Gingerbread Town

November was a busy month! I've been working a few Saturdays for a test prep class at my school, I've done a little substitute teaching, and I've gotten two new students for separate tutoring sessions, so I've been in high demand at work. Even though I'm new to full-time teaching and by no means an expert yet, being one of the native English speakers at the school automatically makes me really useful, which is a nice thing to be! I'm catching up on the last few trips I took over the past month, so stay tuned!

I've gotten pretty comfortable here in Elblag, and now that I know my way around public transportation, I'm starting to venture out a little farther from town on the weekends. For my first trip, I visited Toruń, a town about 4 hours south of Elblag. Toruń is one of the oldest cities in Poland. It was the birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus as well as a former hangout of the Teutonic Knights who built Malbork. It survived most of the destruction of World War II, so much of the architecture in the Old Town dates back to the medieval times. There are three huge Gothic churches, St. John's, St. Mary's, and St. James', the Old Town Hall in the city's main square which dates back to 1274, and the ruins of another castle used by the Teutonic knights in the city.

Unfortunately the weather was pretty foggy the day I went, but I still managed to find all the major sights. Along with the old churches and buildings in Old Town, Toruń has a famous leaning tower which was built in the 14th century. When it started leaning in the Middle Ages thanks to the unstable ground, no one bothered to do anything about it. Luckily, it's been stable ever since. The tradition is to lean against the wall with the back of your feet touching the bottom of the tower and try to keep your balance. It's actually really hard!

Torun's leaning tower

Yep, definitely leaning

Stare Miasto - Old Town

A church choir practicing with Copernicus

Some miniature Teutonic Knights

Old Town Hall

I spotted these funny figures on top of one of the old walls

St. Mary's Church

I also wandered into the other castle built by the Teutonic knights. Toruń's castle was much smaller than the one in Malbork, but I climbed around on the ruins and looked at the exhibits for a little while. I went into the basement of the castle to look at some exhibits, and as I was wandering through the rooms, I walked right into the most terrifying mannequins I'd ever seen. It turns out that the castle hosts a haunted house every year around Halloween, and they had yet to take the decorations down! I laughed about it, but only after I ran out of there!

Besides its historical sights, Toruń also happens to be famous for 'pierniki' known as gingerbread in English. There's a museum dedicated solely to the making of gingerbread in the town. It's quite an art form. Apparently when the composer Frederic Chopin was visiting Toruń back in the 1820s, he said something like, 'All these famous historical sights in Toruń are cool, but it's the gingerbread that's impressed me the most!' You can get really elaborate gingerbread designs from the bakeries in Toruń. I went into a bakery to buy some gingerbread, and was overwhelmed by the selection. I ended up asking for one of each type of gingerbread cookie to try (each one had a different filling like marmalade inside). It was my souvenier!

Unintentionally Funny

Teaching English has its challenges. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges is trying to keep a straight face when a student unintentionally says something funny during a lesson. Mistranslations and pronunciation mistakes yield some interesting sentences and situations in class.

The other day I was teaching my third graders transportation words and the word 'ship' was on the vocab list. I held up the flashcard, pronounced the word, and gestured for the students to repeat. Unfortunately, about half the class apparently misheard me and thought the /p/ sound was a /t/. So it was that half of my third graders proceeded to unintentionally and collectively curse in class. I was quick to correct that error!!

The Poles are especially cute when I try to teach them to pronounce the /r/ sound (which always comes out as a /w/) or the /th/ which is always mispronounced as an /f/. I had to try so hard to stay serious as I tried to teach my class of adults to pronounce the word 'rare.'

"Repeat: rare," I directed them.
"Wawe," they said.
"Rrrare," I demonstrated.
"Wwwawe," they said.
And so it went.

A misused preposition never fails to have my class of teenage boys in an uproar (yes, the class is all boys).

Maybe it's my English teacher humor, but this video had me cracking up:

 Just remember: don't cry over spilled chickens before they're hatched.

All Saints' Day

While Halloween may not be an important day for the Polish, the two days after - November 1st and 2nd - are big holidays in Poland. The 1st and 2nd are the Catholic holidays of All Saints' and All Souls' Day. All Saints' Day (Wszystkich Swietych in Polish) is an official public holiday in Poland so everything is closed. The day is specifically intended as a day of memorial for family members and friends who have passed away. In the days leading up to the holiday, people go to the cemeteries and clean the graves of their family members. On All Saints' Day, special church services are held and family members get together to celebrate. Everyone gathers at the cemetery and graves are decorated with flowers and candles and pine branches.

I didn't know about this holiday until I asked why all the stores were suddenly selling so many candles. My school director told me that I must go visit the local cemetery on the weekend to see how beautiful it all was. When I set out on Sunday, I wasn't actually quite sure where the cemetery was located, but found that it was easy to locate by following the crowds of people headed there. By late afternoon, all the graves had already been decorated. Not a single one was left empty. My boss told me that strangers decorated the graves that were bare because family members could not visit. Yellow, purple, white, and red flowers blanketed the graves, and candles and lanterns were arranged in careful displays. People were everywhere, praying and talking. While the holiday seems very solemn, the mood was actually quite joyful. Families were gathered, laughing and chatting, little kids were roaming around, and there was even a stall set up selling food and cotton candy outside the cemetery. It was a memorial, but also a celebration.

I stayed until the sun starting setting and all the candles were lit. There were thousands. Light overflowed from the candles and lit up the whole cemetery. Candles glowed steadily on every grave. Hundreds more were placed around a crucifix in the center of the cemetery for loved ones who were buried far away. People continued to gather and say prayers.

When I left the cemetery, I could still see all the lights from blocks away. All the candles were lit again the following day for All Souls' Day. It was really one of the most beautiful holiday traditions I have ever observed.

Just Like Medieval Times

Last week was filled with activities related to Halloween. Halloween's really not much of a holiday here in Poland, in fact it's even a little controversial with people who are very religious. The kids who do wear costumes usually dress up as angels or saints. The school director encouraged me and my American co-workers to do Halloween-related games and activities in our English classes as a sort of 'culture class.' I had my younger students make construction paper headbands of either a spider, a cat, or a pumpkin as their 'costume' and then we went trick-or-treating from classroom to classroom, which the kids absolutely adored. The school secretaries followed us around taking pictures because the kids looked so cute!!

I personally didn't do any specific Halloween-related things, but on the 31st I decided to take a daytrip to visit Malkbork, which is about 30 minutes by train from Elblag. Malbork is another small Polish town in the north. It's known for the famous Malbork castle, which is an old medieval castle originally completed in 1406. The castle is pretty massive, in fact it's the largest castle in the world by surface area. It was first constructed when Malbork was a part of Prussia. The builders were the Teutonic Knights, a German Roman Catholic religious order of crusaders, who intended for the castle to be a fortress. They named the castle Marienburg (Mary's Castle) and the town of Marienburg (now Malbork) grew around the fortress. Over the years, the castle's been used for everything from housing soldiers, serving as a makeshift hospital, and acting as a destination for pilgrimages of the Hitler Youth in the 1940s. During World War II combat, over half the castle was destroyed and restoration has been ongoing since 1962.

Guys look I found a castle!

Despite the fact that so much of the castle has been restored, when I stepped into the castle courtyard I immediately thought that if everyone there was just wearing more 1400s-style fashion it would feel just like medieval times. The castle's quite big and it was hard to know where to start (unfortunately I didn't get an audio guide because they were all in Polish). I just generally poked around, which was ridiculously fun considering that the castle has plenty of doors that seem like you shouldn't be allowed to go into, but actually open if you try them and lead to rooms with displays. Some of the halls were a little dark and creepy, so it felt appropriate that it was Halloween. I spent several hours wandering inside the castle, and then walked around the outside walls enjoying the beautiful fall day! There were plenty of views to appreciate.

Creepy...

 

 

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.