Saturday in Sopot

Over the weekend, my co-worker invited me to meet up with her in Sopot, one of the Tricities, to meet some other Americans she knew who were living in Poland. The weather was great on Saturday, so I hopped on a train and met up with everyone an hour and a half later in a small cafe on Sopot's main street, Monte Cassino. Sopot's known for its nice beaches along the Baltic Sea. It's a vacation destination for Poles in the north when the weather's nice. There are two beautiful hotels right along the coast, as well as Europe's longest wooden pier which stretches into the Baltic.

The longest wooden pier

A ritzy hotel

A melting house

I was ecstatic to meet more people who spoke English, particularly more Americans who knew what it was like to make the transition from the US to Poland. Most of the women were in their thirties, and a few had children. They were all extremely friendly. A few have been living in Poland for upwards of six years, so they were also amazing resources in terms of giving me good advice and telling me what to expect throughout the year.

In the evening, we took the train partway back to Gdansk, where we got off and wandered the city for a little while at night. We also got Polish donuts and the richest hot chocolate I've ever tasted! It was a fun little excursion, and it was really nice to be welcomed into a network of such helpful and experienced ladies. I've been invited to join them for a 10k run in November, and I'm considering participating (if I can get in shape)! We'll see!

Gdansk at night

How to Learn Polish

Today I decided to make pierogis for dinner. Not homemade, but the kind you can buy at the store and boil in a pot for instant culinary success. I unwrapped the package, pulled up Google Translate, and proceeded to type in the cooking directions into the translator.
'Step 1: Fill pot with 2 liters of water.' Okay.
'Step 2: Boil water.' Check.
'Step 3. Endure approx. 2 minutes after departure until appropriate.' Um...
It's always amusing to me when you have to translate the translation. Luckily, China prepared me for that, and the pierogis turned out fine.

My experience learning the Polish language has been quite interesting so far. I don't have a formal tutor yet, since my schedule has been changing around a lot with the classes I teach, so the majority of my language learning has been through what I've managed to pick up here and there for practical use. So mostly my Polish is limited to an eclectic collection of words and phrases that allow me to do things such as ask for a key to the laundry room, buy a train ticket, and use a Polish copy machine.

Amusingly, my best Polish teachers are my six-year-old students. I use flashcards and pictures frequently when I'm teaching the students new words, and their first reaction is always to shout out the name of the item in Polish before I give them the English word. When I have fifteen students shouting out "pomidor!" "pomidor!" repeatedly while I'm teaching them the word for 'tomato,' it's easy for me to learn that the Polish word for tomato is pomidor. The little ones are teaching me without even meaning to! Consequently, I happen to know the names of colors, shapes, family members, and pets in Polish.

My third grade students are especially concerned with my language acquisition. Whenever they get to class early, they keep themselves occupied by writing a dictionary of Polish words for me on the board. Then, before class starts, they like for me to try and read all of the words out loud. The students get endless amusement from this, and I think it's a sneaky way to have them practice the English translations of Polish words. Some of the students write very practical things, like 'telephone,' and 'book,' while others continuously teach me the word for 'teddy bear.' They're tough teachers though. Today, after I read my weekly 'dictionary,' one of the little girls said, "It's good. But keep practicing, it's not that good." Looks like I'd better practice saying the word for teddy bear a few more times.

Today's 'dictionary'

In case you thought Polish was easy

Tourists in Town

Last weekend, my coworker and next-door-neighbor went with me to Old Town on a little field trip to 'educate' me on the town's history and sights. It was a fun time, and thanks to the fact that my co-worker is also a teacher, I can safely say that I feel sufficiently educated.

We started at the Archaeological and Historical Museum at the edge of Old Town. The museum houses a lot of medieval objects excavated from Old Town as well as old crafted items from the 17th and 18th centuries when Elblag was a rich port city. The museum itself is pretty small, and when we arrived in the early afternoon, we were pretty much the only visitors, so of course I joked that we were like VIPs getting the museum all to ourselves. The museum employee followed us around to unlock doors for us and show us where to go. According to my friend, every Polish museum worth its salt will have an amber museum as a feature, and sure enough, the Elblag museum had one in the basement. They also happened to put some creepy realistic(ish) looking wax-figures in the basement with the display, and I managed to keep running into them, thinking they were real, and freaking out. This happened three times (at least, that's all I'm going to admit to)!

When we were done with our private tour of the museum, we decided to get a snack. And by snack, I mean fancy gourmet-style cheesecake from the famous Elblag Hotel. Now, I promise that I'm not usually one of those tourists that take pictures of every single thing they eat, but in this case I couldn't resist.

It's just so pretty!

Next, we explored some of the nooks and crannies of Old Town. Off to the side of one street, sheltered within the buildings, is the Church Path, a narrow passage which used to lead from the very center of Old Town to the gate of the Dominican Church. Now it's shorter and just connects two streets, but it's still kind of cool.

The Art Museum, 'Gallery El,' was our next destination, and the one I was most looking forward to visiting. The gallery is located in the former Dominican Church of Mary. On the walls and floors inside there are sepulchral stones with epitaphs dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries etched with names of nobles and merchant families. Inside and outside there are some interesting art displays, some more enigmatic than others.

For example, this 2-story shopping cart

The outside of Gallery El

Ruins surrounding the gallery

We followed up our tour of the town by heading to a bar located right on the canal, where I was encouraged to try the 'EB beer,' made locally from Elblag's very own Elbrewery. I actually liked it a lot, especially considering I'm typically not big on beer. But I think they should call it Elbeer instead of EB, because anything that sounds okay with the pre-fix 'El,' in this town should definitely take advantage of that.