Poland-November 9, 2009

November 9, 2009

Trevor and I just had our 15 month anniversary (not that we really celebrated it, but it passed yesterday). Poland is feeling more and more like our home each day. It's funny though. There are days I step outside and, of course, know that I'm in a "foreign country", but I listen for a second to people talking and am surprised to realize that I understand what they are saying. It's such a strange feeling. In Edmonton I would get excited to hear someone talking in Polish because it would happen once in a blue moon. You hear Chinese and Arabic way more that you ever hear Polish back home. But here, I hear it all the time, see it on all the signs and posters and it's just plain weird. I like it but it's still taking some time to get use to. In the last little while Trevor and I have done some more exploring around Warsaw. We actually haven't done much, if any, exploring on our own. It has been mostly with my family. I have now met another family member and it wasn't really until this morning that I completely understood the relation. I've always thought of her as my mom's cousin because that's the way my mom quickly explained it to me. Really she's my mom's second cousin. It's my Ciocia Halina (ciocia meaning aunt because as we do back home, everyone is called aunt and uncle here). Her mom and my mom's mom (my grandma) were cousins. We had a lengthy chat about my grandma's family. We're trying to work out a family tree and we managed to add 100 people just last night! It's incredible! Anyways, she has been great, taking us to a couple of the big touristy spots in Warsaw. We went to two palaces now, one that literally translates to washrooms because of a new concept in bathrooms that was incorporated into the palace, and the other is Wilanow (from the combination of words meaning new village). They have both been pretty specatular, though I have to say the palace Lasienek was by far my favorite. Around this palace is an incredible park with free roaming peacocks and squirrels that will eat out of your hand and if you're good enough they'll even climb your leg for a little bit of food. The pigeons here are crazy about food too and you'll have about 20-30 pigeons surrounding you before you know it. The peacocks will also eat from your hand though they're a little bit less crazy. I would love to see all the places we've seen, in the summer time. I have been told they look incredible. Now that the leaves have all fallen, it's a bit less impressive, but I'm sure it's like our river valley. We have also been getting to know my other family more and more too. They have been incredibly generous, inviting us over to their house every few days. Trevor and I have had so much Polish food and it's been awesome. The last time I had this much Polish food was when my Grandpa was still cooking at home, maybe 10 years ago. It's been a long time. It's funny how when you have it, you don't really care for it. It's even funnier that I didn't really miss it until now when I'm having it every other day. Maybe it's because I never really thought of it as Polish food before. I always just figured that soup, or meat and potatoes were a common house food and didn't think anything of it. Now that I'm seeing that the recipes my Grandpa was using are almost the same as those that people here are using, I'm realizing that I was eating typical Polish food, not just typical home cooked food. It's fun to think about these things. More to come soon :D