John (Poland) No food. Only drinks.

Hey gang, tonight I'm writing you from a very nice hostel in the less nice city of Warsaw, where me and the girls in my program are enjoying a long weekend. Since I last wrote, I'm finally starting to settle in to life in Krakow. My classes are interesting but so far pretty good. I have ten hours of language a week, which is both intense and a little bit of a lost cause, but I'm definitly giving it a college try (no pun intended). My other classes are finally getting off the ground, with culture and civ being interesting and my reasearch project/methods course being a little frightening given that I barely have a topic selected and I have about two months to reasearch and write an 18-24 page paper. I've really enjoyed getting used to living in a foreign country as opposed to just touring and have been pleasantly surprised how quickley I've adapted (although that adaptation is undoubtedly helped by the large number of people who speak at least some English in the city).

I've started really exploring the area as well. Over the weekend we had just ridiculously gorgeous weather for February (low 60s and sunny), which after two cloudly weeks was heavenly, so I took advantage of that to explore the many large parks which are right near my dorm. After the students being gone or inside for two weeks, it was great to see the city out and about. That being said, even I was amazed by the amount of PDA going on in said parks. Couples here just feel no compunction about getting as much physical/mouth contact as possible short of groping, no matter where they are. Maybe it's just cause Catholics love their sex, but it seems to be everywhere. There have to be more lingere stores per capita here than anywhere I've been.

Anyway, I've spent the last few days traveling after getting settled in. On Tuesday I didn't have class until 5, so I took a day trip with Megan and Caitlin to Tyniec, a great Benedictine abbey about a half hour outside of the city. Not only was the Abbey nice, but it was on cliffs overlooking the Vistula and the surrounding countryside, which was wonderful. Perhaps the happiest I've been in Poland so far (and certainly the happiest when I'm sober) was wandering through fields by the Vistula on what felt like a lovely spring day. (I'll have pictures of this up just as soon as my dorm gets it's internet fixed).

Then, last night, Emily had her one night in Krakow during one of her whorlwind tours, which was very fun. We hit up a nice Indian place, then I gave her a very basic introduction to Polish alcohol. One of my friends and number of people from her group came out and it was a good feeling. Everyone especially loved the Tatonka, a mixture of apples and vodka, which was decreed to be the equivalent of drinkning an apple pie. One person was even a former debater, so you can imagine how painful the conversation was for anyone without a deep interest in Policy/LD distinctions or the effects of PEPFAR on condom usage in Uganda. But overall, that was very fun and it felt great to see another Beloiter again!

So this morning, after sleeping through my overly ambitious alarm for an 8:30 class, I set out on another beautiful morning to head to train station en route to Warsaw. I eventually walked off any lingering effects of the night before and enjoyed a scenic trainride north, getting some much needed rest and coffee. Upon arriving in Warsaw however, we discovered that at some point the weather had taken a cold and windy turn, which would prove to an omen for the remainder of the day. We first spent an hour and a half wandering through the cold (all of us of course, being completely underdressed) trying to find our hostel, which we eventually did after realizing that it was on the other side of the street and should have taken us no more than 20 minutes. The walk was instructive for us, however, on a few matters. First, Warsaw is way bigger and way less inviting than Krakow. It's big, has few interesting places and nothing is near anything else. We confirmed this with a native who ran the hostel and informed us that he didn't like the city but if you had to come, it really should be in the summer. Our expereince then worsened as the one restaurant we were recommended (the Podwale Beer Company, sight) was already booked for the night, forcing us to repast to a nearby Chinese restaurant which was thoroughly mediocre. Finally, looking for a bar and finding nothing, we stopped into a Spanish(?) restaurant called Armando's which was A) far to swanky for us but also B) nearly totally deserted at 8:30. After Christine informed the waiter in her best Polish that we wanted "No food. Drinks only.", we spent most of the rest of our time there giggling, getting odd looks from an older gentleman in the next room and generally embarassing ourselves. It was actually a pretty good night, but a lot of that comes from a sense of relief that Warsaw is only a brief interlude on this trip.

Sorry for the long entry, props to anyone who actually bothered to slog through it. I'm really enjoying hearing about everyone both at home and abroad, so please keep posting and I'll hopefully be able to say hi on AIM from my dorm again soon.