work

Hey all!
I have work! Woo hoo. Its where I stayed the first week, and a week or so the last month. Its called Nathans Villa Warsaw, do check it out and pop in!

Ryan

Hes Back

Hey everyone, sorry for the long break. Things have been kind of hectic the last moment, so much travel and moving round. The last post I wrote was a quick note from Berlin, but I'm expecting this one to be a bit longer (its been a month! wow).

So first off, Berlin was amazing. The people are so much nicer there, unlike Warszawa, and you don't have to pay for museums, because history lines the street; whether its the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie or the Reichstag, all free to see. Even better are the free walking/cycling tours they have, each guide pouring his knowledge out to us, and all for just a tip at the end. By far the best way to see the city by day (by night, definitely check out the pub crawls, all for the low low price of 12 euro max). The highlights of the trip would have to be realising how ignorant my generation is, especially when it comes to the Berlin Wall (I didn't realise until that trip that it was only months before I was born that it came down), the friends I made, and the things I saw that most people would never dream of seeing. Since my camera was out of batteries, and after a failed attempt at buying batteries in the metro stop's kiosk (ass sold me flat batteries!), I have nicked some photos from some mates that I made on the trip (cheers!).

The part of the wall we saw, with some stranger. Noone has pics on Facebook of us by the wall yet...grrr

Checkpoint Charlie (1euro to take a photo with this guy!)

Where Hitler's bunker was (no memorial because it would become a shrine for neo nazis)

The Holocaust Memorial (pretty emotional/thought provoking walking through it)

Museum Island (actually is an island!)

Looking up from the Sony Centre (Sony's European Headquarters)

and Tiergarten where we went nudist spotting and played on a Flying Fox

Nothing much happened for the 2 weeks after Berlin, but 2 weekends ago I went to the ski village of Zakopane (much like Aspen, Colorado). It was a beautiful place, and some awesome views from up the top of the mountain. I have some photos, but my cams not on me, so those will come later.

The weekend after the Zak, we went to Prague for the long weekend. Prague was beautiful, and not too expensive. We spent three nights there, and had two of the most perfect nights of my life. The first night was just spent in the hostel playing a game known as "waterfall", a legendary drinking game. The day after that we did all the touristy thing such as the big church, waiting for the clock that is not worth waiting for, saw the overcrowded Charles Bridge, and had an authentic Czech meal. That night was spent at the biggest club in Central Europe, five stories high, each with a different style of music. The first floor trance (I think), second house, third disco (light up dance floor included), fourth R&B, and fifth lounge.

The day after the big club was spent doing more touristy things, and just kind of getting lost in the city. That night, everyone else was too poor or too tired to go out, so I went to a club with a US Marine, Canadian Software developer, two girls from Perth and two girls from Ireland. The club is describable as "ghetto" and "smells of weed", so we got out of there promptly and went up some big hill with the worlds biggest metronome and watched the blood red moon rise over the city lights. We then walked over the Charles Bridge at 3am, as recommended, which was picturesque. There was no one else on the bridge except for a stoned busker playing the recorder, a couple having a candlelit dinner, an American girl running across in only her undies announcing it was her 21st, and a random standing by the relief of Joan of Arc. The relief of Joan of Arc is supposed to bring you good luck if you touch it. It is amazing to see that over the 600 years of the bridge's existence, the figure of Joan has been kept a startling bronze while the rest of the scene has been tarnished by centuries of weathering. I thought out loud to myself how cool it was to think that this tradition has been going for 600 years, and that thinking of how many people have touched it is astounding, to which one of the girls in the group said "Ew, think of all the germs!". Haha.

I got back into Warsaw on Monday morning, and that afternoon I was on a train to Krakow for another holiday. Again, a beautiful city, but after two days, there isn't much to do! Sadly, I was out of batteries again for my camera, so I didn't manage to get any photos. But I guess you can
Google it if you're that keen.

Most of my 4 days in Krakow was spent, again, just walking around the old town and going up to Wawel Castel, all toursity things like that. The one thing for me that Krakow has over Warsaw is that the old town is authentic. Unlike Warsaw, Krakow was left, for the main part, intact after WWII, and so the old town is actually old, unlike Warsaw's, whose old town was rebuilt in the late 1900s.

I got back into Warsaw last night and spent the most part in a Latino Dance Bar, to watch Tomek (Zosia's son) play the drums in a band. It was good fun, but the beer was overpriced, twice as much as you should pay!

I spent today visiting the school and having lunch with friends from the hostel, and then caught a train to the lovely city of Poznan, to meet up with some of the GAPpers (haha, the name of the organization has been changed from GAP to Latitude, due to the clothing company GAP suing the programme, so therefore we are now Latituders!). Not sure what this weekend has in store for us yet, but the highlight of the weekend will definitely be the Red Bull Challenge, where participants make flying machines and the winner is whoever manages to fly the furthest.

So thats it for now, and I'll make sure to write sooner.

Ryan

Berlin

Hey everyone!
In Berlin at the moment! And I'm in a bit of a rush to catch the free walkin tour so this wont be long...
The sun is shining and the people are smiling.

I will post something a bit longer in a day or 2

*ry

Oranges

Hey everyone! Gosh I'm getting useless at this writing stuff! Nothing much has happened since the last time I wrote, except that I'm blonde!!!


Woop woop! And I hope to be blue sooner or later...a teacher said that she'd do it for free...well not really...five kisses! So that should be exciting.

Ok, back to life in Poland. My host mum, Iwona the high school teacher, is quite busy at the moment preparing everything for her students that are leaving at the end of this week. She showed me the forms she has to fill out...so much more impressive then the bloody NCEA certificates we get (mum where is mine, I haven't even seen it yet!). And so what finally convinced me to write up on here was my orange (hence the title). On an excursion to the corner shop (sklep) to get some phone credit, I found the biggest orange I have seen in Poland...and it wasn't one of these ones with the scummy skins like you usually get here, but like a proper orange that looked like it had come straight from Florida! So I went into Iwona's room to
show her that this was like the oranges we get in NZ and California, and she took it, looked at it, and said "Oh, thanks..."! He he. And it seemed completely normal aswell! Like everyone brings out a fresh plump orange thats been sitting in their suitcase for more then 2 months. So thank Iwona/The Orange for this post.

Next on the agenda is school...I have told you a lot about the school, but I don't think I've shown you anything. For today i have one of the BEST lunches that we got about 2 weeks ago (as usual I was running late and Hugh txted me demanding that I bring my camera to take a pic of the lunch. So here it is:

(In case you're wondering its pasta with fetta cheese and strawberry sauce...sooo good)

Okie dokie. Next, heres some pictures from three of my favourite classes. They are the 1 classes. I have them twice a week for 15 minutes each. And the teachers have to be some of the coolest aswell. Ok, so...

1a

(The teacher is Gosia, and she is soo cool. Doc Martins, Punk hair and crazy jewelry included)

1b

(And the teacher here is Ania...she is one of the nicest teachers aswell...and helps me out on those days I blank out and have NO IDEA what to teach about)

And I've just realised I don't have a phto of 1c...next time!

And the only other photos I have from school are of 6d (yes, the naughty class) in PE...so I'll add on a couple of them:

and

And the last thing for the day is some views from the flat I live in with the Tabakas.

the city


and the park outside my flat

Oh, I'm such a lier. Ha ha. I've found more pictures. If memory serves me right, this would be the last snow that we had, and more then likely the last snow of the season, as it was actually a nice enough day to wear shorts to work.

and

Ok, well I have to be off for the night, but talk soon! Please comment, its GREAT to hear from you!

*ry

Easter

Hey everyone, hope you had a great Easter, and didn't eat too much! I think that dieting in Poland is physically impossible. Even if I use one of my few phrases, (I can now say I'm not hungry thanks), I still get food practically shoved down my throat. At least its amazing food (minus the cow stomach they tricked me into eating). So there isn't much writing happening today, just some snaps I took on our big weekend. My original plan was to go to Prague, but because the banks were closed money took a while to come through and things just didn't work but ended up better in the end. My host family took me on an adventure, and I got to meet both sides of the family. The first night we stopped in at Iwona's sister's flat, and had some coffee and cake and boiled egg, then we got to her mum's house, where her other sister and two nieces live. We spent Saturday night there, and went to church in the morning. It pretty much blizzarded as we were eating Easter lunch. So heres some pics from that half of the trip:

random photo

illegal photo of the army camp

grandma and aunty

church on sunday

snowing on me

and the farm

After saying our goodbyes on Sunday night we drove to Jarek's parents house, and spent the night there. On Easter Monday the Polish have a tradition of throwing water at each other, so I was woken up to a blast to the face on Monday morning by the girls. We had fun all day, and I got them back well and truly. And heres some pictures from Sunday night/Monday:

big scary church on easter monday

bobble head angel with jesus

Ok everyone, happy Easter again, and talk soon!

*ryan*

Good Friday

Hey everyone. Funny story! Today was Good Friday, and as Poland is an insanely Catholic country, it was a big day for everyone (the shops were still open at least). And a part of Good Friday in Poland is fasting meat for a day (not including fish), instead of how I was brought up where you fast for the whole season of Lent. Anyways, I figured that I went 2 years without meat, what could a day do? So I made it through until about 20 minutes ago, when I went out to the kitchen to get something to eat, and Iwona brought out the butter chicken she made yesterday (knowing how much I liked curry after telling her yesterday), saying that if I wanted to have meat I could eat this. I told here that I would be polish for the day, and not eat meat. She then opened the container and swirled it around under my nose, and I gave in haha. I think she was wanting to get rid of it!

The Great Gap

Hey everyone! So sorry about the Great Gap in my blogging! It has been a crazy month withschool and travel etc. I'll try my best to remember the highlights of this last month.

(This bit was written after I finished writing: make sure you have a while to read...its a biggie!)

First off about 30 of us GAPpers went to a place called Wroclaw (pronounced Vrroswav). Initially I wasn't planning on going, because I was under the belief that there would still be some people left in Warsaw, but it turns out they decided the day before to go without telling me! So when I came to the realization that I was going to be alone in the city, I decided to trek along to Wroclaw (about 3 hours before the train left! hehe). So we all met up in the mall by the station, and caught up and all that (9 out of the 10 Warsaw GAPpers, plus Magda, one of the teachers thats like a big sister to us all. The kind of big sister that shows you where to go when you turn 18/21.

So the trains in Poland are awkward. We stopped through in a major town called Poznan, which was completely out of the way. From there, we made a 90 degree turn, and continued onto Wroclaw. The whole train trip in total was about 5 hours, so not to bad. But there was a mix up with the seats. We all bought tickets in the open car but at the last minute the changed all the cars, so some other people had tickets with seats in the OPEN CAR haha...so we were all shuffled up. An because I had bought my ticket at a different time to the others, I was moved into a completely different carriage. However, when we got to Poznan, the train practically emptied, including a 30-something lady and her father that were quite rude to me and Magda, insisting that I moved seats because I was in theirs, despite the fact that there were plenty of other empty compartments in the car. So after about 20 minutes of sitting by myself, I deserted my seat and went and sat with the others. The rude people got off at Poznan, and I sent them on their way with a pleasant farewell (nothing rude I promise, just a cheeky papa! (papa is a slang for goodbye in polish)).

We finally arrived in Wroclaw at about 11pm, and trekked with a drunk Willy T. to our hostel, him insisting that we trust him because he knew the way (one of the most famous lines in our group, "Trust me bro!"). We all ignored him, and he finally gave into the peer pressure and crossed over the road back to us, having a near escape with a tram. On the way to the hostel we encountered some strange communist looking metal statues...well I'm not sure how you can look communist...but they looked as if they were from the communist period I guess. So the WPC (Warsaw Party Crew) took a posed picture with them:

yes, I am the one riding the one half way into the ground...oops.

We got to the hostel eventually, and after an hour of sprucing up and quickly catching up with everyone we (at least I) hadn't seen in a month, we were ready to go out. It took us a good hour of wandering to finally find a club we could all agree on (the one that was recommended was 21+ for guys only which sucks). We finally got to a club called WZ (pronounced Vu Zed) which was a great find. It had two dancefloors, one Hip Hop, the other Trance Techno. It was pretty cool until some dodgy guy started dancing with all the GAP chicks, and finally stole one of their phones. We found him, and I was like "you have her phone", he looked at us and in an obviously fake drunk state mumbled in polish. When we finally rounded up all the guys to try to get it back, he had disappeared into the night, and that was pretty much the end of the night for us too.

Our first day in Wroclaw was spent wandering around the old square, a beautiful sight. It is much older then Warsaw as it was not completely obliterated during the Second World War. My favourite part of Wroclaw is the colourfull buildings


This is a photo that I stole off of one of the other GAPpers, but still! I was there...haha.

Some of the other parts of Wroclaw i enjoyed were the churches and views. Heres just a couple pictures of what Wroclaws all about

and

So the highlight of the whole trip was the journey back. Magda had forgotten to tell us that the 25zl extra we paid for reserving a seat was only for the outward bound trip, so we didn't have seats on the return trip. And as it was Sunday afternoon, it was obvious the train was going to be PACKED, and the only place where we were guaranteed seating was in the dining car. So we took over three of the dining car tables, which was fine in the beginning, but as the train started to fill up the waitress became annoyed, as she had agreed with Magda that as we were all together, as long one of us was eating we could sit there...so what did we do? Ordered a dish at a time for 5 hours! Haha.

Since the trip to Wroclaw not much interesting has happened. I went to a Rhianna concert two nights ago in Warsaw which was AMAZING. There was a ban on cameras, but one of my mates managed to get hers in (they weren't patting down the girls), so I should have some pics up shortly. For now, however, there are some videos on youtube. She saved her most famous song, Umbrella, for last, and it was definitely was one of the best performed. Her second best song performed was Please Don't Stop the Music, which was awesome to dance to, as everyone knew the song and was singing along. And as she was getting changed, her DJ was putting on some tunes that everyone could groove to eg. Justin Timberlake and Michael Jackson.

Well, for now its time to be off...I think I've said this before but this HAS to be one of the most epic posts I've put up...and to follow suit of Homer Simpson...I have to say that this is the most epic post so far.

So for now, farewell, and I promise that I will write soon, maybe even tomorrow if anything interesting happens today/night.

*ryan*

p.s. It has been snowing for the last days on and off...yesterday was the best by far because the snowflakes coming down were massive! About the size of an American 5 cent piece/New Zealand @20 cent piece. The best bit about the snow this week is that it hasn't been sticking to the ground, and therefore my shoes don't get all grotty when I walk to school! Somehow, not even the ground gets wet. It just kind of snows...and disappears!

OK, bye for now!

Six D

Hey ya!
Sorry about the slackness of me writing recently. And this is only a quicky too. Just saying that I had 6D today, which is the worst class in the history of Warsaw 61. And according to Zosia I did great. All I did was yell, talk about rugby and threaten a trip to the school director. This shows how much you actually need in life. Being scared, sports and a even bigger and scarier lady waiting for you at the end of the hall!
Talk soon

The Great Flood

"Teaching" today was fun! My first class was at 10.45, and it was a P.E. class. So we went to the ice skating rink next to the school, and spent 30 minutes there! My next class was a 2nd grade class, where they had to, again, draw a poster of me, after asking what I liked. The third class was Switzliza (I think that's how you spell it), and that is a kind of after school care for kids that don't have any more classes for the day. We, again, went ice skating. Both times I decided against making a fool of myself, as the kids can skate as well as they can walk! My fourth and final class of the day was given to Hugh as his host brother was in that class, and they have to take the bus home together. It was a very cruisy Tuesday (Hugh and I have Mondays off. Iwana is very excited because she is going to show me off to her classes on this coming Monday. She teaches Polish at the local high school).

So because I finished at 1.30, I came home and did some laundry. What Iwana forgot to tell me when giving me the rundown on the washing machine was that it is essential to put the pipe for the water into the bathtub. When Iwana and Suzie came home later in the afternoon, we all got a big fright when Suzie discovered the swimming pool in the bathroom. I assured Iwana that I would clean it all up on my own, as it was my mess, but she gladly decided to give a hand when the man in the flat below came upstairs and mentioned that there was a bit of dripping coming from his roof! (I really wanted to know Iwanas excuse, as he was off quickly, and I couldn't understand a word they said, but I decided it was for the best not to.)

After the whole incident was over, Iwana took the words right out of my mouth and exclaimed "at least the floor is clean now!", and we had a good giggle over a cup of tea.

Today also brought Magda's English tutor, Paul (I think). He spoke English very well, as I would imagine you would have to to tutor it, and also commented that New Zealand accents are much more clear then the Australian accent, as we actually pronounce our words and don't just run all the syllables together.

I have my first 8am start tomorrow, so I shall be off.

P.S. Comments are always appreciated

*ryan

First Day

Why does it seem that whenever you would like to sleep in and actually have the chance to, you are never able to? I was not needed at school until 11.30 today, and yet I could not go back to sleep at the ungodly hour of 8.00! It turns out that this gave me plenty of time to get ready, check the internet and do some dishes for Iwana.

Today was my first day of teaching. Well, I didn't really teach. Zosia (the teacher in charge of Hugh and I) directed the class, which was all about Yours Truly. The kids i taught were about 9 maybe, and it was the integrated class, which meant that some of them where special needs. The topic of today was, as mentioned before, me, and their assignment was to draw a picture of me and my family, knowing what to draw by asking me questions. And now i have my first marking to do. I may scan and upload the highest scoring one!

The school was a lot better then I expected it to be, and the principal much nicer. Plus the food was not bad at all. There was vegetable soup for starters, and spagbol for seconds with a strange gherkin salad.

It rained today, which means it is not nearly as cold as it was in the first week. And signs of spring are budding everywhere from the sprigs on the balcony to the beginnings of blooms on the bushes downstairs.

I got lost on the tram today. Iwana told me that trams 7, 9, and 25 go to Centrum (the centre of town). I decided it was time to pay Joanna, who works at reception at Nathan's hostel, a visit, so I got on the number 9 tram as it was the first to come, and I find myself in some suburb that the 25 was not in yesterday as I took the tram to town. So to keep from getting too lost, I got off the tram that had signs indicating that it was indeed the number 9, and stupidly got onto the next tram which was also the number 9. The tram then passes the stop Metro Pole Mokotowski, which is the stop some of the other gappers and I used to get to Galaria Mokotow, one of the malls in Warsaw. Realising I was in the complete wrong part of town after a couple more stops, I got off the tram, and got back on another one heading the opposite direction back to Metro Pole Mokotowski, where i could take the underground metro to Centrum. By the time I finally got to Nathan's, the journey had taken an hour instead of 20 minutes, and i had to be home in another hour.

That was the majority of my day, and now something new I am adding to the blog. It is called The Collection. Many of us gappers have taken to possibly getting away with a beer glass after a quiet one at the local. Here is a photo of my collection as of now. I will be updating it every time i manage to get something new.

Goodnight, and enjoy.

(As the camera is out of batteries, I will post a pic up tomorrow.)

The Tabakas

Hey there! I have now officially moved into my host family. They are very nice people. There is Iwana (the mum), Jarek (the dad), Magda (12) and Suzie (8). The two girls are very lively and always giggling. I don't have much time, as this is stolen internet, but here is a quick pic of my new family for the first half of this year:

Oh, and the cat. It has two names, both in Polish, and I can't remember either of them. The turtle (that I nearly stood on last night) was nowhere to be found.

Surprises

Today has been a day full of surprises, starting at 8am this morning.
I woke up to find Hugh (my placement partner) packing his bags and saying farewell to me for a weekend in Krakow (pronounced Krakov).

The second surprise of the day was finding a reasonably priced pair of shoes. It seems like life's essentials any where else are always either a pain to find, or impossible to pay for. Where's a good Target or Warehouse when you need one??? (Don't worry Mum and Dad, I actually did NEED the pair of shoes, I can feel the snow on my feet in the old ones.)

The best surprise of the day was arriving home and actually getting hot water through the taps! (I think the cold showers are what gave me the flu), but this was not long lived, as someone in the other lav also decided to take a hot shower! How rude!

The second best surprise is the phone call i just got off the line with. My host mum Iwana just rung me, and told me that I was being picked up a day early, which hopefully means only one more semi warm/cold shower.

As it is now nearly 7pm, I can confidently say that the last surprise of the day is that the computer in this dismal hostel is close to being able to be described as "working". Despite the 5 or so second delay in the type appearing on the screen, and the occasional glitch in the system that leaves me hanging on for five minutes, stressing that everything written so far will be lost, everything else seems to be in order.

Today I went to the American Embassy, it is all very impressive, but the amount of security is actually embarrassing. Take note that this is not a lack of security, but rather a waste of tax payer's dollars in the over indulgence of security in a country such as Poland. Especially when the personnel sitting behind the desks in Citizen Services aren't even American natives.

Now to address some of the comments left...

More than one person as requested that I go into detail about what is so different.

First off is the architecture. In both of the hostels that I have stayed in so far, and from what I can see, each apartment building is about three to four stories high. Each have a gate that is monitored by either an alarm system or a camera and watchman. There is a great courtyard with in each of the dismal grey walls, and each flat takes up a 1/4 of the whole floor.

Next is the weather. Yes, it is freezing, but I love it. While out at one of the other GAPpers 18th birthday, it started to snow at about 2am, and it was awesome to see the streets blanketed. Today it was not cold enough to snow, so it only sprinkled rain.

Third is the public transport. You can get to practically any part of the city by taking the metro, tram, and bus, or all three in accordance. A week ticket is 12,4pln, which is about $6.20usd, and this lets you on the metro, tram and bus. The best part about these is that they show up on time, and you know that they'll get you there fast because you have to hold on for dear life when they take off, especially if standing up.

Lastly is the people. As we were warned on our orientation day, the Polish are very non-emotional. It is very rare that you walk down the street and see a smiling Pole. I think that most of us have gotten used to it, and sometimes I even find myself walking down the street all zombie like. Maybe its a natural reaction so the bloody beggars leave you alone.

Well that is all for now, as I have to be off to sort out some tea.

first week in sum

Well this has been a week and a half. One of the kinds where you don't even know where to start.

I got into Warsaw on the 9th of Feb, which was my first time ever being in Europe. Everything about Poland that I have seen so far is so incredibly undescribable. Everything is different! I am in love with the buildings built right after the war, the coolest being the ones with the choice courtyards.

So, back to the airport, we arrived about 15 mins late, and cruised through the (lack of) customs department. In the arrivals hall Beata was waiting with Magda, soon to become the best resource in Warsaw ever. Us awesome Kiwis then had to wait about an hour and a half for the bloody Ozzies to come out, and by that time Willy T and I were tired of holding the GAP sign (I felt like a taxi driver ahahaha). We then had to spend an extra half an hour waiting for someones guitar that had been missplaced. After that whole ordeal, we promptly loaded a bus, and started making our non-virtual connections.

For the first week we all stayed in an incredible youth hostel called Nathans Villa that really made the first week a blast. With all the people coming and going, it was like the airport all over again, but I managed to find some spanish speaking people, also some peeps that went to UCI, which was pretty cool.

From 10am to 6pm all 34 of us had TEFL training, which was cool because we got to interact with students of all ages, and also get pointers from experienced teachers.

Now, to the part that you are all most likely interested in:

ALCOHOL

There have been a couple of big nights, but nothing major. Between the 34 of us, we managed to scope out the whole of Warsaw in a week. The best district being Nowie Swiat (New World), and the most prefered club being Klaps/Dildo, or Patricks, the local Irish Bar. The other thing we can all pretty much agree on is Kamikazee...what I consider the official GAP Poland 2008 drink.

It is a concaution of vodka, Blue Bols Vodka, and lemon juice. You can have it in four shots, or as a cocktail (I prefer the later, as it is nice to taste).

And then there is the beer (pivo in Polish). It runs from about 6 to 10 Zloty (arround 3 to 5 USD) for half a litre of beer. And thats about it for the booze.

So everyone dispersed two days ago to either a temp host or to the actual placements, but Hugh, my GAP partner, and I got stuck in some grotty hostel, that we were promised was nice. It has started to grow on me at least, but mainly because, once again, the people are great to talk to.

The biggest let down is the lack of wireless (which Nathans had), and the Windows 98 on the excuse of computers that they have. Also, we are not allowed in the hostel between 10am and 5pm, so if you forget anything, thats it for the day! (My conspiracy is that there is a brothel being run out of it by day ahahaha.)

So right now I am sitting in an OK 24 hour net cafe, with American hits playing in the background...deffinately feels like home! My time is about to run out, and I really should be off to bed, so I wish you all well and thanks for reading!


Ryan

Hey all, hope everyone at home is doing great!
I got into Warsaw yesterday afternoon, and it has been great! So far, I absolutely LOVE it here. Unless you have been to Eastern Europe, it is something near impossible to describe. It is as I can imagine it is 60 years ago. I am sitting here in our hostel for the first week, which is called Nathans Villa. The outside is run down as if it has been shot at and bombs have exploded next door, but it is amazing on the inside. I should be posting photos soon, and comments are much appreciated.

MY NEW BOOTS

READY TO GO

Well hello all...this is a very exciting first post! I am sitting here at my kitchen table at the house in California. It is ten to midnight, and I am finally ready to go to Poland!

What seemed to be a lifelong ordeal with the Polish Ebassy in Washington DC finally ended when I recieved my visa to stay in Poland (yay). I had sent the documents in about a week before Christmas, and only last week did I recieve a letter stating that I had not provided proof of health insurance (nowhere on the form did it say I had to!). So I immediatley sorted that matter out with a very helpfull man at AON insurance in New Zealand, and that night i faxed the corrected documents to the embassy. In my cover sheet I included my email and cell number, in case I needed to be contacted, as snail mail was obviously not working. After two days I started to stress again (by this point i had had my wisdom teeth up, which added to confusion), because I had not heard back from the embassy, and my phone calls always managed to either get a fax tone, or get lost in the networks of governmental automated voice systems (I was getting tired of yelling yes into the reciever with no response from the lifeless voice). so to my excitement, the fedex tracking code finally came to life (I had sent a return envelope and taken down the code), and the next day the lovely delivery lady handed me my fast post envelope. thank god.

My next hurdle was the bloomin criminal records (no, im not a convict. Im working with kids, so they just want to make sure). I had posted it from the Marewa shops with the Matron, and like the goon I am, I managed to leave out the silly copy of my drivers license. So while I was stayin in New Zealand still, I recieved a letter from the Ministry of Justice saying that I needed to send a copy of my drivers license! I promptly sent that off, and was off to California the next week. I fancied that I was in the safe zone, seeing that a Ministry of Justice envelope is very out of the ordinary, and the lady that takes care of the house was keeping an eye out for it. Much to my dismay, nothing was delivered as of Jan 20th. Even worse was when my mum called me from New Zealand, informing me that the day BEFORE they had recieved my first application, all the forms had been changed for the New Year. Despited this, the Ministry 'forgot' to inform me of this fact when they returned the uncompleted forms. Thanks to a very helpful man at the Ministry called Te (who i mistaked for Steve...oops!), my new request (faxed in yesterday) was expedited and I recieved the results this morning. Once again for clairifycation, the result of the search was that as of January 24th 2008, I had no criminal record at all.

So thats what Ive been managing the last week. Its funny to see that I cant seem to get ahold of a governmental facility WITHIN the country Im in at the moment, however I can have a criminal record search expedited via many phonecalls to 'Te', and have the documents sitting on my lap in less then 24 hours. Thats New Zealand for you.

Hope you enjoyed the first of many (hopefully not too many) ordeals, and Ill talk to you soon!