Here is a list of my Zora-bean-isms in honor of her "21 months" b'day.
"Wanna' Fight?" "Go 'way!"...these two come from the Eric Carle book "The Very Grumpy Ladybug" (aka, "Bug"or "Numpy Bug [grumpy bug]to Zora) the wannie (laundry) don't like eht! don't whan eht! I nahce ew? (May I nurse you?) take-a-baf? (take a bath) hawd ew? (hold you?) nummy (yummy) Nan is Leanne Nane is Langston ahp et. (open it) she loves chapstick or aquaphor for her "dips" (lips:) and "notion" for skin (lotion) nina or vee-nina (vagina), puh-nus (penis) She knows LOTS of animals & some animal signs. Here are some Zora-isms for their names: ah-raffe (giraffe), punky (monkey), moush (mouse), ...the rest she says pretty clearly.
Her babies include: Fred (American, dark skinned baby), Matilda (Polish baby named after Wlod's daughter), Hannah(Hungarian baby named after the most popular baby names in Hungary 2009), Abbie(named after one of our friends' daughters), big Winnie-Pooh & "niney"(tiny) Pooh she adds "a'" to the end of lots of words: butta' (butter), picka' (pickle), booga' (booger), finga' (finger), Micka' Moush (mickey mouse), diapa' (diaper), ... Picey (spicey) she says, "You!" for "I love you!" and finally...she has the best manners of any baby around. She says, "Pwease" and "tant ew" for so many things, from getting her sippy handed to her to us holding the door for her. Very sweet. a must see video....potty mouth?! Zora says "fork."
It seems that today, in blogland, is a day to "reveal oneself" (above is my "reveal oneself" face...this, of course is why my girlfriends did not hire a stripper for me at my panty party). Readers, just comment to say, "hello! I blogstalk you!" and that's it. :) Thanks for reading & keeping up with our fam. Note to Bekki: seriously, I was probably watching more of that way over the top p.d.a.
Donna & DeWayne came to visit us around Thanksgiving & stayed for a week. (I'm SO sorry this post is late, y'all! Better late than never? :) Anywho, we had a good time traveling around Krakow & Kielce with them. So cool! Critical mass in Krakow one night! There were hundreds of riders & police blocking the traffic. If you aren't familiar w critical mass, you should check it out sometime. Among other things, it's a reminder for all of us to SEE those who bike. Barclay & Langston have ridden in Macomb. Post-dinner, pre-shopping in Krakow A fun Polish holiday: Saint Andrew's holiday cross-dress & palm read. Seriously. According to this website...
St. Andrzejki Day Rituals
This is a special time for young Polish girls who want to find a husband. On this night and the next day, fortunes are told and the results are not taken lightly.
I didn't notice any gals asking for palms to be read. And from what I understood our Polish pals to say this is more a fun, funny kids thing now-a-days. This was our waiter joining in the hoop-la. And me enjoying all the funny cross-dressers (I even caught one guy feeling his own balloon boob! Ha! He was standing right in front of me when he did it, so I laughed & said, "Niiiice!") On the train ride to Krakow Donna in her element. :) The Key fam at our "hotel" aka dorm, where the grands bunked with us. an ordinary morning... an ordinary snarl... Look how well that man taught his son! :) Isn't this great!? They dig American jazz & blues here. trumpeter in Krakow (look for him out one of the top windows) He plays to each cardinal direction at noon daily. This was "the crew" who braved the concentration camps tour earlier that day. L to R: Barclay, DeWayne, Stephen (a Scottish dude who noticed by just looking that D. was not Polish & asked to share a cab! He eventually joined the other men on their tour that day & met us for dinner than evening), Robert (an American friend who is also teaching on a FB here in Poland). We were eating at this cute, very traditional Polish place with fur on sleighs & all other kinds of interesting deco. L. about to "dig in" We ordered a sampler called "the trough"...that dude was fa' real! L. playing around in a piece of art. :) a dedication to all who died in terrorist attacks. Very neat monument in Kielce. L. & grands at our local pond. our local Palace: see below as well. toy museum! Thanksgiving at Pizza Hut w the grands, Leanne & Wlod, our shepherd. Good food. Great company. And we all told about what we were thankful for post blessing & pre food. It was super nice.
Being silly with a statue in Krakow. Grandmom was getting her workout in! :) Don't let the pigeon(s)...attack the lady feeding them! (Little joke for those of you who dig Mo Willems with me.) Well, that's not all, but those are some of the highlights. Don't worry, Donnie & DeWayne, I have a file of all the pix just waiting to be burned to CD for you. Just give me about 6.5 more weeks. :) Love y'all! Thanks for visiting!
before I vent, here's a pic of "All Saint's Day," which is a really neat celebration here that our shepherd introduced us to.
Alright, alright...I've been slightly disturbed by this comment on one of my posts by an individual apparently NOT familiar with anything that we have had to deal with in simply getting here, so here's the comment & here's my reply... "Tell me why didn't you rent a fully furnished flat?
From this Domestic Property Market site, I see that prices aren't too big (350$-700$ per month for fully furnished apartment)
And why your husband did not check twice the conditions of your staying there? Especially when you were taking kids with you?"
Okay. First, my husband and I each spent many-an-hour sifting through the ads for flats in Kielce (& using google translate, which we are SO thankful for) to try & find a place to live. At the time we looked (& pretty much all the time, btw) there wasn't much offered that was within our price range (are you serious about that $700 per month being "reasonable?")--keeping in mind that we also have a house payment, car payment, health insurance, etc. back home and that we were not being paid from our university in the U.S. and that we had no promise to be assisted in our rent here in Poland--so money was an issue for sure. Secondly, and maybe most importantly, we did not know anything in a timely manner. (Nor did those we emailing in Poland.) I wouldn't know where to begin with who or what organization "dropped the ball" first, but I will say that our shepherd was not aware that Barclay would be bringing family until a week or two before we all showed up. He even expressed to us when we got here that he was concerned bc he didn't hear anything back from those above him except "Barclay's coming!" for months. No details what-so-ever. Which is odd bc Barclay added us to each and every form he completed. There was never a time when he applied to do this by himself, and yet...somehow things got screwed up to the point that our shepherd (being helpful) finally took it upon himself to arrange housing for B. and send him an email about it. Of course B. replied, "Thanks, but no thanks, I'm bringing three other people with me!" Now, we are still working on being "helped" with payment for housing for the three of us (who knows if we'll get it), but B has been paid by the university here (which was optional for them, so we are excited that they chose to do that). And we do have a shepherd who tries to help us (which is more than I can say for some folks we've encountered). And we didn't have trouble with Visas (again, some folk have had to leave the country & take pictures showing their left ears (ha, Lisa!) & all kinds of things just to stay here legally), so we are thankful for the things that we've been blessed with. But Anonymous, dear Anonymous, we did our best. We just didn't have anybody over here who was on top of things & that made all the difference.
this is a cute pic of Z at her English "baby class" on the eve of her 1st hand-foot-mouth fever & barfing. no direct link to the post below. She loves her baby class with her pals, Tomasz & Franciszek (a.k.a. Thomas & Frank :)
Being in a bigger city and thinking of the air quality makes me think of the warning labels on cigs & that there should be a warning label on something as soon as you enter into the city: "Warning! Breathing air here will cause black mucus, rattles when coughing (with the cold you will catch this winter), possible lung infection, asthma & croup for the young..." Which makes me think that I NEED to stock up on indoor air cleaning plants when we get back to Macomb. Our air quality there is pretty BAD to say the least. ( Here is what I plan to go by when purchasing my little purifiers... the recommended plants can be found below. Note that all the plants in the list are easily available from your local nursery.
This is where the list came from. Looks like a pretty reliable source to me. And I like how it even recommends the number of plants (15) for the average size home (under 20K) as well as the size the container needs to be (at least 6"). I plan to have this list in hand as I head to our local nursery as soon as we get back home.
Here is our own little slice of "coldwar corner" as Leanne has aptly named the area in & around our "hotel/dorms". Here is a look out of the shared kitchen in window in the fall.... and in the winter. The snow is still falling, but the temp is holding steady around 10 degrees warmer than our IL home (!).
Above is a pic of Barclay & kids with our shepherd, Wlodzimierz, his wife, Dorothy, & their kiddos, Martin (aka "dude") & Matilda (also the name of Zora's polish baby doll:) They invited us over for a big family meal since we were traveling & missing the traditional family Christmas meal. It was super sweet of them. Wlodz has been great to us. We are thankful for him & his kindness.
Lots of Polish goodness. Although we couldn't be there for their actual Christmas meal, they prepared lots of traditional/seasonal dishes for us. There are traditionally 8-12 *meat-free (but with fish) courses. Here's what is shown/what we were served... There is a hot drink that is like a light broth, a pancake filled with beans/cheese/meat, a seven-layer salad (a lot like the one my great-aunt makes at Christmas! Only this one had ketchup, too...which they also put on pizza here...), a meat & cheese tray, a bread basket, another veggie mix dish, & I'm sure there are things I am forgetting here, but! It was all good & neat to try. And we had yummy cake & lots of tea. :) Now on to another party...here we are at B's History dept party with the Wlodz-a-nator. Leanne babysat so that we could hang-out "like grown-ups." Thanks, Leanne! So, here we are, blue jean clad...and yes, we were the "casual Americans," but we didn't know this was a fancy, dress-up event. We should've guessed. I think pretty much all events here are fancy to us. Poles, for the most part, are "nails done, hair colored, dressed up" folk, from all I've noticed. I have seen exactly ONE lady in sweats in the mall since we've been here & I'm pretty sure it was bc she was around her 40th week in pregnancy. Anywho...we enjoyed the party like adults... Cheers! This retired secretary brought out some of her home-made (57 %, y'all) moonshine (pretty sure they don't call it that here, but that's what it was!) and they all got a kick out of the little American guy tasting the stuff. (They had broken out the vodka & wine as soon as we sat down...I did have a glass of wine, but that was my limit.) I did NOT partake of the mystery moonshine. B said it tasted like rubbing alcohol. Ew.
Part of the fancy History dept Christmas party...it was a far cry from the usual stand around, chill & snack & chat deal that we are used to in the U.S. :) Again, there are about 12 courses. We ate lunch that day, not knowing that this 3 pm deal was a sit-down & feast thing, so we just tasted a couple of things & learned about the rest. This was a mushroom soup. Above are two different dishes of fishes (no meat in these Christmas meals). One is fried, with Polish salads & potatoes, the bottom one isn't cooked & has onions. Party number 3... Leanne & B have lots of the same students, so we had them over for a pizza party before the break. We had a really fun time, even though this was part of the "Zora's hand-foot-mouth illness." We ate, talked & had a funny dance contest. Here is our group getting it kicked off. :) We did a little Zumba.
Here's a sweet Polish guy cross-dress-dancing to "Barbie girl." Yeah, give him a cookie. "Swan Lake" by a bunch of big guys wearing table cloth skirts! Ha, ha. L. chose this one as the winner. :) This cute couple actually could dance. They did a little salsa-swing combo. And made out. A lot. Oh to be young and European. (This might be the only place I remember to throw in that although I am a p.d.a kind of gal--I love a good snuggle--being in Europe reminds me of the phrase "get a room!" all the time. I have seen people grabbing, groping, not only kissing, but LICKING & biting each other out in public! Seriously, sometimes it is too much. And on buses or subways or standing smooshed together in line at the mall, I can't avoid it. I remember the first time I saw this European kind of togetherness...on a park bench...in Paris...in 1998. My first thought, even then, was that those people could always tell their child where he or she was made. On the park bench, in broad daylight, as a group of American tourists waited for their bus.)
Well, that pretty much wraps up our Christmas parties here in Poland...I'll try to touch on our Holiday in Budpest asap! We had a great time visiting w friends that are also here on FulB* awards, ate lots of delish food & saw some great sights. Stay tuned...
...and we're home! It's funny how much Kiecle felt like home as we rolled in via train then cab this evening. Ah, home sweet hotel. :) We have so much to post & all will be coming soon. Hopefully this week. But we're back--safe & ready for the last 7ish weeks of our Central-Eastern European adventure.
