Old Town is Really New Town...

Ok, so I know I just posted three posts yesterday, but this is really exciting to me (I am SO resigned to the fact that I'm a complete and hopeless DORK!).

We went and toured the castle in Old Town here in Olsztyn today. It was AMAZING! I fully intend to make many more trips to see it even more. It was built in the late 14th century...I mean, they were celebrating the 400th anniversary of this place when America was being founded! That just blows my mind. And how about Olsztyn being called one of the "youngest Warmian towns, its charter dating back to 1353". Whatever.

Anyhoo...this is the castle where Nicholas Copernicus lived for a few years while he was working on his heliocentric theory. There's actually a portion of the wall that still has his charts engraved on it. The actual charts that Copernicus himself worked on. This just blows my mind. If you're as big a dork as I am and are interested in more information, you can go here.

Just wanted to share this with you. By the way, it's definitely winter here. It's a-snowin' and a-blowin'! And, just a bit of random info, parents definitely pull their kids around on sleds here. Not just for fun, but it's really what they do to get from place to place. I love it!

Every Picture Tells a Story, Don't It?

Once again, I have no clue how to move these things around! So, here we go! Obviously, the picture of the puppets is NOT Amber and I having fun in our flat...that's from Saturday. The other picture of Amber and me and some random man in an advertisement is us at the bus stop all bundled up! You can also check out Amber drying the Stevenson's floor after several moppings, trying to get rid of all the dust from the work being done. Finally, this is a picture looking towards the downtown area. And enjoy the little freebie from me at no extra charge.

Happy Friday!

These were selected by Chuck Norris as his favorite Chuck Norris sayings:
* When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
* Chuck Norris doesn’t read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
* There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
* Outer space exists because it’s afraid to be on the same planet with Chuck Norris.
* Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
* Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.
* Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding.
* Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.
* There is no chin behind Chuck Norris’ beard. There is only another fist.
* When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.
* Chuck Norris is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.
* Chuck Norris’ hand is the only hand that can beat a Royal Flush.
* There is no such thing as global warming. Chuck Norris was cold, so he turned the sun up.
* Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink.
* Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.
* Chuck Norris gave Mona Lisa that smile.
* Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
* Chuck Norris does not get frostbite. Chuck Norris bites frost
* Remember the Soviet Union? They decided to quit after watching a DeltaForce marathon on Satellite TV.
* Contrary to popular belief, America is not a democracy, it is a Chucktatorship.
The one I wish he’d had pick:
* Chuck Norris’ tears cure cancer. He has never cried. Ever.
* Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
* Chuck Norris and Mr. T walked into a bar. The bar was instantly destroyed, as that level of awesome cannot be contained in one building.

What if Chuck Norris had a mullet????

I feel like I have so many random things I want to blog about today! First of all, I'm sitting in our living room IN THE SUN!!! This is huge. It got really cold Tuesday, but it's worth it! I will gladly take cold and sunny over warm-ish and rainy! I can now say that it is definitely winter here in Poland. I'm greatly enjoying my cuddle-duds and big sweaters. However, do you think that this has changed the fashions here in Olsztyn? Absolutely not. Just watching some of the girls here walk around makes me cold! They're still wearing capris with tall boots, and oftentimes have a few inches of skin hanging out!
Anyhoo, in no particular order, here are some highlights from the week:
**Saturday, we went out to a local village and helped the Baptist church here put on a program for the village kids. These are mostly kids who came to a day camp the church held last summer, so they came back to visit the kids and put on a puppet show, did some songs, had sandwiches (which we helped make...a non-linguistic task!), and showed a video that Sean put together with footage from camp. The kids had a great time, and the principal of the school wants the church to come back monthly and do something for the kids.
**Sunday evening, we had America night. We watched Remember the Titans and ate homemade pizza. Good stuff.
**signed the papers for our new flat and get the keys this Thursday. woo-hoo!
**met with Ola, the woman we met our first full day here. It was good talking with her and getting to practice our Polish a bit, too!
**helped the Stevensons get their house back in order after they had some work done on their house
**bought two boxes of some of the nastiest juice known to man...mint apple! eww! We bought the first box, smelled it, were pretty sure it was fermented, threw it down the drain, bought another box, smelled AND tasted it, were apalled, threw it down the drain AGAIN and realized that it was indeed apple mint juice! Really, who does that?
**laughed so hard on the bus that I hit my head on the pole behind me...ridiculous Americans!
**had the bus doors close in my face, with Amber already inside, and had to watch her and several Poles laughing as the bus drove away...mmmhmmm, good for the pride =)
**and now, I've saved the two best for last: this week, we learned the Polish word for mullet AND found out that our teacher (remember Milosc? He's still hanging in there!) had a mullet when he was little. Nice. And, finally, would you believe me if I said that Chuck Norris jokes have arrived in Poland as well???? It's true. I would not lie about something as great as this. And, might I add, I have seen several Chuck Norris classics playing on Polish televison while we've been here. I love this land. In honor of good ol' Chuck, or Walker as we like to call him, I'm going to re-post a list of Chuck Norris jokes. It's Friday and we could all use a good laugh.

One More Thing, And That's ALL I Need...

Can you tell I have some free time on my hands tonight? I figured I might as well get caught up while I can!
Wednesday afternoon, Amber and I went out to the University where we'll be primarily trying to meet students. Our primary job right now is language study, so we won't begin going out to the University and meeting with students full time until the end of February. However, we can definitely pray, so we decided to head out and prayer walk (which is basically just praying for a place while you, um, walk) at the University, also hoping that we'd get a little more familiar with the University and maybe even begin to meet some people or make some contacts. It was a great time and I wanted to share some of the pictures with you, so you could have an idea where we will be working and to ask you to pray for the students here.

There's a picture of the main gate with the University name on it (pronounced Universitet Varminsko-Mazhurski V Olshtinya)--please pray for the students, that their hearts would be opened and drawn to the Lord and that they'd find the entrance of the One who says "I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture" (John 10:9).

There's another picture of one of the many dorms on campus--please pray for all of these students in the dorms, that they'd be drawn to Christ, the One alone who satisfies and loves them

Last, this is a picture of a lake on campus. As you can see, it was a dark, dreary day, which seems to be the norm here in the winter--but also seems to reflect the general hopelessness that prevails here; please pray that the eyes of these students would be opened and that they'd meet the Light of the World, the One, True Hope of the world, that they could trust in and know:

"The God of all hope (who) fill(s) (them) with all joy and peace as (they) trust in Him, so that

(they) may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:13)

One more thing...

Ok, one more post tonight, to respond to the hysterical comments on the picture post. So, Lori, I love the Polish Pirate Chic idea, but feel like I couldn't pull it off. I think that people would look at me and really think I had something seriously wrong with me. I also have a hair story for you, too. So, yes, we do have hairdryers, but we've both had hair issues here. The first morning we were here, Amber plugged in her international voltage hair straightener, ready to straighten away the humid air frizzies. We immediately noticed a slight burning odor in the air, but decided that it was simply the smell of a new straightener warming up. We had ourselves convinced until Amber actually put the straightener through her hair and we smelled the distinct odor of burning hair...smoke and everything. Yeah, it was bad. There are several sections of crispy hair...any suggestions????

I have had the issue of not getting all of the shampoo out of my hair. I mean really, am I five years old again???? We have this shower-head-on-a-hose thing that barely reaches to the top of my 5'3 head! AND forget good hair once you step outside into the hurricane! Think Flock of Seagulls...

Watch out for Those Blind Drivers!

First of all, if you guessed "Jaguar", you were right! Way to go!

Ok, on to more important news: so, we apparently survived our first hurricane in Poland. No joke. Last night it was really windy (duh),but other than that we really had no idea that there was a hurricane a-brewin'! It was even named: Kyrill. I'm thinking about getting a t-shirt that says "I survived Hurricane Kyrill". You can read more about it here if you have ridiculous amounts of free time and are interested. Now tonight, following in the crazy weather footsteps of Texas apparently, we have snow! It's just a dusting, but it's our first snow in Poland. And now we can be done. It's cold out there!
We just got back from a "team meeting" at the Stevenson's house where we were taught how to file our financial reports and got to eat homemade fajitas! Amber and I made two different kinds of yummy cookies to bring. I have really enjoyed cooking and baking here, which is one of my goals while I'm gone: to learn how to cook! So far, we've mastered omeletes, fajitas, quesadillas, chicken with pineapple and cheese, spaghetti (seriously, this is a fete for me!), homemade cake and frosting, homemade biscuits, homemade M&M cookies (BTW, M&Ms here are fantabulous...they taste a lot more like actual chocolate and less like candy coating), and homemade chocolate chip/snickers bar cookies. Phew!
And now, I leave you with a moment from our language class yesterday with our teacher Milosc (which is pronounced Meewosh, with a long o ):
Background: he's explaining the words for crosswalk and telling us how the green man on the sign means walk, the red man means don't walk; he then proceeds to inform us that we may also hear a beap to alert the blind, at which point Amber sits up straight, with a look of utter shock and "where in the world are we?!?!?!" on her face and declares, and I quote:

"They let blind people drive here?!?!?!?!?!?!"

after which proceeded many minutes of uncontrollable giggling. Milosc is thrilled to have us as his students. Pray for Milosc.

Picture Pages, Pictures Pages, time to grab your pen and pencil....

Here are the pictures from the previous post: clothes drying randomly throughout the flat; Patsy and Rebecca opening gifts; my stellar Pictionary drawing...any guesses???

Ummmm...no clever title here

This past Friday (yes, I know it's now Tuesday!!!) we celebrated Patsy's birthday as a team "family". It was really a good time. We all went out to a great restaurant here called "Hammurabi", then came back to our flat. First, we had cake (made from scratch WITHOUT a mixer and with a gas oven with only number marks for temps---it turned out pretty good, a little dry, but not bad!) and ice cream. Then, Patsy opened her gifts and got a really pretty Polish pottery coffee mug and creamer and sugar holders. She also got some beautiful cards from Abby, Cara, and Becca (Sean and Lydia's daughters). THEN, we played a game! We played pictionary and had a great time. Can you guess what my picture is? I'll give you a hint...it's a noun. Let me know what you think and I promise I'll post the correct answer!
This week has been a busy one so far. We've had language both mornings and a meeting with Sean and Lydia today, talking about what we want to see happen here and things that are going on. It really got me excited to continue meeting people here and get to work on the university campus here. Tomorrow, after language, Amber and I are planning to go to the university to check it out. Then, Thursday we're pretty much free (after language class, which we have every morning from 9-11:15), and Friday we're heading over to the Stevenson's after class for a team meeting and to spend time with a family who will be moving here in March! They currently live in Southern Poland, but will move here and join our team. Saturday, we're heading out to a nearby village for an outreach where we'll be handing out shoeboxes like Operation Christmas Child. Since Amber, Patsy, and I haven't mastered the Polish language (surprising, I know, after a week and a half of language classes!) we've been recruited to make around 200 sandwiches. I can do that!
So, that's what our week looks like. And here's some random things about life in Poland:
--most people don't have dryers; you dry your clothes on the radiators or hanging in the tub
--the fashion for the ladies here is capri pants with tall boots OR tall boots with skinny pants tucked into them...makes me cold just looking at them!
--most stores and places play American music...think Starship and Phil Collins
--Brie cheese is only about 1 dollar! yum!
--we found a new flat! It's great and I love what will be my bedroom because it reminds me of a ship's cabin =)

Funny You Should Ask...

It was SO great to read everyone's comments and offers to send packages filled with goodys! Thank you! I WOULD love it! But, there's just one thing...I don't know my address. No, really. We're all settled into a little apartment here (I'll put pictures on the next post) that is actually pretty nice. It's a great location, right next to a big park, near lots of little shops and bakeries, and really close to the part of town called Old Town (and where the mall is!). HOWEVER, in Poland, everyone has to be registered to an address and, for whatever reason, our landlady won't register us here, but wants to do so at her home address. Whatever the reason, it is definitely on the side of shady. And, for us, we have to be registered in order to get our visas (which we have to have within 90 days or we'll have to leave the country every 90 days and re-enter under a new passport stamp). Our main supervisor in Virginia would rather we don't have to do that, and our landlady says she ABSOLUTELY cannot register us here, so it looks like we'll be moving sometime in the next 90 days. Sean (our supervisor here) says it's normal and this is just a taste of how things are done here in Poland. He and his wife, Lydia, are working on finding us a new flat, we don't have to worry about that part. We'll just have to be ready to move!
So, that's the big news for today! We had our first language class and learned about 20 different ways to say "hello" and "good bye". My opinion of language day one: I like it! It sounds crazy, but I kind of like the idea of learning a new language. I think it will be good for the ol' noggin...or make me even more crazy!

A nice, hot, steamy cup of...butter????

I think I've mentioned before that I have NO clue how to move these pictures around (any help, blogging cousins?), so in no particular order: Amber struggling to open the two locks on our inside door and yet another giant lock on our outside door--which actually opens to the stairwell, not outside and uses one of those old keys

Amber and the Stevenson girls: (L to R) Cara, Abby, and Becca

Amber trying to decide if we're drinking hot cocoa or butter...hard to tell really. It smelled like butter, tasted like butter...Amber found that it came close to tasting like hot cocoa when she added sugar,but mine was already making the big swim down the drain by that point.

And I just realized that there are no pictures of me on here; I'll work on that next time!

Hello from Poland

Greetings from Poland! So, here I am...I don't even know where to start! We got in on Thursday with no problems. All of our bags arrived, Sean and Lydia and their daughters were at the airport to meet us and we were off! We ate dinner at a Polish restaurant along the way (I had pierogies...way better than the frozen ones!). Then, we unloaded our bags at our new home and crashed! Friday we spent the morning unpacking, then Sean took the three of us shopping for groceries and things like that.As we were checking out, we found that our cashier spoke English! We started talking with her and she gave us her name and number (a HUGE deal for a formal culture like Poland) so we could get together and she could practice her English. Then, we had dinner at the Stevenson's house. Saturday, we were up and at 'em pretty early to go with some of the people from the local Baptist church to go deliver shoeboxes filled with gifts from Operation Christmas Child. Amber and I went with a man who speaks English, which was way helpful. (He told us that he would talk and our job was to smile---that I can do!). Then, Saturday afternoon we met up with Lydia and the girls and had lunch in a part of town called "Old Town", because it's, um, old. Really old. Today we experienced our first church service all in Polish. I understood one sentence "David movie niet."--"David said no." Other than that, it was pretty much all over my head! However, there was a woman who came that we had delivered a gift to yesterday, so that's neat!
Right now, there's smoke flying from both Amber's and my laptop. We've been just hanging out and relaxing since church was over. We "cooked" our first meal here (grilled cheese and something that resembled tomato soup), then did some random things.
I've got some pictures that I'll post here in the next post because I'm not sure all of this will fit on one.
Well, I just got back from a little run, so it's time to shower! (and showering here is a story for another post)