I Run in Heels

Three Cheers for Southwest

Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Okay, I know I'm overdoing it a little bit, but I am feeling the LUV right now. I shared yesterday about my misadventures in flight. Today, imagine my surprise & glee at receiving a very kind email from Southwest customer service offering me a voucher towards a future flight. YaHOOOOOOO!

In my family, one of the loftiest goals you can attain is getting bumped off a flight and receiving travel vouchers. It's ranks up there with graduate degrees and getting good deals on Ebay. If a flight attendant announces that a flight is overbooked and they're looking for anyone who might be willing to give up their seat, that blur you see from the corner of your eye is probably a family member of mine sprinting to the desk. We like our freebies. What can I say?

So, thank you Southwest. Not only have you excelled in customer satisfaction, you've made my parents proud.

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, good night

I have a friend who's notorious for his covert exits from events. People notice him coming in but he always slips out undetected, and an hour or so later people look around, wondering when he disappeared. Of course, there are those who linger over good-bye's, hugging everyone and starting new conversations that last several minutes on their way out: "We have to get together soon!...I love that purse! Where did you find that?...So what are you going to do next now that you're done with school?" Their good-bye process lasts longer than Mr. Covert Exit's entire time at a party.

My family's tradition is to wave when someone's driving off in their car until you can't see each other any more. There are certain good-bye's that have stuck with me. The day my parents dropped me off at college. I thought I was doing okay until I burst into tears at our first floor meeting. Or saying good-bye to my friends in Illinois to move 2,000 miles away and completely start over. I had only what could fit in my car going with me, and the rest had been tossed, donated, sold, given to friends, lit on fire. Only kidding on that last one.

My most memorable good-bye took place this summer in the middle of a train station in Poland. I went to a week-long dance camp set in picturesque forest with a river running through it. There were 24 kids ages 7-17 years old, most speaking a little English, and we had a blast learning to do modern, hip hop, and ballroom dancing.

My last day at the camp we took the kids into the city for an educational scavenger hunt of sorts. When it was time to walk to the train, I could feel myself start to get choked up. I did not want to start crying! It didn't help when my new friend Ela commented that it must be hard for me to say good-bye. (Yes, Ela, it is hard). I tried to think about something else. By the time we got to my train, I was having to cough to stop the tears from coming out.

I thought I was going to make it until one of the girls presented me with a bag. In it, I found a beautiful book full of pictures of Poland, with English and Polish captions. Each child had signed it and there was also a lovely quote written in Polish and English in the inside cover ("I wish you courage as sun has which rises again every day above each poverty in the world." Phil Boemans)That pushed me over the edge. As tears were streaming down my face, each child gave me a big hug and kissed my cheek. I got on the train and saw Ela start to wave a beautiful purple scarf through the air. The next thing I knew all of the kids had tissues out and were waving good-bye to me. I will never forget it.

Leaving on a jet plane

Tuesday I will fly to Rome via Vienna and Thursday night I fly into L.A. after connecting through Frankfurt. I cannot believe I'll be sitting in California in a few days. I have had a great time in Krakow but I am also really ready to be home. I'll get back just in time for my grandma's 80th birthday bash and a Marcus family reunion. When you're one of 31? cousins (I've lost count), family reunions are big events. I'll have a day to get over jet lag and rest...plenty of time right? :)

Yesterday I went with my new roommate Karen, our Krakow host Kasia, and her daughter Ania to see churches, synagogues, and museums in Kazimierz, the Jewish district here. We finished off the night by going to Pyromachina, a huge pyrotechnics show that ended with a fireworks competition between 2 companies. Since I missed the 4th of July, I was pretty stoked about the fireworks!

Well, that's about it from here. Looking forward to seeing a lot of you very soon!

Dance Fever

I love to dance. I took ballet, tap, and gymnastics when I was little but it wasn't quite my forte.All I remember from one dance class is that I was the last person to do a back bend...let's just say flexibility isn't a strong point. That hasn't kept me from dancing any chance I get. I especially love Latin, hip hop, and line dancing. So when the director of the Krakow YMCA mentioned the opportunity for me to go as a volunteer leader to a dance camp, I jumped at the chance!

There were 24 kids at the camp (22 girls and 2 boys), 3 dance instructors and 6 other leaders. We spent an hour apiece on hip hop, ballroom, and modern dance lessons every day (and played volleyball, soccer, basketball, a Polish version of dodge ball called Two Fire, etc). It was like dance boot camp! I taught the kids kickball one night, and my last night at the camp I also taught them the Electric Slide and the Cha Cha Slide.

Last week I was back at the Krakow YMCA and the director asked if I'd teach the kids the YMCA dance.  I decided to teach them the Hokey Pokey, the Electric Slide, and the Chicken Dance (they already knew this one). We had so much fun. I taught 3 different classes, so by the end I was just dripping in sweat, but loving every minute of it.

I think it's amazing that I ended up getting to do 2  of my favorite things (dance and play soccer) so much this summer and it's for school credit. Woohoo!

Going Green

I have unintentionally been living a very environmentally-friendly life in Europe. It started in Italy, when we were asked to take "military style showers" (as in get wet, turn the water off, get soapy, turn the water off, rinse off, you're done). I kept up the tradition my first two weeks in Poland when I couldn't figure out how to turn the water heater on. Something about those Arctic temperatures made me keep my showers nice and short.

Apart from a few tram rides here and there with the kids, I go everywhere on foot. I walk to work, the grocery store, the movies, you name it. I will definitely be retiring my New Balances after this summer. I had great plans to run on this beautiful paved trail around the city in an area apty named the Planty for its rich green surroundings, but at the end of a day of walking, walking, and more walking I'm lucky to be standing.

The main grocery store stopped providing plastic bags a couple of weeks before I got here, so I bought one of their alternative shopping bags. I've really gotten into those at home too, although if I'm completely honest it's partly because they're kind of a fun accessory. My favorites are ones from Silverstar Mountain in Canada and one that says "I'm not a plastic bag."

I support local farmers here, because the best place to get cheap, fresh fruit is at an open air market nearby. There are rows and rows of tables filled with all kinds of yummy produce!

I can't promise I'll take all these new habits back with me, but you know...baby steps.

Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head

I have so much I could write but for tonight I'll just stick to three stories about the rain. I think I packed pretty well considering the chaos of my life before leaving for Europe, but I did not bring an umbrella or a rain jacket (I don't even own one). In Italy, this wasn't a problem, but I have gotten caught in the rain 3 times now in Poland.

Rain Adventure #1
Last week was the 18th annual Jewish Culture Festival in the Jewish district of Krakow called Kazimierz. On Saturday night, I went to the outdoor concert that the brochure described as a "Jewish Woodstock." That was a bit of an overstatement, but there was a good-sized crowd out for the lively Jewish music played by local musicians and even a few Americans. I tried zapiekanka, which looks like French bread pizza but has a very different taste.

About an hour into the concert, it started pouring. I found myself sharing an umbrella with a Polish girl named Ola and an American guy named Jamie. Ola was waiting for a friend but Jamie and I eventually took off to get some hot drinks to warm up. I met up with Jamie again on Sunday afternoon for some sight-seeing and a movie, which was fun.

Rain Adventure #2

Sunday night my friend Chris Sikorowski (from Fuller) came to Krakow for a short visit. I'll have to write more about the places we saw later, but on Monday night we had dinner at this great Polish restaurant that his hostel recommended. Our table was right next to a very entertaining piano player who was occasionally joined by the maitre d', who would burst forth with song. My personal favorite was "Killing Me Softly." After a delicious dinner of Polish pork chops (for me) and pierogi (for Chris), we realized that we'd been sitting there for a while and our waitress was nowhere to be found. In Krakow, they don't exactly have closing times, saying they're open until the last customer leaves. When I went to find our waitress, she was just sitting in a back booth, chatting it up with our server, perfectly content to let us sit there as long as we wanted. Pretty funny! On my way home from dinner, I got caught in rain once again, so I took the picture below to document yet another soaking in Poland.



Rain Adventure #3

Almost every day, we take the kids on a field trip. Today we went to a botanical garden, but yesterday we got caught in the rain when we took the kids to a park with various science exhibits. The kids were enjoying things like this triangle of mirrors when the deluge hit. We took refuge under a sort of mushroom shaped thing that was only a few feet above the ground and finally made it back to a shelter. It was a long trip home, though, because we had to catch 3 different trams (very crowded public transportation) with over 30 kids and 6 teachers...

Kicking it in Krakow

I flew into Krakow on Tuesday. I felt like I was in first class because on both of my flights (which were around an hour to an hour and a half) they served nice meals and drinks. I can hardly remember when they used to do that in the U.S. My Polish contact Kasia picked me up at the airport and took me to my new home for the next 5 weeks, an apartment with two Polish girls. The apartment is a short walk from the old market square, the heart of Krakow, and I have a good-sized room to myself which is nice. One of my roommates speaks English well and the other one speaks just a little bit. The building has a door man which is a first for me!

The YMCA ("Imca" is how they pronounce it here) is right down the street, and Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. I started my position there. I'm essentially a teacher's assistant for a group of 15-16 Polish kids who range in age from 7-11. There is one American kid in my group who is fluent in English and Polish and another Polish girl who speaks quite a bit of English, but the rest speak only a few basic words of English. There's another volunteer from England who started at the same time as me. He's lived in Krakow since May and has friends here, so he's been giving me a lot of information on the area.

The first day we took the kids on a city bus to the public pool. Thursday we walked with them all over Krakow, going to a fountain, a castle, a sculpture of a dragon that breathes actual fire, a huge sculpture of a head that the kids could climb in, etc. It's weird because I've only been here a few days but when I'm walking around with the kids I look like I'm a local and people start talking in Polish to me. The kids have been teaching me a lot of Polish words and phrases, which is fun. Today it rained, so we played games, ping pong, dodgeball, volleyball, etc. The girls don't play soccer, but I finally just joined the boys' game. I couldn't take it any more. haha.

The children are so sweet. One of the boys gave me a flower yesterday, two of the girls painted pictures of me today, and they are constantly giving me hugs. It's going to be hard to leave!

On an evening in Roma

I spent Monday with my friends Liz and Tyler in Rome. I was in Rome four years ago for about 6 days, mostly traveling by myself, so it was fun to be back with friends this go around. We paid to go inside the Colosseum, which was unbelievable. And then we walked up the street to the Capital building for lunch on a lovely terrace and an unexpected visit to a beautiful church. I kept getting this song in my head but only remembering part of the words, so I thought I'd share it. You sing it, Dean Martin.

That night Liz and I sat on Spanish steps and met a Spanish man who was fund-raising for the education of children in the third world. His enthusiasm was contagious and he was thrilled to find out Liz was headed to Barcelona, so he gave her a few insider tips. Next we walked to Trevi Fountain and found a ristorante for dinner. The little tables outside it were packed in tight, so we were literally shoulder to shoulder with the people sitting next to us. To our right, we met two men from Nieman Marcus who won a trip to Milan to visit the Manolo Blanik shoe factory to watch shoes being hand-stitched. They had shopped and shopped and had fun showing us pictures of their deluxe accommodations. At the gelateria, we met a Brazilian who mistakenly greeted Liz in Korean and then tried to insist she was Japanese. We were underwhelmed until he won back our favor by going to another gelateria to get my favorite gelato flavor: capricio! And finally, while we sat by the Trevi Fountain with hundreds of others we met Francesco, a honey-making cyclist from the Italian countryside. It was an eventful night!

Photos taken by Kim Michael

Here are a few pics from Italy. I forgot the cord to connect my camera to the computer so I borrowed a few:

My new Italian friend

I heard back from my friend the Italian train driver. Since he wrote me in Italian, I had to use freetranslation.com to figure out what it said. Gotta love the internet! Here is how it translated the note...

Hello!  I helped you willingly I would be lacking us other! Amused in Rome, there are a lot local and the town is attractive to visit.  If you go for Pisa me it know it, that if it goes there we see you.  Hello hello! 

Yesterday I visited a beach town called Sperlonga, which was a nice treat after the heat and sweat that makes up a typical day in Italy. Unfortunately, I was one of three in our group to get a bad case of food poisoning a couple of nights ago, but I am finally feeling back to normal. Today, my friends Liz and Tyler and I will explore Rome and then tomorrow I am off to Poland. Ciao!