Oh man, oh man.

So, what has been happening in Poznań?  I have been busy. I am the guinea pig for a GEM Poland orientation manual.  So I have been sent out several days on assignments by myself in the city. And I really enjoy it! Though I finish the day SO exhausted!!  Here's what I'm told will be a very common view for me this fall... Waiting on a tram under my umbrella. :)

Monday I was out in the city from about 9am till about 6pm, comparing prices/learning vocabulary at the different types of grocery stores. So I had to go to small shops/vegetable stands near my place, the targ - the open air market (beautiful produce and flowers!),  and big supermarkets which are cheaper and further away.  I'm sad I was too scaredy cat to look super weird in front of the vendors, because they truly had some gorgeous looking produce.  I could have some really lovely shots. But the two here are shots of the targ, and I'll tell you one thing, it was an adventure in the rain. I had to learn to wield an umbrella like never before! :)  This aisle was about double the width of the rest of them, and many of the other aisles had leaky coverings, so all the water collected and fell down in the aisles, making it much more wet than in the open air.  Fun!

The targ from across the street. The little
stands went for about a square block.

What else?  I had tomato soup and a Greek salad for lunch. Note the size of the salad container, which I had already eaten. Quite small.

I continued shopping around, finishing my grocery store assingment. I bought some house shoes.  For whatever reason, at the end of this day I was SO beat! Maybe I was out longer than other days, or maybe I had more interaction, or I was working on more vocabulary (pomidory = tomato). On the bus back to my host house, usually I've listened to my language practice on my iPod... After this day I had to just listen to some low intensity music! Love my iPod... It's really great to have on trams/buses. You just have to pay attention to where you're going!

 Cool things coming up: 

• Thursday I'll attend for the first time a women's bible study with ladies from my church. (We're going through Philippians. Cool!) Then meeting with my roommates to get keys!!
• Friday is the big move! And by big move I mean I'm going to take my two and a half suitcases up a flight of stairs. :) I'll probably also shop a bit for some basics... food, cleaning supplies, perhaps some bedding.
• Monday we turn in all the paperwork for my visa.

Prayer requests:

• Again, begin to develop a real friendship and opening for spiritual discussion with my roommates.
• Guidance and wisdom for where to focus time and energy.
• Energy, especially once I'm living independently. I'll not have so much time to recover after I move into my place.

And here are pics from various city adventures...

Adam Mickiewicz, the Polish poet for whom a
university is named (UAM). I'll be taking my classes through
this university, though not terribly near this park.

View of the crosses and eagle.

Self portrait in the Rynek.  Oh, sun! I miss you!

Hot chocolate! Now you're jealous, aren't you? It was as good as it looks.

ulica Święty Marcin (St. Martin Street)

One of the signs for the Stary Rynek (Old Market/Town Square)

The Rynek

Flowers in the Rynek.

Me and my bird friend in the Rynek.

An art/history exhibit set up in the Rynek.

It had to do with the Solidarity movement, which originated in Poland. Solidarity started the first independent labor union in a Soviet bloc country. So it was integral to the fall of communism.  I couldn't understand any of this exhibit because it was all in Polish.  But hey.  What can you do?

More of Ponzań's goats.

Peter. You can tell because he's holding keys. Jesus says to Peter in Matt 16:19: "...I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven..."

From the Town Hall museum in the Rynek... Posters proclaiming Nazi takeover.

The re-opening of the Town Hall in the 50s, after restoration following WWII.

A church just outside the Rynek.

My view of the Town Hall (now museum) from the cafe I ate at that day. 

Limbo

So, now I'm staying at the third household, with Theresa. I've pretty much gotten over the jet lag, I think. But I still want to sleep more than usual. Yesterday I took a long nap in the afternoon and then slept 8 hours.  I think I'm a good sleeper naturally, but it's also just mentally draining to have to focus on everything and really examine everything you see and hear. So perhaps that's part of it.

Theresa took me to a little wooded area this morning for a nice walk. It was lovely!

We said it looked quite Robert Frost-esque.  

So- the past week has been really good.  I'll try to hit the highlights. I haven't been too good about taking pictures yet, but here's what I have so far.

I was greeted at the airport with flowers. :)  Special!

Saturday some of the kids took me to one of the malls close by.  There was a seating area for a restaurant, and there were some really cool aquariums (aquaria?). This mall was pretty much what we would expect for a mall in the States, but it had a Wal-Mart/grocery style store at one end, so people had grocery carts in the mall and there was a set of escalators to the parking garage that were ramps rather than stairs.  The other thing I noticed was all the American pop culture everywhere. The music was mostly American (or English words, at least) pop music, and many American stores were there. I bought socks at H&M. Yay H&M!

  

Sunday Theresa took me to Poznan International Church, which I'll be attending.  She goes to a different church, but the good thing about the PIC is that services are all in English.  That will be nice for me.  After church Sunday Theresa took me to the city center (Rynek) to see The Goats. Ask me about them sometime. :)  And it happened that the Rynek was hosting a festival of bread, celebrating the good gifts of grain and bread.  They had some pretty amazing bread art! These were not even the most impressive examples, but the the mice were adorable. 

  

   

  

Monday I was taken for a little tour of the city, while also getting some important to-do items checked off the list. We had to first go talk to the people in the visa office, which went quite well. We got my phone picked up, and I have some minutes and a Polish SIM card now.  I still need to get back to you on the best way to talk on the actual phone. My team leader showed me the Poznan cathedral and gave me a mini-history tour of the city. I didn't take too many pictures, but here's the cathedral, at least.

Poznan is a pretty cool city! More pictures to come, for sure!

So, right now I'm sort of in limbo, and thankfully the crew here are all taking good care of me. I'm in limbo as far as living arrangements, until I can move into my apartment. That will be as late as October 1, but pray that it's earlier! I'm also in limbo until the Polish language classes begin, because I really don't know any Polish, and that's key to my independence and to relationships, especially my roommates.  The sisters I'll be living with are Polish, and the older one is the one we've been talking to. She doesn't speak much English; she says her sister speaks more, but when I met her we were dealing with the official contract and we didn't test the claim. :)

While I'm in limbo, pray that I'll bond with my team members, that they would have energy to fit me into their busy schedules, and that my brain would be prepared to soak up the Polish language.  Once classes begin I'm preparing myself to be overwhelmed with that. Polish is not easy for English-speakers to learn!!

Thanks to everyone for praying! Write me emails or facebooks! 

Love,

Steph

Ugh.

I'm feeling the jet-lag so much more today. Yuck!

The kids (there are four among two families... 18, 16, 14, 12) took me to the mall today and then we had dinner and a walk. Now Theresa and I are going to watch Sahara to try to keep me awake a while longer.  :) We'll see how that goes.

Love you all!

Day One!

So I arrived yesterday evening, and it's been great so far!

I met everyone. They kept me awake through the evening... chatting, card games, dinner at a restaurant (great soup!), and dessert back at my temporary hosts' house (great cherry cobbler stuff!). I finally hit the hay between 9 and 10 here.

Today we had quite the productive day! My host took me to withdraw cash - the zloty (actually pronounced zwoti, with a w sound and a short i sound) is about a third of a dollar - then we checked on my documents that had been translated. They cost more than expected, but that's okay.   He shuttled me to Theresa's then.

She helped me apply online to language classes at the university, filled out a form for a bus/tram card, and made some copies.  We headed out on foot and she gave me my first lessons in how to use Poznan's public transportation. We bought a week's pass for it, and applied for a long-term pass which should be ready in two weeks.  I needed the equivalent of passport photos for a few documents, and we had those made. We went through this cool market that I'm sure I'll be taking pictures of very soon. The produce was bountiful! There she got me set up with a cell phone for local use that will be ready on Monday.

We may have made another stop or two... Oh! Postcards.  We stopped at the post office for postcards and stamps- about a dollar apiece. Also, stopped for shampoo somewhere in there. And then we had pizza. Yum! The feta on the salad was super tasty. Softer and a slightly different flavor than the feta I'm used to.  Theresa's favorite part was the garlic sauce for the pizza.  Such garlicky goodness....

Then we left to meet my hostess for some apartment hunting. The housing they'd scouted for me was mostly geared toward students. Rent a room or half a room, and have a common bathroom and kitchen. The first place we went to see, the guy made us wait half an hour, and didn't call or seem concerned that he wasn't keeping his commitment, so we left. We called a couple of other places, and then he phoned so we decided to swing back by. It turned out to be pretty thick with stale-smoke-smell and the room next to what would have been mine was possibly up for rent later, so anybody potentially could have moved in there, and I would have no control. We went to the second place and it was a huge improvement!  If I'm able to rent it we'll know Monday.  There are two sisters living there, the one we met doesn't speak much English, but she seemed very nice. She is defending a dissertation Monday. I'll be renting a room usually rented by two... So it will be relatively big, and still within budget.

Relatively big, though not as big as Jake's palace...... Shoutout to my furniture!!  Hope you like it, Jake, and again- really sorry I didn't have it totally squared away.  Thanks to my favorite bachelor pad for getting a bunch of things put in the attic,  I'm guessing.

We spent a few more phone calls deciding I'd agree to rent the place with the sisters and then spent a relaxed evening at home. My hostess had saved some chicken and rice for me (with a delicious, subtle spice involving garlic, onion, and curry), I read a little of James Michener's Poland, got my computer to connect to their wireless, and then they put on The Hunt for Red October. Which I wish I could have finished, but I was falling asleep on the couch. So I came down to my room, and now I'm really going to sleep in earnest.

Thanks, all, for praying! Pray that I don't have too much jet-lag... I was fine today, but right now I feel overly awake. Hope I can sleep well tonight. :)

Thanks, Frankfurt, for having wireless.

So, I've made it to the Frankfurt airport, and I have about a three-hour wait till my short flight to Poznan.

So far, my two suitcases were checked with only a little shuffling and sending things home.  (Thanks, Dad!) The baggage check-in was strange, and I didn't realize it totally till later. The weight limit was 50 lbs, and the first bag weighed 49.4 lbs. (YES.) I'm not even sure the second bag was weighed.  AND I definitely didn't pay the $50 fee for a second checked bag.  The young man helping me wasn't a regular guy at the counter, I'm pretty sure I got away with some shady stuff, unintentionally. And honestly, I didn't even question it till I was through security.  But hey! After worrying about it, hoping I wouldn't have to pay $200 extra dollars, knowing I would need to pay $50 dollars, I got away with $0.  Assuming my bags show up in Poznan.  Which, I'll grant, remains to be seen.  But I'm hopeful. :)

I was on the end of a row of three, and the poor guy in the middle of us had to be over 6 feet tall. But bonus for me: he found a way to spend most of the flight sitting by his wife, not in his seat. So I had a much more comfortable flight than I might have.  Unfortunately I still didn't sleep a wink.  Apart from a few short minutes during takeoff, actually. This is me, in my seat right now at my gate, trying to look awake. And failing miserably.

Maybe I'll put on some mascara.  That'll help... ??  

Fort Worth time: 4 am

Frankfurt time: 11 am

Next boarding time: 1:30 pm (Frankfurt)

Wooo!