Promise Fulfilled

There are other things worth noting from over the weekend, which one of us will post about in good time, but the biggest news from the beginning of this week is that I have had an interview and been offered an internship!  It's all happened so fast, I almost can't believe it, but I do believe that God had His plan prepared for just the right moment.  Prayers have definitely been answered, and I couldn't have asked for more, because the offer comes from my number one choice school district.  I've been waiting and searching for seven months, but I remained faithful, and God did too. Celebration occurred at one of our favorite fancy Old Town restaurants, Miód Malina (Honey Raspberry). :-)...

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History and Art, Part 2

Publishing an update here. I finished my grand tour of the National Museum main branch on Friday, and I saw the remaining two exhibits: the gallery of 20th century Polish art, and the gallery of decorative art.  There is nothing that warrants long explanations from my second visit, as that would probably bore most readers, but I wanted to share some photos.  The gallery of 20th century art actually provided some interactive fun. This piece of "art" involved a hall of mirrors.  Fun!  Where's the real Puffer??  This painting was neat because it showed a map of Poland at its height back at the end of the Middle Ages and named all of the Polish kings, starting from the 1100s or 1200s up through when Poland...

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History and Art

This week has not been terribly exciting, but I've gotten a chance to learn about some finer points of Polish history and culture.  On Monday, I attended the Free Walking Tour of the Old Town.  Although I didn't learn as much as I did on the one through the old Jewish district, I still learned a fact or two, and I appreciated the guide's enthusiasm and spunky commentary.  One thing I learned was that there were certain official "rules" that dictated the layout of medieval cities, especially the main square's specifications.  And although it's not the largest main square in Europe overall, Kraków's is the largest medieval square in Europe. On Tuesday, I visited some exhibits in the one museum I wished I had seen last...

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Blessings and Curses

It's been awhile since I've authored a post.  This is for two reasons: My life has more-or-less settled down into the working routine here in Krakow, and This is the first morning in six days when I haven't woken up ticked off. As Laurel wrote about earlier, we've had trouble with someone moving around in an apartment next to ours and waking us up between 5 AM - 6 AM for the past five mornings, although it's usually closer to 5 than 6.  It sounded like exercise, but it's really difficult to tell where it's coming from.  Yesterday, I decided this would stop and I wasn't going to wait for my apartment owner to handle it. I should clarify something: here in Krakow, people actually own apartments but may not own the building....

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Everyone Wants to Exercise at 5:15 AM, Right?

Andy and I have had some troubles sleeping in this week.  And by "sleeping in," I mean past 5:30.  Starting Tuesday morning, we've been awakened every day by an intermittent, steady thumping around 5:15.  It has periods where it's quieter or louder, faster or slower, but it sounds like it is directly above our bedroom and goes on for over an hour.  At first, we had several hypotheses about what the noise could be.  Was someone playing drums?  Jumping rope?  Running on a treadmill?  By our best estimation, we determined someone was doing some sort of choreographed exercise, either step aerobics or an exercise video.  The frustrating thing was we could not figure out the exact apartment it was coming from upstairs.  The walls are thick here,...

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New Kraków Discoveries

Let's see...This week so far has led to some new discoveries about Kraków. Monday Andy tasked me with a challenge: find "American" celery somewhere in Kraków.  Since he has been sharing parts of American culture (i.e. snacks) with his coworkers, they have become more and more interested in unique American food innovations.  For example, last week he introduced the staff to s'mores.  Another idea for a snack he had was ants on a log.  (You know, celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins on top.)  We had brought peanut butter to share from home, and raisins are easy to find, so we were looking for the celery last week.  Although the Polish word for celery is similar to English (seler), Poland's version of...

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Wrocław

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Milestones and Celebrations

Yesterday, I realized that I had passed the one-month mark that Andy and I have been in Poland.  And this means that as of yesterday, I've been in Europe longer than I was last year.  Plus, I still have about three and a half weeks left here! The other major news of yesterday was that, for the second year in a row, Andy found out the results of his exam while in Kraków.  In case you haven't checked Facebook in the past 24 hours, he passed!!  After seven years of studying, he is completely done with actuarial exams.  This is part of the reason I didn't write this post yesterday: we had to go out and celebrate!  I'm actually writing this post on a bus as we ride to Wrocław for the weekend. While Andy was busy hitting...

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Watch Out For Snails!

After a failed attempt yesterday, I visited the Botanical Gardens of Kraków today.  It was beautiful and peaceful (albeit a little buggy in places), and it made for a great photography session, as you will see.  But I don't want to get ahead of myself.  Let me start with what happened yesterday, when I thought I was going to the Botanical Gardens.  I had looked up the location on Google maps before I left, and it looked within walking distance.  All I had to do was go straight down the street our apartment building is on out of the old town for about 1 kilometer.  So yesterday afternoon I did just that.  I passed by the Jesuit Basilica on the way, which I took a quick detour to see, but in general I just...

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