Post 17, at long last

It's been a while since I last posted, and I'm not really sure why. I haven't really been traveling, or working especially hard, or drinking very much at all.

Since the last post I have:
1. Been to Lublin again, to eat amazingly great chopped vegetable salad with tahini at the jewish restaurant in the old town, and to buy a swimsuit. Have I mentioned that there's at least one shoe-shop on every corner here in Poland? When Nick first got to Chelm, he thought "obuwie" meant store. Nope, it means "shoes." Anyway, every athletic store I visited in Lublin only sold shoes! Adidas, Nike, etc--only shoes, and a few token t-shirts and basketball shorts. This country is bizarrely shoe-fixated.


2. Decided that swimming is much healthier for me (I have somehow, in the course of three or four brief jogs, destroyed some vague, but extremely important, piece of connective tissue in my knee; now if I run, I run-limp). So I've begun swimming at the local pool two or three times a week, in the early morning. At first I had to borrow a swimming cap from the ladies behind the coat-check desk (as I foolishly neglected to bring one with me from home, and such things cannot be bought here in Poland, apparently). This was accomplished by more foolish dancing-bear miming on my part; now everyone at the pool thinks I'm a deaf-mute idiot foreigner. Unfortunately, I'm not a very elegant swimmer, so I don't even qualify as an idiot-savant.

Thankfully, I was finally able to find a cap and goggles, up a set of rickety stairs to a small "Centrum Sportowy" filled to bursting with large cardboard cutouts of men flexing their ham-like muscles, and in a dusty corner some goggles and swim caps. Of course, the first time I wore the goggles, I made them too tight, and so walked around with what looked like a fine pair of shiners for the rest of the day. Maybe my students will respect me more for them?


3. Been taken to pubs three times in one day by my students, on the first day of Spring. Apparently, it's a tradition in Poland to skip school and drink on March 21st. I also, unintentionally, drank one of my students under the table. Neither of us had had lunch. This resulted in a horrible hangover (on his part), a torn coat (on my part--foolishly leaping over fences), and a lot of probably uncharitable mimicry of our beloved headmaster.


4. Planned my easter holiday. I'll be in Germany (Schwaebisch Hall, which is apparently the sister city of Zamosc, pronounced "Zamoshtch", a town nearby, famous for its renaissance architecture) with my mother for a few days, then Paris for a few more, then back to Germany to visit with relatives. It's not the Discover-Eastern-Europe! adventure I had initially imagined taking, but I'm honestly tired of Eastern Europe for the moment, and want a little tidy Western Europe experience. I want to communicate, for a week, using more than noises and body language.


5. Started a list of fun things to keep me from losing my mind completely. So far: dinner at the swanky Italian restaurant once a week (Trattoria Corleone!), shooting pool once a week (tonight, hurrah!), a pillow fight (with real down pillows), and drinking tea in unusual places (one of the many, fabulously colorful graveyards, perhaps?). I'd also like to go to church, in the gloriously baroque basilica. I don' t think I've ever been to a Catholic service, and Poland seems like a good place to try it.


I'll be in Krakow over the weekend, then away for Easter, and then back to teach for a while and await the various visitors that have promised to come. Please come!