What happened to fall?

It's so cold. I'm talking below 0 already. I got lost this morning after missing my bus stop. I walked around in the freezing rain for an hour thinking, "Oh great." I really need to learn Polish. It's hard to be covert when you carry around a map and smile like a crazy person because your laughing at yourself for being so hopelessly lost you can't find a bus home. This is going to be awesome.

Ok. Alright. It's ok, I'm alright.

Dzien dobry! I have gotten over my inadequacy a little. It still pains me that I am not as cool as some of the people I'm with. These kids are younger than me with so much ambition. They are just everything I want to be. So, I guess it's good I'm hanging out with them. I just feel so inferior because here are these people that speak their mother tongue and my mother tongue. Then on top of that they are learning Polish as well as other languages. There is one girl who speaks something like 15 languages. I can barely speak a paragraph in French, which is never understood by the French people here because my words are drowning in my accent. By the way, it turns out American accents are ugly. I know this because they pick on me. I still try, and as time progresses my language ability will also. I'm so glad that I am here because it felt like I was walking in circles living in Greensboro. I'm starting to not take myself so seriously, and who knows maybe someday I might be the life of the party. I'm just kidding I was definitely always the life of the party, maybe.

Everything is working out very well with school. I was freaking out about it a little, but it turns out it's fine. I'm taking the Polish course, sociology of politics, a class on global and regional governance, a polish movie night course (you just watch polish movies with subtitles in English), and contemporary polish society. The classes are an hour and a half one day a week, each class on a different day. Now you can see why I have all this free time. Teresa has some diplomacy workshops she is going to and I'm planning on joining her for some of those. I'm trying to find the school gym, and there is also a gigantic pool here with water slides. Maybe I'll come back to the US ripped, but I doubt it.

So far, that's the update. Some of the other students and I are planning a trip to Berlin not this weekend, but the next. Also, Stockholm is in the works, and maybe Amsterdam. I'm not really crazy about going to Amsterdam so maybe not. There is also a trip being planned for Krakow. Just outside of Krakow is Auschwitz and we will have a guided tour of that when we go for all you Nazi fanatics. The group that is planning that trip likes to give a one day notice and you have to sign up because there are only 100 slots available out of 300 Erasmus students. It is possible that I might not go because I can go later and it isn't a problem. I promise I will go so my family doesn't freak out. I personally think that going to Auschwitz is going to scar me a little, but you can all hug me when I return. I think both the Stockholm and Amsterdam plans are for around that same time. All of them, however, are not until the end of November with the exception of Berlin. I've talked to Jenna, and she will come sometime after December. I think I'm going to wait for her to get here before going to France or Italy. It depends on what she wants to do. There is talk of trips to Prague and Barcelona as well. I will keep you all up to date in photos and such. I am also accepting any kind of donations for hostel costs, food, a leather jacket, etc (did you catch that?). I can't afford to buy presents for everyone and pay for the trips. Also, the gifts have to be shipped. Just a little thought for food. I hope everyone is well, and I will try to be in contact as much as possible to feed you stories of life in this backwards country (that's no joke). Do widzenia!

Je ne suis pas originale.

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Oh good, I wasn't expecting that, but now I can see that was obviously going to be how this all turned out.

This is the grossest thing I've come across so far. Here we have a Polish hamburger. It's hard to see by the picture, but inside there is ground beef, white cabbage, red cabbage, bread and butter pickles, corn, vinegar, and 1000 Island dressing. You can pick up your own hand full of "fuck you taste-buds" outside of our dormitory. My flat mates were eating these and tried to tell me that they weren't bad, but I know what they were up to. After this they continued into there regular late night eating spree with some fried cheese that smells and tastes like my Vans. These girls are human garbage cans. We seriously ate chicken butts the other day. I tried it, but no more chicken butts for me.

Today's blog, however, is not about food. Instead, I want to gripe about my experience at the movies today. Xuane and I awoke to a rainy, cold, Polish afternoon and decided to skip the National Museum to go see District 9. I really wanted to see Zombieland, but this is Poland so you take what you can get. One cool thing about the theaters here is that they serve booze at a fairly normal price. I am a full fledged fan of popcorn and soda (I don't like to eat the popcorn), but I can think of times it would be cool to have a beer. Today's choice: Sprite, caramel covered popcorn, and assorted Haribo gummies.

Now, let's start with the previews. Saw VI is on it's way. Um, can somebody please kill the cash cow already? Honestly, what is wrong with people today? Those movies aren't scary they are just gore fests. I can see having a small market of those kinds of movies, but 6 of the same terrible plot!? Do these people not realize what is happening to them? Have they never heard of a capitalist market? Not to mention most "scary movies" like the Saw empire are exactly the same. Someone has to account for taste. This needs to stop. I could go on a similar rant about the Final Destination movies. I get it. The guy is cursed and instead of him dying all his friends die in abnormal ways. Good, one more reason for me to be afraid of the world around me and the life I'm living.

2012, I wish the media would leave this one alone. It's going to turn into the 1999/2000 fiasco where paranoid people start freaking out. People that tell me information about the world coming to an end when there is nothing I can do about it drive me nuts. Why would I want to know that Yellowstone is a super volcano that is long over due to erupt, and if it does most of the people on earth will die? Or, the poles are 1000 years over due to shift. If that's the case, I'm constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's a thrill that I can live without.

Finally, District 9. Oh man, I wanted to go to sleep in this movie, but my chair wasn't comfortable enough and I was on a sugar high. I didn't realize that aliens understood English without speaking it, and that people from South Africa could understand alien language without speaking it. Hey writers, that doesn't make any sense. I personally have no idea what the aliens said because it was all in Polish subtitles. This baffles me because if Tom Cruise can play an English speaking Nazi with no accent why couldn't the aliens speak English? Is it more believable that 2 different species can communicate with each other perfectly without ever using a symbol, hand gesture, or common form of language? I know it's a movie, but I just want them to try a little if I'm going to spend $9 on it.

What I hated the most by far was the figurative elbow that I felt in my side from the writers whispering, "Get it? It's about the apartheid and racism." It was so obvious that this is what they were getting at that they might as well just flashed it up on the screen before the movie started. Then, to add insult to injury, they put the setting in Johannesburg. Really!? They turned the native Africans into racists. As if those people didn't suffer enough going through it themselves. They make this movie that basically says, "Hey, don't forget how easy it is to be racist." No duh. No one should waste their time or money on this 2 hours of a reminder that some people are straight up stupid. But, that's just my opinion. I don't know what the aliens said. There could have been some key information. I think I got it, but I'm willing to debate the facts if their are any disputes of this opinion.

Good news! I signed up for internet two weeks ago and I finally got it.

Let the skyping commence!

Germany, part 1

I'm back to Wroclaw or Breslau depending on if you ask a German or a Polski. It was a great experience, but supa-expensive. I dropped 200 euro at least. I might have to pick up a job. Although, I doubt I will spend so much in other cities that I go to in the future. It was a long car ride. It took about 9 hours which isn't bad, but with strangers feels a little longer. Oh well, the French girl we were with didn't speak English extremely well so we were entertained by her mistakes. For example she told me she, "needed to check her cunt" and she asked me to, "close the condom," instead of telling me she needed to check her bank account and to close the curtain. I also got to drive on the autobahn. I got up to 180 km (110-120 miles per hour) before I was scared I would kill everyone in the car. Surprisingly, the speed is not the scariest part. At some points the road is just ridiculously narrow. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I took it, no regrets. The countryside in West Germany is beautiful. There are fields and fields of hops gardens and wheat. Plus, they have these giant modern windmills that look so space age. I couldn't get a good picture of it for you guys and that makes me sad.

The pictures are now posted on-line with info. Like I said, I'll try to get the other pictures from Juliana she is serious about some photo taking. In the coming days I'm working on figuring out my classes. There is a boat trip/party on Wednesday, but I'm not sure you will care to see those pictures so I might not post them. It's time to settle back into a normal lifestyle. I need to save money after this trip and the haircut fiasco. There is still no internet at the dorm. I'll keep trying, but it is a very difficult situation because the administration doesn't speak English. Anyway, in order to talk to anyone that isn't available between 10-2 in the mid-morning/afternoon I would have to stay up until like 1 am or 2 am. I'll figure it out. I miss you guys so much!

I love fanta!

So, I got a haircut today. If you are taken to a salon where the furniture is still ruled by communism and the hairdresser is older than dinosaurs, heed my advice and just leave. I was so dumb and sat down because I was like, "Oh, she obviously has a lot of experience." It's true, she did, but one must differentiate between a hair dresser and a stylist. It was the worst haircut I have ever had, and I almost cried for the first time. The first cut was about $15 and then I spent another $40 to get it fixed. It took a total of 4 hours to get a haircut. So, now I have no hair. It's an exciting and new look for my exciting and new life.

Speaking of exciting, tomorrow at 11 am I'm going to Octoberfest in Munich. Yay! I'll post the pictures later of the great time I had. Lots of love!