Looking for the Fifth Elephant

Celebrity Spotting!!!!!

twoflower — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 18:44:00 GMT

During my travels through Europe I've seen one or two celebrities (or former celebrities) in some rather unusual places.

I don't include seeing Placebo in Warsaw or The Smashing Pumpkins in Berlin (Visit#2) because I paid to see them.

So who have I seen:

Angela Murkel, German Chancellor (Berlin V#1). Perhaps not surprising, I was near the Reichstag at the time.

Quentin Tarantino (Berlin V#4). His head is huge.

Alan Alda AKA Hawkeye from M*A*S*H. At the Communist Memorial Statue Park on the outskirts of Budapest.

These spottings mean nothing to me now though. Absolutely nothing.

The other day I was strolling through the extremely picturesque Transylvanian town of Brasov in Romania when I spotted a familiar figure. It couldn't be? Surely it wasn't. In Romania???

It was!

Perhaps my third favourite musician in the entire world, and one of the few men that could perhaps make me forget I've got the most wonderful boyfriends on the planet, for a little while... Courtney Taylor Taylor from the Dandy Warhols!!!!!

I didn't have my camera with me ...

I did get up the nerve to ask for his autograph though. He was so friendly, a little surprised to have been spotted in Brasov he seemed happy to chat for a few minutes.

I was annoyingly happy afterwards.

I couldn't wait to get back to the hostel and send a gloating email to Andrew. The Dandys are one of his favourite bands too.

Now I just need to spot Billy Corgan and Brian Molko on the street ...

My collection will be complete!

Finally some photos

twoflower — Mon, 14 May 2007 03:40:00 GMT

I've been uploading photos into photobucket all day. It takes forever, I'm nowhere near finished. It will take me a while to sort everything out but in the meantime here are a few. Enjoy.

Okay, the computer is being stupid and not letting me write anything next to the photos so I'll just have to give some info about them here.

#1 Obvious

#2 The Palace of Science and Culture AKA Stalin's Wedding Cake, Gotham Tower, The Elephant with the Frilly Underpants. Warsaw

#3 Lazenki Park. Warsaw

#4 The view from my bedroom window on a brisk winter morning.

#5 Me at the Brandenburg Gate.

#6 My first Panda!

#7 Death at the Reichstag.

Gallery: Death Takes A Holiday

twoflower — Mon, 14 May 2007 03:32:00 GMT

Photos of my travelling companion Death, as she travels around Europe. She was named after a character in 'The Sandman' graphic novel series rather than a morbid fascination with death.

Now for something completely different

twoflower — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 13:26:00 GMT

I do actually have a really good reason for looking forward to my birthday.

Only nine days after I'll be seeing one of my most favourite people in the whole wide world. My ~~little~~ younger brother is coming to visit!

I just found out that my mother has definately booked the tickets. He'll be in Europe on the 20th of June. Yay!

It would be absolutely perfect if Andrew could come too, I'd even be able to put up with he and Ali fighting over me all the time. But Mum wouldn't spring for the ticket :( ... hehe

Of course it would be better than perfect if Mum and Dad were coming too ...

Now we've just got to work out what we'll do exactly.

I've tried explaining to him that our budget won't allow us to stay in 5 star hotels.

I think he's got a month here so we want to see as much as possible in that time - including trying to see a Smashing Pumpkins concert.

Another week down

twoflower — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:05:00 GMT

This week has been really weird. I went to The Warsaw Uprising Museum last Sunday but it feels like I went yesterday. It's like the past week never happened. I can live with that.

Now for my first real work-related rant:

I imagine that next week I will not be a pleasant person to be around. On top of my 18 normal classes I also have to take a 'Kids Club' class, a conversation class and a 'Video Club' class for kids (the only videos this school has for kids are the Wallace and Grommet ones, which they've all seen at least 3 times before).

There are two reasons why these classes are particularly annoying

1) They are a total waste of time. Usually only one or two people turn up. I had a converstation class for a level that don't actually know enough English to have a conversation last week at only one student turned up. That was a fun hour.

2) You don't get paid for the extra work. In the contract it states you should have X hours contact time per week. I think I'm about 20-40 mins under that. Any more and they have to pay you overtime. So at first I thought that meant I'd be getting paid more because taking just one of those classes would put me over my limit. Apparently not. They accrue the time from other weeks when you haven't reached the limit, hence no overtime.

That isn't even the final insult. I was talking to one of the other English teachers one day and in conversation happened to ask her how many classes she had that day. I was very surprised when she told me she just had one. I love days when I only have 3 classes. She said she'd have more work to do when the conversation classes started though. I mentioned this when I got home and found out that on another day she only has two classes. Then I looked at the conversation class timetable and she only has about 2 a week, and they only last 50 mins to an hour instead of the usual 80 mins. This girl gets paid exactly the same amount as me.

What nearly had me packing my bags in disgust was discovering that one of my flatmates has the same class 5 times a week and then he has other classes more than once a week. This means that in essence he only has to plan for about 8 classes a week. I have to plan for 13-14 classes a week. He doesn't have any conversation classes because he's exactly on the limit and they'd have to pay him extra. We have the same number of classes. I guess I just do one more kids class than him.

I love this place.

I have never looked forward to my birthday so much (the contract ends 4 days after it).

Now I've gotten myself angry all over again just writing about it.

Apologies

twoflower — Thu, 8 Mar 2007 19:41:00 GMT

I'm still trying to work out how to reply to comments. It's not as straight forward as it should be ...

I'll try to investigate some more on the weekend :/

I need suggestions!

twoflower — Thu, 8 Mar 2007 09:16:00 GMT

I've got 9 days holiday in May and I do not want to spend them in Warsaw. The only other place I was considering in Poland was Gdansk but apparently that's where everyone in Warsaw is going (maybe I'll go there over Easter, although it will probably be a pointless journey).

So where should I go?

Naturally Russia was the first place that sprung to mind. I've also been toying with the idea of going to Turkey as I'm not sure that I'll be headed in that direction again.

Money is obviously an issue. I'm earning Zlotys people.

I saw an ad for flights to Paris for 29zl (about $13), but it was a while ago so I'm sure they're sold out. It was also a Russian airline ...

HELP!

Why just stop at one bodily fluid?

twoflower — Sun, 4 Mar 2007 21:00:00 GMT

As some of you will know one thing I truely hate, something that has on several occasions nearly made me throw up, is spitting.

Spitting does not seem to bother many Poles. In fact it seems to be a national sport. I didn't think anyone would ever go as far as to spit repeatedly on the bus but apparently I was wrong.

To make this expulsion of germ ridden body fluid even worse I've had to invent a new game, 'Avoid the Frozen Puddles of Spit'. Yes, the evidence isn't quickly absorbed into the ground, it doesn't evaporate, it freezes.

Singapore may be regularly criticized for it's laws against chewing gum, feeding birds in public etc etc but not I would definately support the imposition of a huge fine for spitting.

Death Camps, Salt Mines and Other Adventures

twoflower — Sun, 4 Mar 2007 09:52:00 GMT

Luckily, my first full week of holidays was followed by the winter holidays. Two weeks of paid vacation, yay! I'm not sure how I would have coped if I didn't get that break.

I was invited to go to Krakow with some of the other native teachers for 4 days. I jumped at the chance.

We got tickets on the fast train so the journey only took about 2.5 hours. The apartment we stayed in was right in Rynek Glowny, Krakow's main market square in the Old Town, right in the centre of everything. It was a huge apartment. I even got my own bed (no one else had that luxuary). It was a bit of a pain trying to share a bathroom between 7 people though :/

 
If you go to this site http://www.warsawshotel.com/Europe/Poland/Krakow/Apartments/Detail/854   you'll see some pictures of where we stayed.  It looked like that for about 2 hours before it

developed the 'lived in' look.

Highlights in Krakow

Kazimierz

Kazimierz is the old Jewish district. Before WWII about 60,000 Jews lived in Krakow. Now there are only about 100. It's a rather depressing statistic. There are a lot of synagogue's still standing in Kazimierz, only one is actually in use as a place of worship though. Most them are now museums.

It was in Kazimierz that I first tried Grzane Wino (mulled wine). What I want to know is why isn't this drunk in Australia? I swear it is one of the most delicious drinks I've every had. It now has a firm place in my top 5 drinks. It definately takes #1 spot in the best alcoholic drink category.

We had dinner in a 'traditional Jewish restaurant' in Kazimierz on our first night. Apparently, it was where Steven Spielberg and the cast of Schindler's List stayed in when they were filming the movie. Judging by a picture on the wall Prince Charles had also been a patron of that particular restaurant.

I went back to Kazimierz by myself a few days later, I wanted to find Remuh Cemetary, it's supposed to be one of the best preserved Jewish cemetaries in Europe. That was when I discovered that the maps in the Lonely Planet guide books can't really be relied on.

Wawel Castle & Cathedral

My first European castle. Hmm, maybe I'm not a castle person. I have to admit I found it a tad 'meh'. Maybe it was the 60zl entrance fee that coloured my view. Maybe I was tired. All I can say is that it definately wasn't my favourite part of the trip. It wasn't bad, it was just 'okay'. It was rather amusing the way they made everyone wear little plastic booties so we wouldn't traipse mud inside.

There was a good view of the city from the Cathedral tower though.

Wieliczka Salt Mine

It was actually more interesting than it sounds. I believe it's one of the oldest working mines in existance, if not the oldest. The mine first opened 700 years ago, and they're still extracting salt from the water that flows through it. They only stopped mining it properly about 9 years ago. Imagine walking through rooms made entirely of salt. The ceiling, the floor, the walls, the stairs, all salt. The Cathedral in the mine was unbelievable. I'm sure I'll never see anything like it ever again. It was like walking through an extremely ornate church carved entirely from marble. Salt carvings of the Last Supper, carvings of the patron saint of the mine, salt chandeliers, a salt alter and naturally a salt statue of John Paul II.

Auschwitz-Birkenau

Do I really need to write anything about this particular place? Probably not.

Oswiecim, the town the camps are in, is possibly the most depressing place I've been to in my entire life. I wonder what it was like before WWII, was it just as bleak then or is it purely a result of its Nazi legacy?

I'm sure thousands of people visit the town every year but for 99.9% of tourists it is strictly a day trip. You really can't stay any longer than strictly necessary.

The weather was perfect for the visit. Grey, drizzly and below freezing. At Auschwitz we saw the cells where they had the first gas chamber experiments, it was in the same building were prisoners waited to go to the 'death wall' to meet the firing squad. We also visited the first actual gas chamber, it's the only one left. All the others were destroyed by the Nazis before the Russians arrived, trying to destroy the evidence. I can now say I've seen the crystals they used to gas millions of people to death.

However it was the seeing all the prosthetic limbs, glasses and human hair that the Nazi's collected that made the biggest impression. I just kept reminding myself that each and every one of these items belonged to real people. I'll never forget the way that the prisoners marked all their luggage so carefully so it wouldn't be mistaken for someone else's. As if this actually mattered ...

As bad as it was, compared to Birkenau, Auschwitz seemed like a holiday camp. We were told that the prisoners at the two camps had an average life span of three months. I really wonder how the ones in Birkenau were able to last even that long. At least in Auschwitz there was a possibility that you wouldn't freeze to death.

I bought my one and only souvenier of the trip while I was there. It was a book about Auschwitz and the Final Solution. I've yet to bring myself to read it. I briefly considered buying some postcards but thought it might have been in bad taste.

I didn't learn anything new there. I wasn't expecting to, you can't spend as much time studying German history as I have and not become pretty well versed in the subject. Still, it's one thing to read about these things, seeing them is an entirely different matter.

When I got back to Warsaw they were playing The Pianist on television. I love that movie but I had to switch it off after ten minutes.

Krakow's certainly different to Warsaw. It's much easier on the eye. Tourists visiting Krakow are told to visit a 'model Communist suburb' on the outskirts of town just to see what life was like. You don't need to visit that suburb if you live in Warsaw as that's the normal scenery. Krakow is definately much more tourist friendly. That said I think I'm better off living in Warsaw.

Like sardines, lightly smoked

twoflower — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 10:13:00 GMT

Catching a bus during peak hour is always in interesting experience. The people in Warsaw could really teach the Japanese a thing or two about cramming people into confined spaces.

Yesterday, I had to go to a training session on something that was featured in Bad Science so I was already in quite a good mood. Stupid training sessions that start at 10 on a Friday morning and then classes until 8:20pm.

It turned out I had to walk a lot further than I'd anticpated (in -15 degree weather) as the engine of the bus caught on fire a few stops before I was due to get off. Good start to the day :)

In news that has made me even happier, when I got home last night I discovered that Neil Gaiman is appearing at Empik on Nowy Swiat (book store, centre of city) on Monday 17th March from 5:00pm-7:00pm. I was really happy for about 2 seconds, I love this author and as I found out last night during a discussion on short stories, many of my students do too. Then I realised the times. Half-way through my lessons :/ Damnit.

What a great end to a perfectly horrible week.

By the time you've lost all feeling in your face ...

twoflower — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 18:54:00 GMT

... you know it's probably getting a bit cold.

I think I've acclimatized nicely to the weather in Poland. Mum would probably be ready to fall on her sword but I don't find the cold too bad.

Let me rephrase that, I don't find the cold too bad when I'm outside. For about two weeks the heating wasn't working properly in the flat and do you think I could buy a tracksuit that wasn't one of those ultra-expensive 'label' ones that didn't actually have any fleece in them anyway?

But I digress. On Sunday I was walking back from the supermarket and I thought it felt quite warm, almost summery so I checked the thermostat. 3 degrees. There have been several occasions where I've noticed my face going numb but I don't really find it too uncomfortable. Last night the condensation from everyone's breath was frozen to the windows of the bus. Buses generally aren't heated...

Snow is another matter entirely. You discover fairly quickly why most Poles hate it. True, it makes everything look very pretty and if your visiting in winter as a tourist you should hope for snow because otherwise everything looks dead.

Actually living here is a different matter all together. It's hard to walk through, your pants get wet, it gets really dirty really quickly and it turns into sludge which makes it even harder to walk. It can also hurt a bit if you're walking around while it's snowing. It gets into your eyes, you open you're mouth and the flakes just fall right in, making you wonder just how polluted it is. Imagine being caught in a sandstorm, it's a similar feeling. And when it starts to melt, ugh!

Storm drains are few and far between here, come to think of it so are gutters. The roads and footpaths are often full of potholes. Sometimes the puddles are so big you just can't avoid them. The problem is that they're dark and semi-frozen so you can't tell how deep they and these potholes can be BIG. There is nothing like the sensation of stepping in a puddle you can't avoid only to have your boots filled with freezing water. I speak from experience. Also, you have to make sure you don't stand near the road (assuming you can tell where the road starts and the footpath ends) unless you want to get soaked to the skin by the big van who just happens to drive into that huge, filthy puddle.

I also haven't had the chance to make a snowman or even a snowball :(

All that aside I'm told this hasn't been a 'real Polish winter'. Not enough snow, hasn't been down to minus 30 enough etc etc. People always take a pride in the extreme.

First Entry (second time around)

twoflower — Fri, 9 Feb 2007 23:31:00 GMT

Well I've been in Poland for about three weeks now and I'm still trying to work out what exactly I've gotten myself into. Everything is so - well to be banal – foreign. The landscape, the architecture, the weather, the food, the language, especially the language ... There certainly would have been less culture shock if I'd taken the job in Japan.

Everyone asks why I decided to come to Poland. I always feel uncomfortable answering. I daren't tell the truth, that I really wanted to go to Russia and decided that Poland was good enough or that I came because they offered me a job. I usually say something along the lines of 'well I didn't study Poland directly but I studied a lot of German and Russian history at university ...' This is normally enough to satisfy people.

First Impressions

As I walked up the slightly charred passage from the aeroplane to the terminal I was a tad aprehensive. After 30 hours of travelling - most of it in darkness - and a rather hideous stop over at Frankfurt, I was exhausted and emotionally fragile. I was greeted with the smallest, dingiest terminal I'd ever seen in my life. Customs was virtually no existant, which was a good thing as far as I was concerned, but I couldn't believe this was the international airport of the capital city. As I was waiting for my baggage to appear part of the ceiling above the other baggage carosel collapsed. Luckily the airport was almost empty and the carosel wasn't in use otherwise I have no doubt that someone would have been killed. Not perhaps the best omen, it's not what you want to see in your first 15 minutes in the country you're to call home for the next 6 months.

As I was driven from the airport to my new home I was provided with a running commentary on which country was investing in what company, who built what new building. I was more interested in the old than the new but none of that seemed to be worth a mention. One minute we were driving by buildings that looked hundreds of years old (the majority are replicas of buildings destroyed during WWII), the next some ultra-modern 'symbols of the new Poland' sitting right next to some big old Soviet monstrosities.

Living Arrangements

I was pleasantly surprised when I was shown where I would be staying (after the roof collapse I wasn't optimistic). It turned out to be a huge, modern two-story flat above one of the schools. I've got a large bedroom (can't say I care for the bed) with a shared balcony and a bathroom all to myself (inc a bath, the shower kind of sucks though). On reflection I think it may be a bit too modern. It's easy to forget that you're in Poland when you're sitting inside watching the League of Gentlemen on BBC Prime. I've briefly glimpsed inside a traditional Polish apartment and I wish I was living somewhere a bit more like that but I'm sure it would have it's drawbacks. There are 5 bedrooms but only 3 are in use so if anyone finds themselves in the area you could probably have a room all to yourself if you give me enough notice. There are 3 other people living in the flat, a Welsh teacher, an English teacher and his Polish girlfriend. They all seem nice enough, even if one does monopolise the internet connection ...

Techinically I don't actually live in Warsaw, I live in a small town on it's border called Lomianki (pronounced Womyanki). It's about 30 mins from the centre but because it isn't 'Warsaw' I have to change buses/trains to get home as the Metro doesn't come out this far. It's so stupid. I've been told Lomianki is where 'all the rich people live'. I have absolutely no idea why. It looks more semi-industrial than suburban and there isn't exactly a lot to do. Oh well, the supermarket is just across the road :/~

Teaching

Hmmm, what can I say? I arrived on a Tuesday and they wanted me to start teaching on Thursday. At which point I politely informed them that at that stage I could barely speak English, let alone teach it. Therefore they kindly moved my first day to Friday :/ They helped me with couple of lesson plans but after that I was pretty much on my own. So much for additional training.

I'm teaching all different age groups from five-year-olds to 70-year-olds. I prefer the kids classes, even if one is full of the next generation of prison inmates. It's not just because the classes are about half the length of the adult ones. Kids are just more fun.

My First Full Week

My schedual for my first week pretty much looked like this:

6:00am – Get up, eat breakfast, shower.

6:45am – Start planning lessons.

1:00pm – Quick lunch.

1:15pm – Check over all lesson stuff

2:00pm – Head off to wherever I'm teaching

3:00pm – Start teaching

8:20pm – Finish teaching

9:00-10:00pm – Get home, quick dinner

10:15pm – Start on lessons for next day

12:00am – Bed.

I was pretty exhausted and slightly insane by the end.

I was also feeling more than a little bit trapped. The owners insisted on driving me everywhere. It was nice at first but after a little while I just wanted to come and go as I pleased. I really don't like feeling dependant on virtual strangers.

Some lovely person also turned the thermostat down on the water and the heating so I was lucky enough to have a week of cold showers in an increasingly cold flat.

The feeling that I was living in a Sepia photograph was also adding to my mental decline. Brown and grey, brown and grey. I went outside and they were the only colours I saw. I started to cheer up considerably after it started snowing, goodbye brown!

Also, everything was so flat. I saw one hill my in my first week and it was made a garbage. I've yet to see anything else that could be described as a hill. Not that I'm complaining about a lack of hills.

The Weather

I think I've adapted rather well to the weather. Now and then I look up the weather in Warsaw and the weather in Brisbane and I feel glad that I'm here. The cold really doesn't bother me. I'm really surprised that my lungs haven't decided to play up yet. I think it's just a matter of wearing the right clothes. Oscar, my green coat, is easily one of the best purchases I've ever made. I feel a bit like a giant blimp wearing all those layers though and it takes me three times as long to get in and out of my 'outside clothes' as everyone else. Hat hair has become the bane of my existance. I'm very close to having my hair cut very short.

It was when I got a cold headache after drinking some water that had been in my bag all day that it really dawned on me that the average maximum temperature is slightly lower than that of a fridge. One day when I was in Krakow (that's another entry) I realized the reason I was having difficulty talking was because my mouth had gone numb in the cold, who needs novacaine?

As I've already said, snow definately does improve the appearance of Warsaw but I haven't really grown to love the stuff. Maybe it's because I haven't had a chance to enjoy it yet – no snowballs or snowmen. It makes it really hard to walk around. I got off the bus one day and found myself thigh deep in the stuff. It also feels similar to sand when it's blowing into your eyes, I now carry sunglasses with me when it snows.

The Language

I saw some Russian writing on a train and got really excited because I could read most of it. Give me a while and I'm sure I'll get the hang of it (I hope) but at the moment I'm not even going to attempt to read Polish. I've taught myself a few phrases but mostly I've been getting along on pointing and bluffing.

I'm living the life of an illiterate mute.

It was terrific when I bought a copy of 'Learn Polish in Four Weeks', the shop assistants didn't even attempt to talk to me in Polish. Yay!

I went to one of the Polish lessons they provide for the teachers. I don't think I'll be going back. The people who've been going since September couldn't follow it, I had no chance. I only went to listen in but the person taking the class actually expected me to know the answers to some questions. I just wanted to know how to say hello :(

It never dawned on me how large my German vocabulary was until I moved here.

I really do want to learn some Polish. I hate the thought of actually living in a country and not being able to communicate with ordinary people.