Quiet February

Okay!  Here goes trying to do better at maintaining this thing in order to keep my posts shorter.

Sarah and I had our first classes at Speed on the first week of February.  Not too many...just a couple of hours to get our feet wet.  I had a couple of adult groups on Thursday that seemed to be way more curious about me and the place I came from than they were about actually covering the material they were paying me for -- but I guess some of that is because there aren't a lot of Canadians that come to Poland, let alone ones that come to Poland to teach English.  Now that the real work has begun I feel much better about the abrupt transitions we've had to make, both in daily life and the methods we're used to working with.  As for Level, things didn't work out with our covering for the teacher who is on medical leave since our boss had no luck convincing the students that they wanted to try learning English from a Native Speaker -- so we're mostly doing class visits and ToC type work when they need us.

Work aside, things have been extraordinarily quiet for us since we started getting an income again -- except for some of the frantic-making issues relating to expenses and paperwork at home.  It will be nice to get our first paycheque since the week before Xmas at the end of this month though!  We've made so many grand plans to make day trips on the weekends, but when Friday and Saturday roll around we keep getting bitten by the lazy bug, oversleeping, or conspired against by our bodies in ways that make us not want to leave the flat.  Fortunately Brutus has been able to keep us occupied and well supplied with furry snuggles...though his antics and quirks are a blog post unto themselves.  He just had to spend a week with his other family while they fed him de-worming medication -- a nasty and disgusting surprise he left in his litter box so say the least!  We do very much look forward to having him back.

Apartment photos will come as we continue in our struggles to keep the place neat and tidy.  We love this place, and we want to share it with you.  At some point there will also be photos from our various meanderings so far, so stay tuned!

After the quiet month we've had, it makes an element of sense that March is going to be crazy busy: we've got a class trip coming up with Level, possible party plans for my birthday, and a potential road trip outside of Poland.  I'll try to keep up with the blog as the elements of our adventures unfold, otherwise it'll take me a month just to write the next post.

Don't forget to leave any questions or comments if you have them :)

It's A Brand New Day (Part 2)

Since one month's adventures take a lot of explaining, I've had to split the post in half.  If you have questions or comments don't be afraid to post them below.  It's always interesting to hear from you.

I name no names.

Even though we've been quite busy, it doesn't mean we haven't had other adventures along the way.  One of the first adult classes we sat in on was a conversation class that consisted mainly of middle aged to elderly ladies who are all of artistic persuasions.  When they realized that we were new to town, two of them decided that they -- with the aid of one of their husbands -- needed to show us what the part of Gliwice immediately surrounding the school and our flat had to offer us in terms of food, fun, and culture.  Immediately after class they took us around Old Town a little before showing us some good places to go for lunch (while asking the staff if they ever had anyone on that could give service in English).  A couple weeks later, another pair of students (one of whom was with us previously and brought her husband to this outing as well) took introduced us to the Silesian Jazz Club in Old Town.  Unfortunately the bouncer wouldn't let anyone into the club until 20 minutes prior to the show, so we headed back out to the street in search of something to fill the time.  It seemed as though our ladies were experiencing their twenties all over again, since they wanted to explore all the clubs that they either thought we would find interesting, or that they had never been to.  Old Town does seem to be a very happening place for nightlife and we learned about some new places that we will definitely have to visit...but that isn't even the funniest part of the whole evening.

The funniest part is that the ladies took us into this one club that they had never visited before (it's name was "Chicas" which we knew is the Spanish word for girls)...we thought they would turn around the second they saw the glass stage with poles, but that never happened.  They then proceeded to ask the manager if she spoke English (which she did), then asked her to come talk with the lovely girls all the way from Canada.  They looked intrigued when the manager explained that 20 PLN would get us a lap dance and a vodka shot while we and the only man in the group felt very awkward about the whole thing.  If that wasn't enough, they were debating going to the club on the other side of the jazz place, but one look at the sign told us all we needed to know while the older ladies stood there debating what a "Leasby Show" was (they pronounced it "lezby show," which made me question something entirely different).  Somehow her husband convinced them that they should take us to some of the more interesting places in Old Town...which they thankfully did.

The Kajetan Drodz Band at the Silesian Jazz Club

We eventually went into the jazz club and had a decent time listening to the Kajetan Drodz Band, when I decided it would be fun to try some of the Polish vodka I had heard so much about.  I thought it would be possible to get a small bottle like the Smirnoff we get at home...

No such luck.

Instead there was a 500 mL bottle, mercifully split between 5 people and there is still half of it sitting in the fridge that I sincerely hope someone is going to help us drink.  Since the old ladies were mixing alcohol, one of them stopped after a sensible number of shots (2), while the other I strongly suspect had gotten herself thoroughly buzzed (if not plastered) before her husband took her home for the night.  Oops.

Don't get me wrong, these ladies are all complete sweethearts, every one of them.  We enjoy their company and appreciate everything they are doing for us, but sometimes the miscommunication is entertaining too.  They offered to take us to a 'concert' featuring the work of a Nobel prize winning Polish woman.  Since Sarah and I both enjoy music a great deal we said it sounded like great fun and agreed to go.  They gave us tickets in class and we met that Sunday to go to the theatre... but it wasn't a concert.

It was a poetry reading.

I'm sure it was lovely, but since we don't speak much Polish the experience was unfortunately lost on us.  I have to confess that we spent most of the time making up words in our heads based on the facial and vocal expressions of those reading the poetry.  At least it was only half an hour and somewhat humorous for everyone.  If we have learned one thing from this, it's that clarification is key. 

As I write this Sarah and I have completed our training at Speed school and have our first teaching shifts this week.  There will be more to write about and I definitely hope to be more diligent in maintaining this blog now that things have settled down.

It's A Brand New Day...

Near the end of Christmas break we were finally feeling well enough to start venturing out into the world around us again to take in some of the sights around us.  While we unfortunately didn't manage to take pictures of the light displays around town, we have other pictures from events we've run across just in our first month here.  I should explain that the street we live on follows the old town walls and there is are two parks maybe a block away from our flat.  If anything is taking place there or in the square, chances are we'll hear it.

 Recently Poland began taking the first Monday in January as a statutory holiday to mark the arrival of the three kings in Bethlehem (I think I've mentioned before that a huge proportion of Poles are Catholic).  If we had stayed in Radom, we would have been working Thursday-Friday before having the long weekend to ourselves.  Here we were, jobless in Gliwice and the English schools were all sensibly closed until after the stat -- so we had a little bit of time to look around before the hunt for work got beyond the internet.  Since arriving here, the vast majority of our travels (the one exception being the trip to Kazimierz Dolny) have  been by  train, and to wherever our feet can carry us.  We have had plenty of fodder here to keep our intrigues fueled -- the festivities at 3 Kings Day, the concerts for charity fund-raising that were in various locations near our home and throughout Gliwice.  We learned from Peter that these events were happening all over Europe and even in places across North America.

Polish Reggae band playing in the park

Unadulterated Joy

Once schools opened up again we dropped off about a dozen CV's at different schools that were within easy walking distance of our flat, and by Monday the next week Level Language School gave us a call because one of their staff members had been told she needed to go on immediate long-term medical leave.  It was apparently a very fortunate time for two native speaking teachers to walk through the door.  We started doing the odd hours here and there pretty much right away, then Speed School of English got in touch with us because they had more hours than teachers to work them.  We are almost finished training at Speed, and start our first working days next week.  In the meantime, Level had us visiting classes to meet some of our potential students and run conversation class during the winter break.  We've worked it out with our employers that Sarah will work Monday/Wednesday at Speed, while I take Tuesday/Thursday -- and the off days will be spent at Level.  The only thing that may throw a tiny wrench in the works is the fact that many of the aforementioned teacher's students outright told her when she announced her departure that they were afraid of having a Native Speaker teaching them.  After Radom (and some of the observations at level), I understand some of their apprehensions: most of the students worrying about this are kids who may not always have the ability to communicate their needs or get a point across in English; quite a bit of Polish is used in the classroom to explain difficult points; and lastly, all of them are quite close to her so there is understandably a great upheaval in their learning environment.  Hopefully most of them come around, as we have met the vast majority of them in her last days and hope that they can come to like us and the different (and by different I mean "crazy," to use the secretary's term) way that we do things with the course material.  Will it be difficult?  You bet.  Difficult for everyone.


That doesn't mean we can't do it!  :-D