Przytok: Walking through town

Monday, July 30   We met our students this morning.  Sarah is great with the kids and organizing the classroom.  She said that she thinks the students like me; they think I am a fun teacher.  The students' English abilities range from nearly illiterate to better at English than I am at Polish.   This afternoon we went on a walk through our little town of Przytok.  We walked from one end of town to the other in about 15 minutes.  The school campus is about 25% of the town and there are also two small shops and a church.  Other than that, there are a lot of houses that back up to farm land.   Most of the houses in town have little flower and vegetable gardens right up next to the road.  Sarah is in front of one house with Kyrie and Robin, two of the other TAs.   We also took the students to the two little shops in town.  One was little more than a 7-11 and the other was like a Wawa with some basic grocery items.  We had changed money earlier today and I gave Sarah 20 zlotych (about $10 USD).  She bought some potato chips and some sweet, crispy, waffle crackers (a traditional Polish snack).  They are in front of the store with all the students.   I'm not happy with the exchange rate here compared to when I was here 19 years ago.  Back then I got 1600 zloty for $1 USD.  Today I get 2 zloty.  Dad, you probably got a much better rate when you were last here.  Last year it was about 3:1 and 2 years ago it was 4:1.  The US dollar is weak over here now.  When I was last here I could get a beer for a nickel--now it's the equivalent of $2.  But, I don't drink beer anymore, so that's ok.  But, the prices here are nearly equivalent to what things would cost in the states.  Back in the 1980s, during Communism, I could get a four course meal at a top restaurant in Krakow or Gdansk for about $5.  Now, that would barely get me a burger and fries at a local shop.  So, I hope you saved all the crystal, amber, and silver I brought you 20 years ago because I won't be bringing as many presents this time.  That's ok, because it seems like all the same stuff anyway.   Aside from satellite dishes on top of the houses, this town probably hasn't changed much in 50 years.  I'd like to take the bus to Zielona Gora, a city about 20 minutes away, and see what it's like there.  Maybe tomorrow.   Sarah and I have it really good here.  We get laundry service once a week.  We just take it downstairs.  I did that this morning, but I haven't gotten it back yet, so I'll wait before I'm too impressed.  We eat really well.  We had breakfast at 7:30 with bread, jam, cereal, and tomatoes.  Then, at 10 we had an opening ceremony with a reception afterwards with fruit, cookies, and cakes. Then lunch was at 12:30 with rice soup, turkey, and potatoes.  Dinner was ham sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs.  Every meal also has several assorted side dishes--cucumbers, tomatoes, yogurt, bread, cole slaw, fruit, etc.  And all the left over cakes are now out in the hallway on a tray for an evening snack.   Daniel

Starting work

I spent the better part of Sunday interviewing Polish kids to place them in language groups.  Sarah was playing games and doing puzzles with them.  The kids are mostly 11-13, with a few 14 year olds.  Sarah has been great with them and they seem to like her.  She is getting along well with the other TAs here.  So well, in fact, that she ate dinner this evening with them instead of me.  I'm going to have to find a new friend now that she is done with me.   I ate dinner with Tomek.  Our camp has a Polish director, responsible for the facilities, grounds, and travel arrangements; and we have an American director, responsible for the teachers and the curriculum.  Tomek is married to Grazyna, the Polish director.  He speaks decent English and serves as her translator and assistant.  He is 56 and spent 20 years as an officer in the Polish Army stationed near here.  He was a flight engineer responsible for about 20 MiG jets.  He said they never did anything.  They just trained and practiced repeatedly.  When the Cold War ended, he spent about 10 years teaching English before he ended up at this school.   *****   When Sarah and I watched Mamma Mia last week in London, I realized that the language would have been more of a concern for Sarah if it had been in American English instead of British English.  They used words like sodding, buggered, and bloody.  I didn't translate for Sarah.  I just saw an ad for the movie version of the movie.  It stars Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan in the lead roles.  It's about a woman in her early 40s and her 20-year-old daughter.  Meryl Streep hasn't been in her early forties for nearly two decades.  And at 55, Pierce Brosnan isn't much closer.   Daniel

Sunday mass

Sunday, June 29   Sarah and I walked to 8:00 mass this morning with several others from our group.  The church is about a 10-minute walk from campus.  It was a nice little church.  We were expecting it to be packed but it was only about half full.  Maybe the noon mass has a bigger crowd.

Poland: party on the river

After mass in the old church, we went to a small resort for dinner.   Because farming does not make much money, agro-tourism is becoming a growing business here.  We went to a house on a river nearby that was converted to a sort of bed and breakfast.  It was a two story house with a pavilion by the river with 4 picnic tables.  We went on a rowboat ride with the boy who lived there: Szymon (Simon).  He is the one in the picture with Sarah and the other girls.  Then we had a full dinner: potato soup, pierogy, cake (before the sausage), cole slaw, beet soup, grilled pork chops, and sausage.  There were several other sidedishes.  We ate a lot.  Sarah enjoyed everything except the blood sausage.  She is great at trying new things and enjoys almost everything.   Dinner lasted over three hours and we didn't get back to campus almost mignight.

POLAND: First mass

We were in meetings off and on during the day Saturday.  In the evening we went to a river for dinner.  On the way we sotpped at a church that was built in 1360 and is still operating.  It had been a pagan church, then Lutheran, and now Catholic.  We were there for mass and the priest gave us a tour afterward.

Arrival in Poland

We got to Poland and everything is great.   We left our hotel in London at 3 am and took two different buses to get to the airport.  If you ever have a choice, I don't recommend using London-Luton airport.  It's about as far north of central London as Bel Air or Beverly are relative to Baltimore or Boston.  If, however, you want a quick flick and have only a single carry-on bag, and don't plan to see London, then it's a great airport.  It's new, clean, and bright.  It's much smaller than Heathrow, and it's out in the country, so getting around is easy.  We flew on EasyJet, which is like England's version of Southwest, a discount airline where they charge extra for everything.  We took off 45 minutes late, but landed 15 minutes early.  I didn't get an exit row seat because Sarah was under 14.  The exit row was right in front of me and the guy sitting there stretched his legs out and reclined his seat into my lap.  I wanted to smack him, but I didn't.  Again...I'm glad it was a short flight--just under 2 hours in the air.  I was on the aisle and the window seat next to Sarah was not taken, so she laid down to sleep most of the way.   We got to Warsaw on time, but ended up having to wait at the terminal over two hours because the flights from New York and Chicago were both late.  Our program director said she wished everyone had the flight arrangements I made.   Then, after the other flights arrived, we got on a tour bus and went to a local hotel for lunch--tomato rice soup, potatoes, cabbage, and breaded fish patty.  It was great and Sarah loved it, too.  But, we still couldn't leave Warsaw yet because we were still waiting for one woman coming from California who had a flight cancelled.  We didn't end up leaving the city until after 4 pm.  We had to travel across two-thirds of Poland to get to our site.  You can look it up--it's the town of Przytok.  We had a few bathroom breaks and we didn't get there until just after 1 am.  The bus could go only 45 mph---I don't know why.  We had a supper of potatoes, cabbage, bread, cucumbers, butter, and jam.  And then we went to bed.   One of the Polish directors woke us up at 11:15 this morning for a meeting, so we slept well.  We had a quick lunch and got to our meeting before the half of our group who slept longer than we did.    There are 20 Americans in our group--10 teachers and 10 assistants.  Most of the teachers are older than I am.  The assistants are in high school or the first two years of college.  They are older than Sarah by a few years, but she fits in well.  Of the 10 assistants, there are 9 girls and 1 boy.  Of the teachers, there is a set of grandparents with three of their grandchildren as TAs.  There are four women with their daughters as TAs.  Our American director is here with her husband as a teacher and a daughter as a TA.  Then there are two other women who seem at least 10 years older than me.  One of the teachers is a young woman who just finished college but will do her student teaching in the fall before she becomes a teacher.   Our room is amazing!!  The school is a special education school during the year, so it looks like a school.  The students live on campus from Monday through Friday, so there are dormitories that look regular.  Sarah and I got a room that is a teacher's apartment.  It's a one-bedroom apartment with a private bath and a little kitchen with a stove and a fridge.  Most of the others in our group are in a regular dorm with a bathroom down the hall.  Our room had only one double bed, so I slept on sofa cushions on the floor last night and Sarah got the bed.  But, today, the director moved a sofa bed into our room.  Sarah is back there now, so when I return I'll find out who gets which bed.  She is great at organizing.  She and I have become really good at sharing a room.  She said I snore a bit, but if she falls asleep first, she doesn't hear it.   The campus here is beautiful.  It's a palace out in the woods about 5 miles from a small city.  We have meetings and meals in that building.  Many of the dorm rooms are in there as well.  Sarah and I are in the other building that looks like a regular college campus building.  Part of the building has classrooms and part has apartments and dorms.  The library is on the top floor of the three-story building and is where Sarah and I will have our classroom.  It's not really a library--just a large classroom with cabinets that have books.  We like it.   It's quarter to five now.  I'm going to go check on Sarah in our apartment then move some stuff into our classroom.  We are meeting at 5:30 to go to a lake for a picnic.   Tomorrow morning we will go to 8:00 mass at a church that is a 10 minute walk from here.  It's nice that everyone is Catholic so we don't have to think about how to find a church.  Being a vegetarian is uncommon here, so at meals I just eat the potatoes and cabbage and leave the meat.  Sarah has mostly enjoyed the food, but, like London, there is no ice here, and the milk is in cardboard boxes like what Mom keeps in the cupboard for cooking.  It has 3.2% milk fat.  It's extra sweet, too.

London - Day 4

Today, we started at the Sherlock Holmes Museum.  Then, we took a double-decker bus all across the city back to St. Paul's Cathedral (not Catholic) and walked to the top of the dome to look out over the city.  Then we walked through Notting Hill before going back to our hotel.  Now, we get a few hour's sleep before leaving at 3 am for the airport.

London Day 2 and 3: a show and a castle

We spent Tuesday south of the Thames and in East London.  Sarah found the Design Museum by typing 'FUN THINGS FOR TEEN-AGE GIRLS" into a web browser.  It was wonderful.   You can see it at http://www.designmuseum.org/.  The picture of Sarah in front of the pink sculpture is in their lobby.

 We had our English breakfast of toast and jam.  Then our first stop was to walk around the Tower of London.  Then we went across the Tower Bridge to South walk to the Design Museum.

 

 The Design Museum had a great exhibit by architect Richard Rogers.  After that we walked past City Hall and the HMS Belfast, a WWII ship.  Then we took light rail to east London to see the Thames Barrier, a large wall that keeps the Thames from flooding the city at high tide--or when the polar ice caps melt.  Then we went back to our hotel to change for the theater...oops...theatre.

 

 We saw Mamma Mia at the Prince of Wales theatre in Piccadilly Circus.  It was a fabulous show and brought back lots of memories of listening to my ABBA records in the 1970s.  After the show, we got back to our neighborhood about 11pm and Sarah got official English fish and chips from a little restaurant across the street from our hotel.  She liked it with vinegar.

 

 This morning I shut off the alarm at 7:45 and we ended up sleeping until 11:30.  So, we took the tube into the city and stopped at the first little cafe we saw and Sarah got a full English breakfast: fried egg, toast, ham, sausage, baked beans, and hot chocolate.  Just down the street from the cafe we saw this little car; they are all over the city.  Some of them are electric and just get plugged in at night.

 

 We walked past the Queen's house, but didn't stop in.  These guards behind Sarah are carrying automatic assault rifles and may have had a problem with us visiting.

 

 We walked along St. James park and ended up at Westminster Abbey, behind Sarah here.  We sat on the lawn for a bit but didn't go in.  Admission for the both of us would have come to about $45, so we passed.  Admission for nearly everything starts at about £10, or $20 USD.  There's lots to do for free.

 

Then we took the red double-decker bus across the city for about 20 minutes to St. Paul's Cathedral.  We went inside and sat for a bit -- no admission charge there, except for a guided tour.  It was after 4, so they were getting ready to close for services.  We may go back tomorrow and go up to the observation deck in the dome.

Now we are in Hampstead in northern London to visit John Hickey, my roommate from The College of Wooster.  He is in charge of education for Apple Corp. in Europe, Middle East, and Africa.  He has meetings at Oxford and Cambridge and just got a phone call to schedule a meeting with the Libyan Ministry of Education.  He is going to take us to a genuine English pub for dinner.

I still haven't figured out a way to get us to Luton Airport at 5 am on Friday.  I'll work on that later tonight or tomorrow morning.

More later.

Daniel and Sarah

London-Day 2: dinner, sleeping, English breakfast

London-Day 2 update

 

We had a great time last night.  We took the tube into downtown and walked along the river for a bit.  One picture is of Sarah overlooking the Thames with the houses of Parliament on the other side.  We crossed Westminster Bridge and walked around the government buildings.  We saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, but at 6 pm, nothing was still open.

 

Then we walked through Trafalgar Square and onto Piccadilly Circus.  We passed several of the West End theaters: Mamma Mia and Les Miz.  In Chinatown we had dinner at a nice Vietnamese restaurant.  Sarah ordered wan-ton soup (yes, that's how it's spelled here) and chicken and pineapple on rice.  I had bean curd and rice soup and a sweet-and-sour vegetable mix.  After she brought our meals we realized that Sarah's soup was enough for a full meal, so we had plenty of food.

 

After dinner, we took the tube back to our neighborhood, bought a bottle of water from a corner store and went to our room.  It's a small room with two twin beds, but we have a private bath with a decent shower.  The beds are bit lumpy and there is no A/C, so we left the windows open and heard the traffic go by.  At midnight it was kind of nice to listen to, but at 6 AM the trucks were a bit loud, so I closed the window and went back to sleep.

 

This morning we had English breakfast: five half-slices of toast with butter and jam ( but-tah and jaaahm), orange juice, and hot chocolate.  The restaurant in the basement is the nicest part of the hotel.  That, and we are just half a block from a tube station just minutes from downtown.  Anything else within a half hour costs at least twice as much.  I didn't want to be out in the suburbs.  There is also a picture of Sarah at our hotel.

 

Our plan is to take a bus out to Stonehenge today.  Tomorrow morning, I'll let you know if we did.

 

Daniel

arrived in London...tired

Check in at Philly airport was a breeze.  But, then after boarding, we sat on the runway for an hour before taking off.

 

We had a smooth, comfortable flight.  The food was good and we got to watch two movies.  We got seats in an exit row, so we had plenty of room.  Neither of us slept, though.  And, although the pilot made for lost time in the air, our landing was delayed by a half-hour and then, after landing, we had to wait another 20 minutes before deboarding because someone got sick and they had to bring in paramedics.  So, our flight still took about an hour longer than expected.

 

Getting through customs was uneventful.  Sarah commented that it was a lot faster when she returned to BWI from Tampa last fall.  I explained why.

 

We changed some money into the British play money with all the different colored bills and the coins with weird shapes.  They seems to accept it just like real money, so I guess we'll be ok.  And my credit card works here, which is how I bought an Oyster card--that is a discount travel card for subways, buses and trains.

 

We took a wrong turn on the subway and went one station out of our way, but still got to our hotel by 9:15.  The lady let us check in early and we were both asleep by 9:00.  We woke up around 4 pm and decided to start our day.

 

We walked through the neighborhood and found a public library about 5 min from our hotel.  It's now 5:30, we're checking email, and then we will find out what to do tonight.

 

More later.

 

Daniel

 

Daniel and Sarah leaving for Poland on June 22

Sarah and I are leaving for Europe tomorrow, June 22.

 

We will be staying in London at the Hotel Lily for four days.  On Friday, June 27, we fly to Warsaw.  From there, we meet our group and take a bus to Przytok, a small town in western Poland.

 

I will be teaching English to Polish sixth graders.  For them, it is an English-language summer camp.  Sarah will be a teaching assistant in the program.  I wanted to give her a big, cultural experience before she starts high school in the fall.  The program is sponsored by the Kosciuszko Foundation.  It is a three week program, and then we tour Poland for the fourth week.

 

We have three days from when the program ends until our flight from London back to Philadelphia.  I am thinking that we will take a train to Paris and stay for a day or two and then take another train through the Chunnel back to London.  Those plans aren't definite yet.

 

We fly home on Tuesday, July 29.

 

I do not expect to have access to phone messages while I am gone.  So, don't call us...not that you were planning to anyway.  But, I've been told that there are lots of internet cafes around, so I expect to be getting access to email at least every few days.

 

If you would like pictures and news from our trip, I plan to post updates online: http://teip2008.blogspot.com/.  You can subscribe to updates if you like.

 

Daniel

 

 

Just in case you do need to contact me:

 

The name of our Polish Dyrektor/Camp Manager and the name and address of our campus follow:

           

P.  Grazyna Plonska   (P. = Pani or Ms./Mrs.)

            Mlodzdiezowy Osrodek Socjoterapii

            Przytok

            66-327 Zabor

POLAND

 

Tel./Fax from the USA:  011 (48) (68) 3274410 or 3290467 or 668301051  for EMERGENCY CONTACT ONLY while we are at the camp.

 

Daniel Rozmiarek         College of Education 
521 Dallam Court          Towson University

Bel Air, MD 21014         8000 York Rd.  Towson, MD 21252

http://pages.towson.edu/drozmiar/

http://danielroz.blogspot.com/

http://www.geocities.com/danielroz/