Wow, only 10 days left! How and when did that happen? I'm getting really excited to come home. I can't wait to wake up on my last day here and bolt out of bed, full of energy.
Yesterday Gosia and I went to Krakow for some shopping. There is a brand new and absolutely huge mall there, and we killed the whole afternoon. I spent some zloty and came home with a few bags on my arm. One dress I got is really nice and I wore it to school today, but its transparency is a problem that I'm not sure how to solve. I realized that after I got home. Whoops! Sorry kids! All 9 of you! The train ride made me feel grimy and I was so glad to be home and take a bath and down a big bottle of water, filled in secret of course.
I'm pretty sure my hair is causing problems in this house. For one, I have a ton of it, so I shed twice as much as the next guy. Not only is it thick but the individual strands are thick too. They stick out like a sore thumb when contrasted to the clean, shiny tile and blonde hardwood floors in this house. I try to scoot them under the table or chair with my foot when I see some strands littering the ground, and have even hastily swept the floors when the family leaves the house. And I'm pretty sure my hair has clogged the bathtub drain... They won't be happy when they have to reach in and pull out a big clump of my red strands.
I am getting really. really. excited to come home to my mom's garden. I hear it's bursting with veggies. Let's have a vegetable party when I get back. We can overdose on homegrown produce and have some beer too.
Tonight some of us (the LE Tarnow group) are meeting in the main square in the city for some dinner and drinks. We're celebrating Claire's birthday, but it's really an excuse to get away from our host families and help break up the time a little. I'm getting tired of living here (I really hope they're not reading this!) and having to constantly deny food and assure them of my comfort. It's so exhausting! I'm getting frustrated and I think they can sense it. The kids weird me out. One is really loud and has dreadfully annoying speech even though I can't understand it. The other always stares at me and I pretend not to notice. I get stared at when I'm eating, or sitting on the couch reading, or sitting in my room and he walks by the door. Pretty soon I'm going to start staring back because I can't handle it anymore. He has these big cow eyes and that goddamned unibrow. I swear I'm going to take my tweezers to this entire family in their sleep. Do they not know how bad it is? The dad seriously has a hardcore unibrow - it's not even faint or lightly connected. I'm talking full-blown Muppet-style unibrow! All four family members have it but the dad's is the worst by far.
The girls who are in love with me in my class have become assertive and are creating Polish lessons for me. So awesome. I can just sit down and repeat words that they write on the board. Today I learned about the household and things in each room. They get a kick out of my bad pronunciations and I like that they get a taste of teaching and can see how hard it is. It was perfect because I had no lesson for today - was too tired last night to make one and just stopped caring. I have lots of leftover games and items to talk about that can get me through a good chunk of next week. One girl Magda will be gone next week, so today was her last day in class. At the end of class she did something very sweet: she handed me a gift and said that she wanted to say thank you to me for being a fucking awesome person. It was a box of fancy cherries covered with chocolate and swimming in liqueur, half of which I've eaten already. Best. Gift. Ever.
Something else cool: I made the cover of a Polish newspaper! The article isn't about LE though, it's about traveling by rail for summer vacation. Either way, check me out! I'm bringing home the real clipping in case this link doesn't work. I'll try to post an image here, too, but no promises. The photo was taken when our group met at the train station to head to Warsaw for our midpoint break.
I'm going to go lay in the sun and read now. It's extremely hot today. Sunburn!
Wowowowowowowowowoowowowoowowoowowowowowowowwoowow!
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Can I come to the veggie party, too? I can bring my giant cucumber (actually not a sexual innuendo, I have one HUGE cucumber growing on my vine...I will send you a picture sometime). Also, remember that body hair removal is fairly American ;) They probably don't even notice their unibrows...shudder.
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