More from Wola Rzędzińska!

sporatic internet access = sporadic blog entry

That means I have lots to tell!

Lets see, so I got to go sailing last week with Piya, her host sister, Dagmara, and Dagmara's boyfriend. He had a sailing liscence, so we went out to a lake about an hour from here and rented a boat. That was a lot of fun! I have never been sailing. Good thing to have tried. I think that I will give learning how to work the sails a shot sometime.

I finished out my first two weeks of school with celebrating the 4th of July with my classes. Piya and I got the ingredients for American flag cakes. (You know, the kind that has blueberry stars and strawberry stripes.) Finding that stuff was a trip. Apparently, fruit is a little more hard to come by in these parts... especially in Wola Rzędzińska. We ended up getting to a larger store to find the sought after supplies, and ended up getting home around 10:30. I then realized that I had gotten myself into another one of those hmm-I'll-cross-my-fingers-now-because-this-was-probably-a-stupid-idea situations. (Those are actually good because if they don't work out, they end up making fabulous stories.) I had some makeshift ingredients, five cakes to bake, and no means by which to measure. (They don't have measuring cups.) Luckily, Natalia and Kinda were glad to help and we got it done pretty fast. Other than a little juice runnage of the frozen blueberries, everything turned out fine, and the kids seemed to enjoy having cake in class. In fact, it was kindof a big deal... the little kids asked for recipes. Even though I knew that that was probably because all things taste amazing when you get to in class, and that this was merely a classic yellow cake recipe, and that these were 7-year-olds , I was a little bit flattered. We colored flags, put them on sticks, and talked about holidays in class.

I left Wola Rzędzińska the next day for LE Poland's "midpoint break" in Sanok. The region that Sanok is in is really beautiful... lots of hills, lots of green-ness. However, there is not a whole lot to do in Sanok. After you look at the hills for a few minutes and enjoy some Piorogi, you have pretty much done what there is to do in Sanok. It was nice being back with the group. Odd, too, to switch from being waited on "like a king"/babysat, to being on your own and speaking English. It was nice. We exchanged lots of teaching ideas. I needed this! I think that pretty much everyone was running out of ideas, and this way we were able to tell each other what worked and what didn't etc. After a relaxing weekend, I was ready to go back to Wola Rzędzińska... mainly because the lustre of Sanok had worn off.

So far this week, we have colored ideal boyfriends or girlfriends and described them, talked about clothing... run around the parking lot playing sharks and minnows clothing/land edition, and picked out words from common songs that they knew. I am really looking forward to doing the food days... one day talking about kinds of food and making paper cookies, the next having a (Walmart-style) food/clothing store.

Monday afternoon, I changed host homes... moving from the Merchut's to the Usien's. This was the original plan... for me to change houses midway though, but I was still a little sad to leave the
Merchut's. I will still see them around, though, so that's good. So far, I have had a a really good time with the Usien's. They had a new toothbrush, toothpaste, razors, and a loofa in the bathroom. They drove me to school today and had Russian style Piorogi ready when I came home. Yum! My favorite! I am a foodie, but anyone would love this stuff. It takes forever to make, too, so that was really cool that she did that.

I met up with Piya, Ginger (another American), Ginger's host sister, and Dagmara in town today. We had a beer and then went shopping a bit. They have this beer here called Redd's. It is really good... definately a woman beer, but very tasty. I bought some shoes. They are pretty cool heels. Shoe shopping is so fabulous when you have a favorable exchange rate!

As we were leaving, I asked Dagmara about places to get a haircut. I made an with a place in town, but when I got home, my host family insisted that I go to a place in Wola Rzędzińska.... they said that it was really good and was no problem... I hope that that doesn't mean they are going to try to pay for it... I will keep my fingers crossed on the turnout of my haircut! I have it tomorrow. We will see.... :)