister Jenny!" that I felt a little better.

The five and six-year-olds are the cutest little peanuts you have ever seen, but keeping them amused for 90 minutes at a time, in another language, is particularly challenging. My strategy has mostly been to be about ten times more animated and expressive in front of them than I am normally (which requires a lot of coffee). By only using a minimal amount of words ('stand up,' 'look,' 'what's this?' etc.) I've found that they can understand me and start to pick up some new vocabulary in English. I've already gathered a few fans, which is encouraging, but also a little troublesome when a little kid latches onto you while you're trying to teach and refuses to let go!

The school itself is very nice, and has a homey feel to it. It's relatively small, so all the teachers know each other and both the director and the owner of the school are always around to talk to and help with any problems. My third day of teaching, the owner found me in the teacher's lounge and brought me downstairs to the cafe where she helped me to order lunch (delicious homemade pierogis)! "You have to eat well when you are teaching so many kids!" she said. So now I apparently get a homemade, two-course meal for lunch every day. Works for me considering my own cooking skills have generally never risen above the instant mac and cheese and microwavable Lean Cuisine level.

Next week I start teaching more classes in the public school, so we'll see how that goes!

The school

I get to use a fancy Smartboard!

The teacher's lounge

A Bus to Stegna

Saturday and Sunday were my two days to get settled in before classes started on Monday.
On Saturday one of the other English teachers suggested we go to the Stegna, which is a smallish town on the coast of the Baltic Sea. It gave me an opportunity to learn how the buses work and just to enjoy the beautiful weather (which I am constantly being told will not last much longer)! The beach was super nice and not crowded at all, making for a relaxing day. We also ate some delicious fresh fish (reccommended to us by a native) and what apparently was 'the best gofry in all of Poland!' (Gofrey is waffles with dessert toppings on it).

The Baltic Sea

 

Gofry!

Welcome to Elbląg

I am teaching English for the year in a small city in Poland called Elbląg (pronounced El-blong by the locals). Elbląg is located in the very north of Poland, right near the Baltic Sea, and it's about an hour drive from Gdansk, which is a much bigger city and a really popular tourist spot.

Old Town Elblag

The city has an interesting history. Prior to 1945, it was a German territory, known as Elbing. During World War II, the entire city was completely destroyed. It became a part of Poland after the end of the war, and most of the Poles who came to settle in the newly renamed Elbląg came from parts of Poland that had been annexed by the Soviet Union.

The locals' favorite thing to tell me when I ask them about the city is that the Old Town is not actually old. After the city was destroyed in the war, the Communist authorities made a few attempts to build cheap apartments in the city space, though this never became a reality. Finally, in 1989 a massive restoration effort began to rebuild the Old Town. Thus while most of the buildings are built in the style of the originals, everything is actually quite new. Some people here refer to it as the 'New' Old Town.

It's quite a small town, but there are a few interesting local sites.

St. Mikołaja (Nicholas) Cathedral, the local church

 

The main street

Elblag Canal

The clock tower

Interestingly, some of the buildings were rebuilt with the original bricks from the old city, although this is only true for a few buildings in the Old Town. Apparently most of the bricks from the old Elbing were sent to Warsaw to rebuild the city there, which happened sooner.

The dark bricks are the originals

Outside of Old Town, the rest of the city is pretty usual. There are many small parks and green areas, which is nice, though sadly it seems they won't stay green for long once winter comes. Buses and trams run all around the city, so it is easy to get around, though my primary transportation here so far has mostly just been walking! There are many families here, and the people seem very kind and helpful. The nice thing about living in a more remote city such as Elbląg is that you really get to live like the locals. It's very different than what I experienced living in an American dorm in Rome, for example. The downside is that it's much quieter and there's less to do than in a big city, which I'm used to after Rome, Beijing, and Chicago! But I'm very close to Gdansk if I'm ever in the mood for city-life! Overall, I think I am going to enjoy living here for a year!

Elblag is a tram city

Adventures Part 3!

I have officially been in Poland for one week, so my days are starting to take on a routine, and first impressions are starting to solidify into opinions as I get more familiar with everything here. Overall, I've been very happy here so far!

The flight to Poland was pretty good, save for a few minor complications. Just like when I was trying to leave Beijing, our plane was held up due to electrical problems, so now I am convinced I have some kind of a curse when it comes to planes. Either that or planes these days just have a lot of electrical problems. Or 'electrical problems' is code for the pilots are taking an extra long coffee break.

Anyway the technical difficulties lasted just long enough that by the time I got to the airport in Warsaw, the plane that I was supposed to transfer to was boarding just as I was getting off the first one. I ran through the airport and ended up in line for security as the words 'Final Call' flashed in red next to my flight number. I showed my ticket to the airline employee overseeing the line for security. He escorted my to the front of the line where I hastily threw my stuff on the conveyor belt. My escort, however, stopped my when he saw that I had a half-filled reusable water bottle in my backpack. "You must empty it," he said in a thickly accented voice, gesturing to two trash cans next to us. I grabbed the water bottle, "Just empty it?" I asked, standing over the trash cans. I wasn't sure it was the best idea, but he nodded, so I unscrewed the cap and began to dump the water into the trash. "Ahh no!" he immediately exclaimed and snatched the bottle from me. He then proceeded to grab a plastic Dasani water bottle out of the trash and begin to pour the water ever so carefully from one bottle to the other. And by carefully I mean basically one drop at a time. The rest of my stuff was already on the other side of security, the loudspeakers were blaring last call for my flight, and I stood watching this guy pour water as carefully as if it were explosive chemicals wishing I had been able to pour more of it in the trash before he had stopped me. He finally handed the bottle back to me, and I flew through the metal detectors. A Polish woman who had witnessed my mad dash through security helped me gather my things on the other side. "Shoes, here. Jacket, here. Don't forget passport!" she said, in a display of kindness that I have begun to notice is characteristic of many Poles. I thanked her and sprinted full out through the airport hoping I could still get to my gate in time, but the woman at the gate shook her head at me once I reached the it and informed me that it was too late. It was right about this time that I was starting to rethink the whole international travel thing.

It turned out not to be so bad though. Luckily the airline very efficiently put me on the next flight out and I was on my way just two hours later. I tried to contact the school before I left to let them know I was delayed since someone was supposed to be picking me up. By the time I arrived at the very small airport in Gdansk, however, no one was there. I was contemplating getting a taxi when suddenly my phone seemed to remember how to function and I received messages from about five different people at the school telling me not to worry and reassuring me that someone was already on their way back to the airport to pick me up! Sure enough one of the teachers was there in about ten minutes.

Now would be a good time to talk about how incredibly kind and welcoming the other teachers and school staff have been. My first night, two of the teachers helped me to go shopping for some groceries and dishes/cooking supplies which the owner of the school then offered to pay for. The next day they walked me to the school where everyone was incredibly friendly. Another teacher offered to show me around Elbląg later in the week. Considering that I knew no one personally before coming here, the amount of support I feel that I have here now after just one week makes me feel like I really chose a good place to be! The accommodations are also great. According to one of the American teachers, the rooms we are living in were just renovated, and as a result, they are really clean and nice and new. I have my own bathroom with a towel warmer and an amazing shower, a mudroom with a mini fridge, a bedroom area, and even my own balcony complete with resident pigeons. The room is located in a student housing building for a local college here and there's a security guard at the front desk 24/7, so it's also very safe.

The student housing where I live

The weather has been gorgeous here so far; warm and sunny with a little bit of a fall edge, but definitely still enjoyable. The Poles tell me it's a bit unusual for this time of year. Dorota, the school owner told me, "I think it is a good sign. It is sunny when you came, so it means it will be a bright year for you." I told her that I liked that prediction.

Now I just have to learn a little Polish and start planning for my English classes!