Mam Rację

Another day is come and gone here, and it's been the best one so far.  I've had some trouble sleeping the last couple of nights (whether it's the jet lag or stress, I'm not sure), but today I got up reasonably early, determined to spend another full day out in the city, exploring and enjoying it.  I ate breakfast and left my hostel, determined to make it to the Botanical Garden today.  The garden is right near the Wroclaw Cathedral on Ostrow Tumski, so far my favorite part of this city, so I began by heading toward the Cathedral.  On the way, I got sidetracked about 8 times by beautiful things I just had to see.  One thing I didn't see, though, was a lot of people.  By this time, it was almost 10:00, and on weekdays, the streets were buzzing.  I had thought that a Saturday would mean that many more people about.  In my world, Saturdays are for running errands, and beautiful Saturdays are for walking around, so I wondered just what Polish people do on Saturdays. I was just getting to the bridge when I spotted the Hala Targowa, a beautiful old building that appeared to have been converted into some kind of market.  I stepped inside and was convinced that I had found the answer to my question.  Shopping!  Obviously, they were all shopping.  This was not just a market.  It was Wroclaw's answer to the Super Walmart: you could buy anything there.  Of course, it didn't have the same atmosphere...

I didn't really want to buy anything that I'd have to lug around with me all day, and I didn't have any plans of heading back to my hostel anytime soon, so I cleared out after a brief look around.  Before long, I was back in Ostrow Tumski, standing in front of the Wroclaw Cathedral again.  I don't think I could ever get tired of looking at it.  This time, though, I went in and paid a tiny 5 zloty fee to climb a few flights of stairs and then catch an elevator to the top of one of the massive towers.  As soon as I stepped out into the open air, I saw this:

 and this:

and a whole lot more. 

My time at the top of the cathedral convinced me that I needed to get my butt to the botanical garden pronto, so I did.  And it was stunning.  Quiet, peaceful, beauty everywhere I looked.  I wandered for hours, then found a quiet place to eat lunch and read for a while.  I stopped at the cafe on the way out and ran into a couple, maybe a bit older than my parents, who clearly did not speak any Polish.  The woman sounded North American, so I asked her where she was from.  It turned out that she was from San Diego, and her husband was British.  We talked, and laughed and made travel suggestions to one another.  Pretty soon, we'd been talking for almost an hour.  Our coffee was gone.  They gave me their email address and told me to keep in touch, and they both hugged me when they left.  It is so amazing how being thrown together in a different culture is a good enough reason to be the best of friends with people you wouldn't have had anything in common with back home, after only 45 minutes.  I was incredibly glad to have met them, because it got rid of a bit of the loneliness that had been nagging at me.  After all, how long do you think you could spend with only yourself to have long conversations with?  

Anyway, after I left the gardens, I walked around some more, I went grocery shopping, and I sat down with myself at a cafe for a while, watching the people walk by two by two, almost as if onto the ark.  Young couples, old couples, new parents, skinny couples, fat couples, pairs of young women and pairs of old men.  A deaf couple even sat next to me, and when a beggar approached everyone on the patio in turn and tried to coax us into parting with our hard-earned zlotys, the deaf woman caught my eye and made a funny face at me.  I laughed, and thought that some things are universal, whether you are Polish, American, deaf, hearing, whatever... And it was then that I first thought about how little my own troubles with language really counted for anything.  They couldn't speak or hear at all, and they'd gone into the same cafe as I had and successfully ordered coffee as well.  

Walking home, I was very content about my day, but I realized something.  I hadn't fallen in love with Wroclaw on Thursday.  That was just infatuation.  It's like the sexy stranger you want to know better, but who intimidates you a bit.  Love requires knowing someone more.  And I want to love Wroclaw, which means I've got to get to know it better.  I've got to reach out and really explore and see it for what it is.

To that end, I've got to run now.  I'm going to find a new bar and grab a drink with my new Canadian friend, who I just met in my hostel common room.  More later!

The first 36 (give or take)

I'm in the common room of my hostel, watching Polish TV.  I understand very little, besides that it is awfully cheesy.  But it's amazing how little language you need to understand cheesy sitcoms.  It's been a roller-coaster the last few days, but I'm pretty much glad to be where I am.

My flight was smooth, but long, and the seat I was sitting in was ergonomically designed for someone two to three feet taller than me.  I was wedged in next to an older Polish lady who seemed very sweet, but who could've stood to lose more than a few pounds, and was therefore sitting half on top of me the whole trip.  When I tried to put my sweatshirt on, I pulled something in my neck.  No joke.  Basically, it was an economy-class flight across the Atlantic, so by the time I landed in Warsaw, I was sweaty, exhausted, and beginning to wonder what I'd been thinking.  But a smooth trip through passport control, some (delicious) cherry juice, and a few hours of personal space and book-browsing in the airport Virgin store was sufficient to improve my mood a little.  The plane to Wroclaw (which, alas, I was only to be on for thirty minutes) was much more comfortable.  I arrived in the city I was going to live in feeling optimistic.  Unfortunately, it was not an easy afternoon.

By the time I went to sleep last night, if I'm honest (and I hate being honest about this), I was homesick.  The first night, and I was homesick.  I couldn’t understand half of what was going on around me:  I’d wandered the city center for 45 minutes looking for a pay phone, only to find they didn’t work without the cards sold at the post office.  So I went to the post office and was told (surprise, surprise) they didn’t have any karte telefonyczna.  At all.  Nie mam.  I finally bought (for 140 zlotys, less than $50) what was probably a hot phone and starter prepaid kit from a guy selling them out of a closet with a window in an alley off of Ulica Swidnicka and managed to place a call to my mother to assure her that I’d made it in one piece and to hear her calming voice.  I was a little bit afraid to order food or drink, so I was thanking god for the snacks I’d tucked in my backpack, both from Kristy and from being  offered an obscene amount of food on the plane and accepting all of it (for later). I’d had high hopes of arriving and being one of those hopelessly cool travelers who can pull off calm, collected, and funny while on the move, but I was tired, overwhelmed, and my Polish was, in a word, shit.

But I don’t give up that easily.  I was not about to resign myself to the possibility that this was (so quickly) a mistake.  After all, the hostel employee I knew was incredibly nice, and so had been my taxi driver.  I still hadn’t met any of my classmates or visited my school – they would be able to speak my language, at least, and would hopefully become good friends.  People were singing karaoke out my window, which would probably get old, but was pretty awesome for the moment.  I had managed to get my ass to Poland, explain to a taxi driver with very little English where I was going, maneuver all of my heavy luggage to my hostel, buy a phone, and somehow be mistaken for a local twice (not my language – my looks), all without more than an hour and a half of sleep or more than a couple hundred Polish words in my arsenal (which sounds like more than it is).  I was doing fine.  I took a deep breath, reminded myself that the good stuff never comes easily, and hoped like hell that I would feel a lot better on the other side of a shower and a good night’s sleep.

And I did feel better. I showered and slept, and once I’d woken up, brushed my teeth, and gotten acceptable looking, I rolled downstairs for breakfast.  And it was much better than I expected.  Bread, a million types of cheeses, two kinds of cereal, coffee, tea, jam.  For thirty-five dollars a night, this place is the bargain of the century – I don’t care how small my room is - and it isn't large, but it's big enough for just me.  They gave me a view, a bed, a table, a place to shower, a map, a guidebook, breakfast, and kindness.  Deal. 

But the truly amazing thing happened when I stepped out my door with a clear mind.  I fell in love with this city.  It is astonishingly, breathtakingly beautiful.  The first three-hour walk I took resulted in no photographs, since I'd (D'oh!) left my memory card in my computer at the hostel.  But I have never (never!) been to a city with more beautiful architecture, streets, or people in my life.  Not even Paris holds a candle.  Even crumbling back-alleys hold sculptures and treasures (this is, mind, the city center...I'm sure much of the suburbs are as dilapidated as any European metropolis).  The weather was beautiful, the smells were rich, and today (probably because of an attitude adjustment on my part more than anything else), everyone seemed so friendly and accommodating about my shit Polish skills.  I managed Polish numbers quite well, bought a heavy bag of groceries (for 6 dollars!!!), and tried my first zapiekanka - a delicious pizza-like food served on french bread with (inexplicably) ketchup on top.  I wasn't so sure about the ketchup, but it turned out to be just right.    I saw things today that, as much as it kills me to be this sentimental, honestly brought tears to my eyes, they were so beautiful.  Most of them on Ostrow Tumski, Cathedral Island, the ecclesiastical center of Wroclaw, full of churches, monasteries, and convents.  All architectural gems.  And beautiful waterfront parks.

Here is one thing I will say that pisses me off.  Despite living in a city that obviously prides itself on its aesthetic beauty, and perhaps even more offensively, despite the fact that this beauty is largely the result of painstaking reconstruction after World War II, many of the inhabitants seem to think nothing at all of marring the face of this sparkling city with graffiti.  Almost nowhere is exempt.  Except, seemingly, Ostrow Tumski.  I guess they really are devoutly Catholic.

Anyway, overall, it's lovely, and I'm completely charmed, but also glad I'll be starting school soon.  It's weird to have so much day stretching before me with no idea how to fill it all.  I walked for five hours today, and it was wonderful, but my feet are starting to blister.  For now, I'm going to move on to my bed.  It's nearly midnight, and I'm trying not to let the jet lag defeat me.  More later.

Can't You See My Heart Burning in My Hand?

I’m a little tipsy.  I just played a three hour game of Trivial Pursuit with my mom and little brother.  And it is times like these that I wonder why on earth I am putting 5000 miles between myself and the people I know and love so well, everything that is so comfortable and comforting.  But the truth is that the answer is kind of in the question.  Comfortable.  It isn’t a bad thing, really.  Unless you’re talking about the way one lives her life, in which case, you might as well substitute the word “cowardly,” as far as I’m concerned.  There was a famous author who said something like, “Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed.  Give me the tightrope.”* (I’ll look it up later and let you know in a footnote.)  It’s such a funny thing for a writer to say, because when you think of authors, you always kind of picture quiet, mousy people.  At least I do.  Which is more than a little odd, because I’m  a writer, and whatever else you may call me, I don’t think you’d say I was mousy.

Over the past three years or so, I’ve mostly been disappointed in myself.  But it’s been lessening in recent months.  And it’s not because I’m living where I am, or working where I am, or anything like that.  I think it’s because I’m coming back to acceptance with myself.  I was digging through old writings yesterday, trying to decide what to take with me to Poland, what to consolidate onto my computer, what to leave behind and forget about, and I found lots of scraps of yellow legal pads with frantic scribbling about how miserable I was, how confused, how unsure of what I wanted or afraid of trying to get it.  I think that’s what’s different now.  I’m not trying to boil my life down to one answer: a career, a person, a place.  There isn’t one thing I want to do.  And there never will be. 

I want to live.  I want to teach a class, learn a new language, wander unfamiliar streets.  Then, I want to zipline, despite my horrible fear of heights.  I want to salsa dance, even though my friends will think it’s lame.  I want to fall deeply into inconvenient, imprudent love.  I want to risk my own safety and comfort to help people in dangerous corners of the world.  I want to talk to Travis Gasper again and tell him what I never managed to say: how much he always meant to me - just for the sake of saying it.  I want to go to Provence and bet on a goat race in the dusty streets, fight with tomatoes in Buñol, go to Burning Man.  I want to build houses in New Orleans.  I want to write something and put my heart on a page for publishers, friends, family, and (hopefully) the public to mock and stomp on, if they want to.  I want to be an old lady who never gives up on being “young.” 

Maybe what I want isn’t this one overriding focused objective, but it sure as hell isn’t comfortable, either.  I can rest when I’m dead, damnit!

For the first time in my life, I kind of (seriously, kind of) understand evangelists.  If their faith makes them half as joyful as my carefree abandon makes me, I can see why they’d want to shout from the rooftops about it.  I’m not so sure about condemning people, but the preaching part, I could see. 

If you feel like taking part in the new gospel according to Rachel, try something new in the next few days.  Something (borderline) embarrassing, but that you’ve always wanted to do.  Then report back to me about how you feel, having done it.  Mine is that I’m going to go to the park with my mom’s friends** and do Tai Chi.  Time allowing.

*It was Edith Wharton
**This is even funnier because I don't think my mom is going to go.

Wonderful 

Twenty-seven is too old to spend more than a week with your parents

Mark Twain said, "Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions.  Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great."

I agree, but what if the person in question is not someone you can walk away from, or even ignore?  What happens when, even knowing that it isn't worth listening to, the words are coming from somebody who will always have your ear?  Do you brush past it?  Ignore it?  How?

I always try to remember that I am the only person who has been with me through every experience and every decision I have ever made, so I am the only one who really knows what is right for me.  Which helps.  I can still be proud of my accomplishments, even if other people are not.  But it still hurts.  So here's my question: When it's family, when it's someone you love, and you're hurt and you can't just forget it, how do you forgive?  Because I'm absolutely sure you should.  But it's not easy at all.

Traveling, or, The Fount of Eternal Questions

Hello! I know, it's been a long time.  Too long. It's because, these days, when I'm not working, I'm either... working (at my other job), or trying to answer the million and one questions that come up when you're planning to move almost 5000 miles away from your home.  And they're not necessarily the questions you'd think.  If I had a nickel for every time I'd had this conversation (or one roughly similar to it), I wouldn't need a job in Poland:

"So, you're really moving to Poland?"
"Yep. Only 26 more days until I leave.  I'm really excited!"
"So do you speak Polish?"
"I'm learning.  It's a pretty tough language."
"So how are you going to talk to people?"
"Well, in a big city like Wrocław, a lot of people speak English.  For the ones who don't, I'll use my limited Polish and a whole lot of pantomiming.  Once I'm there, I'll learn it.  I'll probably have no choice."
"So are you scared?"
"No.  A little nervous.  Scared of what?"
"Living alone?"
"Nope.  Done that before."
"Being so far away from family?"
"Nope.  I'll miss them, of course.  But it's not scary."
"Being a single woman in a foreign country?"
"As opposed to being a single woman in the US?"
etc., etc.

I'm going to tell you what really keeps me up at night.  Come closer, it's a secret.  It's all the stupid little things.  And not because I'm afraid of making the wrong decision, but because every time I make one decision, another one presents itself.  They range from minor-ly important details to the completely insignificant and inane (but with the potential to make life a bit easier or harder).  Such as:  What kind of luggage should I take?  A duffel, a regular suitcase, a giant hiking backpack?  (FYI, I settled for one suitcase I already have and a ginormous rolling duffel, as pictured on the left.)  What are the size and weight restrictions on my airline, and how much extra do I have to pay for the privilege of taking enough clothes to make it through the seasons?  What the hell are packing cubes?  Should I get packing cubes?  How many books do you think I can take without exceeding the weight limit?  My laptop is basically a desktop now (broken monitor), so should I drop a couple hundred bucks on a netbook to help get my work done and keep in touch with family?  Which netbooks are good?

Then, there are all the Catch-22s of travel, such as: it is much much easier (and desirable, from the standpoint of choosing wisely) to get a job while actually on Polish soil, either after completing the CELTA or at least while it's in progress.  But in order to get a long-term residence visa based on work, you must be in your home country, at the consulate that serves your state of residency.  However, it is possible to get, once you're in Poland, a residency card at the Voivoidship Office (seriously?), if you have a Permission to Work and a zameldowanie - still trying to figure out exactly how that works.  So, I have to have enough money to maybe fly back to get a visa, if I fail at the voivoidship office.

Here's another one:  you can't enter Poland without health insurance, and since I'm staying there, I'd like to get the kind that costs less than American Insurance because it is going to be used primarily overseas.  I am allowed to buy a policy up to 30 days prior to departing, as long as I intend to be outside of the US for at least 6 of the next 12 months.  I do!  Yay!  But on the application form, my address of residency must be outside of the US.  So, I called the insurance company, and I asked the guy, "What's up with that?  Sounds to me like y'all are trying to screw people."  Turns out, he was nothing like an American insurance customer service guy.  He didn't give me another number to call, or tell me that was just company policy.  He told me he'd call me back.  And he did!  Five minutes later!  "This is the trick," he said, "Just put your hotel, or hostel address in there.  Then, in your mailing address, put where you live now, and that's where we'll send the paperwork."  Do you hear what I'm saying?  An insurance company customer care representative actually helped me, a customer!  Isn't that outrageous?

And then there are my cats.  Despite all the other questions and worries, what I'm really scared about what's going to happen to my cats.  Nobody seems interested, and  I'm going to be upset no matter who I leave them with when I go, but I think it would break my heart to take them to a shelter.  I told you.  It's never the stuff you thought it'd be.

Anyway, I could go on about paperwork and travel plans all day.  International travel is fraught with questions, answers, etc.  But I'll stop.  I have to.  I took off work today.  I'm going to spend some quality time with my mother, call some offices during business hours, go to the bank and make moving arrangements, see my doctor about updating prescriptions and making sure I'm vaccinated, maybe get a haircut, and finally, try to work on a plan for the cats.  Only way to tackle your worries and fears is to...tackle them.