Let's Go Ride a Bike

After lunch, Emily, Melissa and I decided to take a bike ride.  Evidently, the camp has purchased a “fleet” of bicycles for the use of those who are here.  Delightful.  I haven’t gone on a bike ride in a long time (despite the $$ I spent on a nice cruiser last year).  We chose three bikes, and after some seat adjusting, brake testing, and general consensus that what we had was just going to have to work, we set off.  Our original target was the store in town.  By ‘store’ I mean general collection of stuff you might use at some point in your life.  Granted, there was some sad produce, and a refrigerated cooler stocked with various types of beer, and some dry goods.  BUT, the real treat came from looking at the “other stuff” that was there.  Emily, bless her heart, brought me mascara from here yesterday, which sat on a shelf with playing cards, shaving cream and other assorted bathroom accoutrements.  Just below, there was bug killer, “American tshirts” and notebooks.  Behind the counter, where all the truly valuable stuff rests, was a wall of vodka and other assorted alcoholic beverages.  Thankfully, we had been advised while in Warsaw to pick up a bottle of vodka because we’re out in the middle of the forest and there isn’t anything else to do.  To my surprise, this piece of advice came from the veteran teachers, both veteran in experience at this camp and in life.  Funny advice to receive, especially since I don’t like vodka at all.  Welp... when in Rome? Anyway, back to the store... it really was a delightful hodgepodge of stuff.

Here is the store

After the store, we decided to roll on to the next town.  We were feeling fierce and ready to rock these bikes.  It was a nice afternoon, peaceful surroundings and great company.  AND, to add some gold to the picture, I was sporting my prized possession from the Grand Marais Ben Franklin store - a fishing hat with bug netting that rolls down from the rim to protect you when needed.  Yup.  Rocked it on the bike.  Melissa had a hat that was almost as cool, it doubles as a fan and folds up when not needed.  A gem she picked up while living in Vietnam.  Emily, she had  Michigan hat on.  Which was worse?  Michigan or a bug-proof hat?  Jury’s sill out.  

We turned toward a village that was listed as a mere two kilometers away.  I know I’m not entirely sure of this whole metric thing, but for reals.  That was way more than two kilometers.  Most of it was uphill too.  Pretty still, but yeesh.  At one point, there was a young man in bright yellow shorts who was riding just behind us, but he disappeared at some point and we lost him.  Where he went, we have no idea.  

Victory was ours when we finally landed in the downtown of the village.  By downtown, I mean bus stop and trio of homes.  At one of these homes, an outbuilding doubled as a store.  We saw a guy come out of said store just as we arrived, and we spotted racks of different beverages and other such goods.  We got off the bikes to look around and take pictures of their super cute mailboxes.  After doing a 360 and seeing the entirety of the town, we decided to stop in what we thought was the store.  I approached the door, and sure enough, there were hours listed, so in I went.  Wait... no I didn’t.  I COULDN’T.... because the owner had locked the door and shut us out.  Evidently three women on bike-back speaking English really makes people nervous.  After I tried the doorknob once more just to make sure I wasn’t making this up, we gave up and returned to the bikes.  As we mounted up, the owner came around the side of the building and asked us something, but we had no idea what it was - as I know less Polish than many of the other languages I’ve studied.  

We decided at this point, instead of curving back down the same hill, that we were going to venture into the trail in the forest.  This is where Emily started questioning our friendship.  Off we went on a dirt/gravel/sand path.  It was well traveled either by field vehicle or automobile, so it had to go somewhere, right?  At first, I thought it could be someone’s driveway back to their farmland.  No homes... we just kept biking.  Fork in the road, we go left.  And keep biking.  We work our way up another hill, and keep biking.  I’m starting at this point, to really regret that I chose the bike that does nothing but 7th gear.  We kept biking.  We came to another fork in the road, chose left again and kept biking.  We were rolling through sandy paths now- Melissa afterwards stated that she didn’t know which was worse, the wet or the dry sand.  They both were bad to try and traverse.  We kept biking.  We wound down and around what seemed to be the forest that we started through, we kept biking.  As a team, we collectively were getting a bit nervous as to the choices we (mostly me) had made - directionally speaking.  We kept biking.  Emily stopped to question if this path was going to lead to any sort of civilization or not - meaning the trio of homes we saw earlier our our “town” with a dozen or so homes in it.  We kept biking.  We ran through some puddles, up and down small hills as we kept biking.  We plowed through sandy trails (and by plowed, I mean the way that a snowplow does on 94 in Stearns County after 10 feet of snow... slowly but steadily) and kept biking.  Finally at one point, Emily took a left (when internally I thought we should have gone right) and it took us to a paved road.  AND, the bus stop not too far down the road said part of the name of our town on it.  Turns out, the part that was different was actually significant.  Emily said we should go right, I wasn’t quite sure, but she looked at a map that appeared on the side of the road across from the bus stop and was convinced that we were to double back towards where we came from.  I decided that I should stop and ask a lady who was out in her garden.  I entered her yard, passed the barking dog, and tried to get the attention of the woman sleeping (or dead) on the porch.  It didn’t work, so I kept going deeper into the yard, around the house towards the garden that I saw originally.  I entered the fenced off garden, paused for a minute as she stood up and she immediately greeted me with a “dzien dobry” and I returned the greeting in Polish.  Followed by “I don’t speak Polish, I’m sorry” and I gave her the card of the camp that had the name and the address on it.  I pointed to the left, and then to the right and shrugged my shoulders.  She gave me much more in response, but essentially pointed the same direction Emily wanted to go and said “trehs kilometres!” I smiled, thanked her and we were on our way.  

We returned home safely- tired, hot and an hour and forty five minutes after we left.  We were done biking.

1st Day of Class

Well, we have officially started class now.  We have four classes of 45 minutes each day.  Then, in the afternoon, the students do other activities or some sort of sport.  Emily and I were prepped and ready to go right away- for our high school kids.  After the third group, I began to think that something crazy was in the water here because the high school kids are so small.  Turns out, we're teaching the middle school kids - NOT the high school ones.  Welp, we're just as good at the middle level as we are at the high school level, so let's do this right?

We had them start with folding paper "hamburger style" and then "hot dog" style to make name tags (I don't think the high school kids would have gone for this type of activity, but we would have made it work)  For some, it was a challenge to just get them to fold the paper correctly.  Others knew what to do right away and went for it.  There is a healthy amount of coaching with Polish for those who need it, similar to what happened in my Hungarian lessons.  We had them answer some questions on paper, then converse with their neighbor about the questions, and lastly introducing their neighbors to the class.  For most groups, that was a good time activity and then we took a class picture.  However, I had them take a picture WITH their name tags so that we can start remembering/learning their names.  It was a brilliant move.  When I asked the students why they thought we were taking the picture that way, one responded, "so we can be unforgettable" and another, "for a blog."  They don't know that I'm writing this blog, but for the students who inevitably find it, you were right.  

Once I figured out that they were in fact the middle school kids, some of their behaviors made sense.  They were particularly squirrely, mostly because they were excited to be with Americans (I think) and it was something new.  Some were purely overwhelmed.  They just finished school Friday, and here they are two days later being forced to engage with Americans in their second, and perhaps third language.  Some really wanted nothing to do with us - a bit of that middle school/teenage attitude showed through.  Others just wanted to be the funny man- it's (again) typical of any kids anywhere.  In our classroom (I'll put some pictures up) we have large posters of different bugs - as this is an ecological study point as well - and some of the boys were just obsessed with those.  We had one particular boy, Simon, who was about as ADHD as they come - English OR Polish.  He was so off task it was unbelievable that he got anything done - AND he was the only person I had to take a cell phone from.  He was something else.  Turns out we middle school teachers all had the same opinion on him, but perhaps he's just one of those souls who needs a bit of extra love.  After our four classes, we had a meeting with the staff.  Simon’s name came up from all of his teachers :(  Oh well.  Extra patience required.  

At Camp!!

Like I said before, we are at a legit summer camp.  We are in the middle of the woods, quite near the spot where the first shots were fired between the Germans and the Poles in 1939.  We live in a large chalet like building, and the students are in another dormitory type building.  Our classes are in a building near our dorms.

We met the students today, and interviewed them so that we would have a sense as to where they fit on the "ability" spectrum.  We are going to try and filter them out equally, not homogenous groups.  Which, for the English Conversation classes (which I'm teaching) is probably not the best, but we'll make it work.

We had to ask the students questions about a picture and we threw in a few extra things to see if we could get some spontaneous reaction.  It was very interesting to see how they reacted to us, and to the questions.  I am excited for our new adventure, and you'll be hearing all about it!

This is the courtyard of one of the classroom buildings!!

This is the bag lunch they gave us for the bus - notice two sandwiches, the banana, two small apricots, a muffin and a large Kit Kat bar.  

Warsaw Uprising Museum

                           Me in a replica of one of the tunnels below Warsaw - Poles had to crawl
                                           through these to move about under the city

a propaganda poster from Warsaw

We started off this morning with a bit of a later breakfast, and a trip to the Warsaw Uprising museum.  The part of our group going to the "northern" camp (they deal with little little ones) left early today, and we as those working with the older kids left later on.  We started at the museum- which was a great kick off to our time with actual Polish people.  It commemorates the uprising that the Poles participated in to resist the Germans and Russians invading their city.  Well actually, the Soviets were invading from the East, and the Germans were retreating to the West.  At the beginning, many thought the city would be taken by Russians in 3 days... The Poles, though greatly outnumbered, under-armed and untrained, managed to last 63 days.  The population of the city went from 1,300,000 to 1,000.  Only 15% of the city was left standing afterwards.  It decimated the city, obviously, and it wasn't until Pope John Paul II came to power in the church that they, as a people, started addressing what had happened in their city.  There are still memorials to those who died and celebrations of their lives each year.  

This time... from Poland

Well here I sit looking out over the wooded lands of southwest Poland, writing from our deck, waiting for the students to come to "camp".  Yes, I'm at a Polish boy scout camp, in the woods.  I signed up for this opportunity when I thought I had nothing else to do this summer... little did I know that it would be sandwiched in as trip number three of four.  I was in the San Francisco area for the graduation of two of my favorite students from Stanford University.  After flying home, I returned two days later to California, this time San Diego, for the ISTE (International Society for Technology Education) convention.  Running on fumes, I left for Poland last Thursday and have been running ever since.

I wasn't exactly sure what I was getting into- this Arts Enriched English Camp, but I thought it couldn't be that bad, teaching conversational English for three weeks- in Poland.  After all, not returning to Poland was one of my only regrets from my time in Hungary as I had loved it so much as a student in 1994.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to right that wrong and take another trip at the same time.

I arrived in Chicago to meet with 15 of the group members and fly together to Poland mid-day.  It was a bit of an episode getting there, as we had to arrange our transportation through a Polish travel agency and I had no control over anything... which I guess is sometimes good for me.  Later I found out that it would work in my favor as Urszula (the Polish travel agent) would help me change my ticket to return home earlier than expected.

At any rate, it was a delightful group - where I pretty much fit right in the middle again.  Many of the TA's are either in College or just out of college, and the other majority of the group are veteran teachers who have done this summer after summer, honing their one act plays and choral numbers to suit the needs of the camp and its students.  Myself and Melissa, from upstate New York (not to be confused with New York City) are the two in the middle.  She's a youngin' at 30 and me rounding out the mid thirty decade.  We are roommates and kindred spirits as we have shared stories about English Language Learning and travels abroad.  She has lived in Vietnam, Japan, Australia - and traveled many other places.  Her "real job" is as an ESL (ELL) teacher in New York.

We arrived in Poland without a hitch, though I will have to say LOT is not my favorite airline.  It was a fairly old plane, not that it should matter, but I couldn't pick my own videos, and they charged for the wine.  Sad day.  The flight was relatively normal otherwise - same old overseas trip.  Upon arrival in Poland, we met more of our group and headed off to our hostel right in Old Town Warsaw.  It was in a delightful area, and was brightly decorated and clean.  I showered quickly and joined a group to go get coffee.  I don't usually care for coffee, but this was iced coffee with ice cream.  I figured I couldn't really go wrong there.  Emily (my assigned TA - from Michigan) did some walking around and took some pictures. I rested for a bit and then we had dinner and Emily and I went out again.  We stumbled upon a massive number of bikers - like bicyclists.  The weird thing is that they were just standing around with their bicycles.  We couldn't figure out what was going on, so naturally I approached someone and asked, "do you speak English?"  She did and explained that it was the beginning of a protest to illustrate that the people of Warsaw sought more bicycle lanes to use in the city.  So they gathered around and all eventually took off on a bike ride.  In the mean time, Emily and I had climbed up to the top of a tower to see the view of the city and to watch the action.

One of the squares in Warsaw's Old Town

Emily and I

All the bikers!

gorgeous garden in Warsaw

Finally - Coliseum Success!

Day Five - Our plan for today was to try to get into the Coliseum one more time.  The tickets for the Coliseum was a combined ticket with the Forum - for 12 Euro.  The ticket was good for two consecutive days - though our second day was in Tuscany.  However, the Coliseum was closed anyhow, so I was determined that we were going to be able to reuse the tickets instead of paying an additional 48 Euro.  We started out and had three things to accomplish - go to the Diocletian baths, get our train tickets for the next day, and go back to the Coliseum with victory in mind.  We went to the train station to try and get a taxi and while we were there decided to nip the tickets in the bud and get those.  It was a tricky process because the machine wouldn’t take our cards for some reason.  So we had exited the line to talk to real people in favor of the “fast ticket machine” - fail.  We returned to the line, tails between our legs and talked to a guy in person, secured our tickets and were off to the bath.  When I hear “we’re going to the bath” I automatically think of Budapest, and actually getting in the water.  This was not that case.  This was one of the earliest Roman Baths in existence, and at some point, Michaelangelo got involved and helped construct parts of it.  Go figure - immense structure with incredible beauty inside, Michaelangelo had to be involved :)

the awkward statue of the Pope outside the Rome train station

the Diocletian baths

doorway

Inside the magnificent baths

the clock - there was a slit in the wall and the date has been accurate for hundreds of years

the hole in the wall to reflect the light on the correct date of the timeline

gives the exact time the sunlight is going to cross the meridian on the floor

dad pointing out the hole in the wall to a stranger

After the bath, we headed back to the Coliseum.  They say the third time is the charm right?  We were confident that this time we were going to be successful and get in to see the building.  As we approached in our taxi, we saw the crowded streets with many a peddler of scarfs, paper weights, tripods and other wares.  We craned our necks and finally as we were walking, Mike saw that the doors were in fact open.  The other crowd that is prevalent are tourguides offering to give you a tour of the Coliseum so you can avoid the line.  “English tour madam?”  “Would you like an English guided tour?”  Nope - I have Rick Steves.  I don’t need you.  They all promised to get us inside faster than if we waited in line... I wasn’t waiting in line.  The lines were for people without tickets -and we had a ticket.  It was expired, but we had a ticket - it wasn’t our fault that (we were in Tuscany and couldn’t have come to the Coliseum anyway) the Coliseum was closed... they were going to honor our ticket.  So, we pushed through with the “groups” in the shorter line, as in fact we were a group, and moved into the inner circle of lines.  We avoided people counting group members and walked with confidence to the front of the line where I asked if we could use our ticket since the Coliseum was closed.  She hesitated ever so slightly and said it was okay for us to go in.  Not only were we ahead of all the other suckers out in line, we didn’t have to pay again!!!!!!  Score one for me!  

The Coliseum

Inside was breath taking - imagining 50,000 spectators hoping for someones death.  Though, I didn’t know that there were many animals that they had fight there just with eachother.  Dogs against porcupines, dogs against dogs... in the first 100 days, there were 9,000 animals killed.  They were raised up through the wooden floor that was covered with 9 inches of sand- through trap door type things to be brought out onto the arena (arena is ‘sand’ in Latin).  It was quite a spectacle and I think my dad could have spent all day there reading each and every single plaque they had posted about the construction, fire, squatters following the collapse of Rome, etc.  His final consensus of the Coliseum was that it was ‘Awesome.’ 

We had a wonderful lunch where I had the “pasta of the day” and some meatballs which came with completely mashed potatoes - like liquid mashed potatoes, but they were delicious.  I have loved the food here and I’d be shocked if the Atkins diet ever took off in this country.  

At the mouth of truth - I have my hand still, so I  must not have lied :)

On our way back home, I stopped at the Victor Emmanual monument (which we saw every three seconds it seemed like) and I went up 170 stairs to the elevator which then took me up seven additional stories to the top of the monument for a breathtaking view of the city.  

Under the Tuscan sun

Day Four - I decided early in the trip that I was going to go on a “Lunch” tour of Tuscany.  They would drive us to two Italian towns that topped hills in the Tuscan region.  We would have lunch at a typical restaurant and drink wine from the region.  We’d learn about food and see the Tuscan countryside - I was in.  I slowly convinced my mom and brother to come with, so dad could have a day of rest to get back on his feet for the next few days.  We were picked up from our hotel at 7 in the morning.  I had dutifully packed four sandwiches - it was the inner Hungarian in me - so we had something to eat for breakfast and in case of emergency, or any other thing that could keep us from eating.  In all transparency, my control freakiness bleeds into travel in weird ways too.  I need to have control over when I can eat and drink, and when I can pee.  This food packing thing was part of my paranoia.  I knew we were going to be eating lunch in the Tuscan countryside, but I didn’t know when or how much... you know how it is... right?  

Stephano was our tour guide.  He originally came from Sicily, and touted it’s riches in order to encourage us to travel there as well.  He educated us about pasta and the different properties between ‘good pasta’ and ‘bad pasta.’  Much to my surprise, he noted that Pasta Barilla was a medium to high quality pasta - ask us for more detail on pasta if you’re interested :)

Stephano - our tour guide

We traveled through beautiful countryside and saw the many villas that people so often dream about owning, fixing up, or maybe just staying in for a weekend.  He said that many Italians wanted to live in Tuscany also but couldn’t afford it.  

Our first town, Cortona, was high above the hillside - google image it if you can - it was beautiful!  We overlooked a valley that had a beautiful church and many olive trees planted along the winding road way that lead up to where we were.  Stephano gave us an hour and a half in the city and we took most of it getting to the tippy top of the place - where there was a big church.  Mom and I quit just before the church, Mike said it was nice and gave us a full report on our way down.  We took our time getting back down and shopped a bit, stopping for a pastry and diet coke before catching the bus.  

Looking up to Cortona

Super cute Italian guy over looking the Tuscan countryside

looking down from Cortona

Cute Italian guy again

Mom working her way up to the church

Tuscan countryside

Italian cat :)

Cortona square

more cute Italian guys - Cortona

Back on the bus, we headed to lunch, which brought us along a big lake that is the summer retreat for Italians.  Lunch was at a partner restaurant, so it wasn’t 100% full of Italians, but it was pretty dang good.  We started off with a penne in truffle sauce with sausage, with bread that was to die for.  We ordered a bottle of wine and dug in.  The second course, which I didn’t know existed, was a hunk of pork with ‘french fries’ made in olive oil.  This was followed with a wonderful desert that was kind of like a lady finger with some sort of purply sauce.  Those are the technical cooking terms - purply sauce.  By this time, I had ordered more wine - well duh.  We’re in the Chianti region - why not drink the ‘local’ fare right?  Perhaps a bit much with still half the day to go, but I had a good time.  

Our Tuscan restaurant grounds

Goods they were selling- spices and the like

Mom and the yummy desert we had

Beautiful Tuscany

We were on this tour with 7 other people traveling in a small bus that was driven by Mauricio - whose only line to us was “good driver.”  This was said more often than not after a close call on the road or some unintentional swerving up the hillside.  

Our next stop was at Montepulciano - where the winery we were to visit was located.  Up on a Tuscan hill we arrived in this small walled town to stop for more treats.  The winery was wonderful, it reminded me of the Wabasha street caves a bit, but there were parts of the winery that dated back to the Etruscans - which is hella old.  At the end of the tour, we were able to try some of their wines- and as I sat closest to the end of the table, I got to finish whatever was left - by my own decree.  We strolled a bit longer through town and just had the three hour drive back to rome ahead of us. What a wonderful day- even though I was carsick from the ‘good driver‘ on our way home.  

Winery in Montepulciano

wine tasting in Montepulciano