Turning Point...

I'm home...and sluggish, haha...

2007-06-27T06:49:00.000-05:00

So here's the story of my trip home.

The night before I left, I barely slept at all because my heart was racing the whole time in expectation of the next day. It was strange... I was sort of in a half-awake-half-asleep state. But my heart never stopped beating hard, for some weird reason. So the sleep I got wasn't worth a single grosz, heh heh.

Then I woke up an hour before I had set my alarm. And I couldn't fall back asleep. So I got up and got ready. Then I spent an hour and a half on the internet (during which time I wrote my previous blog post). Then, after some waiting for everyone to be ready, we headed to the airport.

I felt a little sick to my stomach on the way...partly cause I had to pee. Then we got there, and the place was PACKED. We finally got in line for the check-in desk...only to discover 10 minutes later that it was the wrong desk. We were on the wrong end of the room. So we threaded our way back to the right desk and waited. We talked, took pictures, and laughed. It was fun.

The thing I was most worried about was my bags. But when I got to the desk, she said I could take the pottery AND my laptop as carry-ons for no extra charge! What a relief!

So we said our goodbyes and gave our last hugs at the spot right before where I had to show my passport and walk through towards the gates. And as I left the desk and headed for the gate, all my friends let up a loud cheer and said "GOODBYE MATTHEW!!!" And everyone in the airport looked at me like I was some kind of famous person, hahaha, it was great!

It was sad to leave them. But it really didn't truly hit me until I was on the plane from London to Chicago. I ALMOST cried... But I'm a manly man, so I didn't... heh heh...

Anyway, the flight to London was ok... I was already surrounded by a ton of English-speaking strangers! It was great! The crappy thing is that there was a baby behind me who screamed the ENTIRE way. From take-off to landing, he/she never stopped. But it did give me a chance to talk to the girl next to me about how much we hated little screamers. Haha...

Then, in London I had to wait in a HUUUUUGE line for customs... Then I had to go to the baggage claim and get my bags. I had two bags that weighed about 50 pounds each (I weighed them) and then my laptop (which weighs FAR too much) and the bag of pottery which was heavy too. For a time, I was carrying ALL of those bags at once, lol... It hurt SO BAD. Then I realized that those luggage carts were free! Haha... So I was running around trying to find out where the check-in desk was for United. It was in another terminal and it took forever to find it. I had to go up elevators, down elevators, down ramps, outside on a sidewalk, etc. Finally I found it, and they told me that I could only have ONE carry-on this time. So I had to check my laptop. I was nervous, but it was ok. They told me I had better RUN or I wouldn't make it. I still had to go through security!

So anyway, I barely made it. My seat on the plane was smack-dab in the middle of the middle row of seats. And not only that, but my row was strange... it was only 4 seats across instead of 5 (it was almost the very last row). So in front of me was the crack between two seats instead of the back of one seat...if you know what I mean. And the TV screens are on the back of the headrests. So since I didn't have a headrest in front of me, I had to lean to the side and watch the TV to the left, haha. Just my luck.

But it was all good. I watched 3 movies. And I never got too bored or uncomfortable.

Then I got to Chicago O'Hell. I hate that place. They ALWAYS have delays. This time it was a good thing, cause I would've missed it if they hadn't. That's because it took like an HOUR to get my bags! The plane was delayed for like an hour and a half. And then the flight was not very fun cause it was like an ice box in there. I was so freezing. I felt sorry for the flight attendant. There was only one! She must get bored a lot.

Anyway, I made it back, and only two of my bags came through. They told me they will deliver the last one to me today. So we'll see... I'm not too worried....yet.

So it's good to be back. I still haven't had Taco Bell cause I got back so late... But I'm gonna go suck in the American air now... I'll update more later!

Love,

Matthew

The journey home begins in 1 hr. 15 min...

2007-06-26T00:11:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's over!

I had a really great year all-in-all. I met really great people, I learned a LOT, and I saw some of the world. What more could I have asked for???

Last week, Kay's mom bought a bunch of Polish pottery for me and Lynsey as a wedding gift. Polish pottery, from what I understand, is world-famous. In fact, before I left the USA, someone told me "Don't leave Poland without buying some pottery!" It's all hand-made and hand-painted, and I hear that you can sell it in the US for a fortune! But I won't be selling it because it holds too much value to me already!

Kay's mom was like a second mother to me here in Poland. She was always looking out for me to make sure I didn't get sick and she always gave me gifts and stuff. And besides that, she cooked lunch for me almost every day! And she couldn't just make anything for me. She had to make special vegetarian dishes for me. It was really good. :-)

Oh and also, last Tuesday, she invited me for supper, and I made haystacks for them! It was great, haha... I was actually gonna make them burritos, but when I told her to buy "tortillas," she thought I meant "tortilla chips." BUUUT, it was ok, cause I easily converted the meal to haystacks instead. It was really goooooood. Then I stayed until 9pm playing with the kids on the trampoline and stuff. It was good times. :-)

And now Kay's mom says that she wants to come to my wedding! That's so cool!

-------

Saturday night, Dolly set up a going-away party for me. It was awesome! All my friends were there, and we all made burritos together. And we listened to Jason Mraz the whole time, hahaha... And then afterwards, we played cards. It was all so magical (Lynsey knows how much I love attention, so she'll understand why I enjoyed it so much)! Hahaha...

Then last night, I finished my LAST lesson and came back to my flat. I really didn't feel like cooking... BUT then all of a sudden, Daniel bursts through the door and said "Babe, are you here?" (it's an inside joke, don't worry, I'm not gay, haha) I looked over, and saw Daniel carrying bags of groceries! I was so happy! He and Honorata proceeded to make a "last supper" for the three of us. We had all kinds of fruit, some cookies, some cheese and bread, and some cinnamon/sugar rice. It was a quasi-agape feast complete with candles! Daniel prayed in English for the 3rd time in his life, and it was really touching. Then we spent the whole supper talking about how we met and all of our most fun times together. We hugged. It was great... :-) *wipes tear away*

Saturday, I wrote goodbye letters to all of my friends here, and I gave them out yesterday. I got some good reactions. :-)

And today, in 1 hour, I'm going to the airport. We're taking the school van and all my friends are coming to the airport with me. :-) I don't think it could end any better.

So this is it. I'm done blogging here and it's back to the ol' US of A. I suppose I'll pop in here and write an update a little while after I get back. Just to let you know how the reverse culture shock is treating me. But I don't anticipate too much of a problem. :-)

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Matthew Mize

PS: this whole flight thing has been so hectic to figure out. The GC bought my ticket and the travel agency they used made a huge mistake.

They bought me a ticket to Poland like this: I flew from Tulsa, OK to Chicago, IL to London, England to Copenhagen, Denmark to Gdansk, Poland.

But for the return ticket, they only bought from London, England to Chicago, IL to Tulsa, OK.

So I had no ticket to get from Poland to London!

So I had to write to the GC, to the travel agency, and to SWAU before I finally got an answer hammered out. It literally took months to solve. So NOW I have a ticket......

.....The only problem is that NOW the airline that's taking me from Poland to London says that I can only bring one bag! WHAT A JOKE!!! I came here with two huge bags, and I'm supposed to come back with ONE?!?!? They said that it was because the ticket was a separate one from the rest of my journey. And since it's a short trip, they only allow one bag.

SO, I had Dolly call the GC and tell them about the problem. And they told me to just go ahead and pay for an extra bag (which costs $120!) and then write to SWAU to try and get a reimbursement. So I guess that's what I'm gonna do... But my other problem is that they only allow one carry-on, and I need to have two because of all this Polish Pottery that I can't put in my checked baggage. (Plus...there's simply no room for it all, haha) So.... I guess I'm gonna try to pay for anOTHER extra bag or SOMETHING...

I'll update you later on that situation...

MM

12 Days...

2007-06-14T11:26:00.001-05:00

Guess who will be home in 12 days? (it's me)

......ME!!!!! How'd you know???

Yes, I'm finishing up here... Soon I will pack my things!

Last weekend, we had a very special visitor in Podkowa Leśna. You want to know who?

I'll give you a hint:

That's right, Steve Darmody.

That was funny... We went up to see him before the concert, but we didn't see him at first. Dolly spotted a table with his CDs on it so she went over to look at them. "He looks kinda hott in this one!" says Dolly. And then we hear "Well that's nice to hear" as Steve walks into the room, hahaha... We all had a good laugh about that. And then I walked up to shake his hand. And he looked at me kinda funny. So I said "Matthew Mize" as I reached out my hand. And his face brightened and he said "I THOUGHT it looked like you!" Haha, so that was cool... He put this picture on his tour site.

Everything is sort of winding down here... I'm teaching my last classroom class tonight, but I still have my private lessons next week (which means 98% of my classes are not over yet, boo hoo...) But still...Next week is my LAST! I'm REALLY excited!

Today, I was at Kay's house and he accidentally kicked a ball over the fence into the neighbor's yard. I jumped over the fence to get it and I landed barefoot in a bunch of stinging nettle! So my feet tingle now, heh heh...

What else?

Oh, next Tuesday, I'm going to Kay's house and cooking burritos! YAY!!!

That's all for now... Any questions???

Love,

Matthew

PS: After I get back to the USA, that's it for my blog here. I will go back to using my Xanga blog. So anyone that wants to know what's up with my life will have to refer to that one after I return.

3 weeks from today...

2007-06-05T16:01:00.000-05:00

Yep, that's it, I get home 3 weeks from today!

Last week, an English teacher in Warsaw called me and asked me to sub for one of his classes. So that's what I did today... Come to think of it, I don't know how or when he's going to pay me.....hmmmmm..........

Anywho, afterwards, I stopped at "Amigos American Steakhouse" for some "American" food. American food with a Polish twist, but it was good nonetheless. I had a giant "vegetarian enchilada" which was stuffed with....vegetables and mushrooms. But it was good. Almost everyone in the building was either American or British so I had fun eavesdropping while I ate. :-D

Then I went to the grocery store.

Then while I was waiting for my train, I had to go to the bathroom, and when I found one, of course there was someone there to charge me 1.50zł. I didn't care though cause I had to go pretty bad. There was a chick in the bathroom, so that was kind of uncomfortable... There was just one of those half-walls between my urinal and her, haha... Then when I was leaving, I didn't see the sink at first... So I walked into the entryway, looking for it. I didn't see it there, so I went back in to the sink. But when the bathroom lady saw me do that, she started yelling at me in Polish... Apparently, every time you cross a certain line, she charges you. So she wanted me to pay another 1.50 just for stepping into the entryway! I told her I didn't speak Polish and I didn't understand her, but she kept yelling. So I just washed my hands and started to walk out. Then she tried to stop me, and explain. Finally I showed her that all I did was walk into the vestibule to look for the sink. And when I showed her, she got even more mad because I crossed the line AGAIN, hahahaha... So she wanted me to pay 3zł!!! So I laughed and I said "NO WAY!" And this other lady who was tired of listening to the stupid old lady came over and gave her 2zł to shut her up, but she kept yelling, so I just walked away. I tried to pay the other lady back because I didn't want her to pay for me, but she wouldn't accept it. She knew that I was getting cheated.

That made me so mad though... I mean, I didn't pay the lady so I could cross a line. I payed her so that I could pee! SOME people are so ignorant! Or should I say, some people are so greedy! In the USA, they wouldn't even be charging me in the first place! ARGH!!! Can I come home now?

Anyway, guess who'll be in town on Friday night? The famous Steve Darmody! haha, yessiree, he's going to be treating us adoring Polish Adventists to a concert. When he sees me, he'll either be surprised to see me, or confused because he doesn't remember who I am. Either way, it'll be interesting.

Welp, that's all for now...

Love,

Matthew

PS: Sorry to Tom's girlfriend... I didn't say hi to you for 2 reasons: First, I didn't know if you spoke English. And second, I didn't know it was you until you were leaving.

But I did like your choir. You guys did really good! And I especially liked your performance. Did you know that you bounce up and down when you sing? You really get into it! Haha...

Anyway, did you know that your profile is inaccessible? In other words, I can't come and comment on your blog or see your profile, so I have to talk to you from here!

"And Now," (as Paul Harvey would say) "..........The Rest of the Story..."

2007-05-21T09:34:00.000-05:00

So these are pictures from the same trip, but taken from Christie's camera.

Some are from the same time phrame as the last post, and some are from after I stopped taking pictures...

To start with, I'll put a short video that Linda took in Warsaw's Old Town Square... Pretty, huh?

Here's me and Honorata in the train on the way to Kraków...

(pictured below): We were deep in discussion as to whether or not "plum" (the fruit) was spelled "p-l-u-m-b" or "p-l-u-m"

Sadly, I was on the losing side. There's a band named "Plumb" and it threw me off. :-(

We met and befriended (thanks to Christie's outgoing personality) a couple of Turkish guys:

They were funny, haha...

Then I slept.

When we got closer to Kraków, the view was nice...

see?

Alright, I admit, this picture's not THAT impressive. But I didn't get pictures of the really cool stuff. I didn't want to miss it, so I didn't go get my camera in time...

Here's Christy...jus' chillin'

We finally got there... Here's me and Honorata in the flat. I was checking my email after the journey...

I'm a glow-worm!!!

Sight-seeing:

Yep, she's German...

Christie bought a big ol' honkin' zapiekanka...

Here's me taking one of the awesome pictures from the previous post:

I am a historian. Ask me a question, and be prepared for an explanation:

"Wooooooow....."

umm...yeah...

Ali G! Dat's me!

Honorata's camera-shy...

So I tried to move her hands...

Here's a token old man with no shirt on:

Everyone's happy when they eat BURRITOS!!! :-D

When I left you in the last post, I believe I was sleeping... so that's where I will pick up the story this time:

Nobody woke me up to see the pretty scenery. That's probably good because we had just been up all night, stuck in Auschwitz. (in the town, not the camp...thank GOODNESS, haha)

Christie was tired too and she started falling asleep:

Then she tried to sleep on me, and I told her to move to her own seat, but she fell asleep while we were talking to her, haha!

After a good night's sleep in Wrocław, we did some sight-seeing... Daniel brought his guitar... Hey Daniel, that's my beanie!

Wrocław's Old Town Square:

Posing in the mall...where we had stopped for a bathroom break...

Trying to get directions to a peaceful park...

We stopped to rest in a not-so-peaceful park. Daniel whipped out his guitar and started making up songs:

Scenery from Wrocław:

We found a playground instead of a park!

There was this weird 3-person swing thing that we couldn't figure out...but it looked funny when we tried:

We never could figure out how to get that thing to work, so we abandoned it and decided to do the zip-line...thing...

Here we are in line for the zip-line...thing:

You see the little girl in front of Christie in the picture below? If you look in the last picture, she's not there! She CUT IN FRONT OF US! (That's why we look sad in the picture)

Then I got mad at the little girl... but not mad enough to do anything...I was scared of her!

She only took a picture of Daniel going... but me and Christie got a video, hehe!

Then we played on the tire-swing:

Guitar break:

Another church:

By the church:

I would benefit by some braces and a toothbrush...I'm just sayin'...

We're old friends...

The next day, we went to church. The guy on my right is the guy we stayed with in Wrocław...

I didn't bring clothes for church. So Daniel lent me his jacket and I wore jeans and one of my regular button-up short-sleeved shirts. Plus my hair was too long to fix up... *sigh*

We all crammed into the tiny car and headed home.

Surrounded by women...

And all I could think about was my girl...

(if your name is not Lynsey, ignore the lameness of that statement, haha)

DANDELION!!!

FLOWERS!!!

Daniel is a Theology student...see?

But that doesn't mean he's not gay!!! Haha...

Burritos AGAIN!!!

The next day, the girls had to leave... So we walked to the train station in the rain...

We had a stranger take pictures of us...

Daniel looks REALLY happy in this picture, haha...

And now we switch...

umm...I don't know what's going on here...

And then they left...

As they were pulling away, we walked along by the train...until Daniel ran into me and we almost fell over... haha...

Well, that's all the pictures from THAT trip!

No more trips for me! I'll be home in like 5 weeks!!! YAY!!!!!

- Matthew

PS: Last weekend, Linda came to visit us in Podkowa Leśna again, and we went to church in Warsaw where Honorata sang in the choir. Here's some pictures from that...

Honorata's choir:

She's the blond one in the middle...

The blond one looking in her book, haha...

This is me with my interpreter:

After Church, we went for a walk and found a playground! So we swung on the swings! I didn't get my camera out till I stopped swinging, but here's a couple of Honorata, haha. She looks like she had a lot of fun, I was surprised!

Stupid-faced me...

Seal-saw fun... .....Get it? SEAL-saw? Cause...we're riding on SEALS! HAHAHAHAHA!!! you know it was funny. Laugh....now.

The sun was bright, so we were squinting like cuh-rrrazy...

the end.

Ok, time for me to update, huh?

2007-05-13T17:49:00.001-05:00

Sorry about my laxness... I'll try to do better from now on. Now I have something to talk about, though. :-D

This week, the mother of one of my students asked me to give her a book about our church! She says she "might want to become an Adventist," and it's all from talking to me and watching the way I behave as a teacher to her son! Praise God! I didn't come to Poland for nothing!

And when I say "Praise God," I mean it, because the glory belongs to Him. If it wasn't for Him, I would've smacked her son in the head a long time ago, haha... But seriously, it was through the patience that He lent me, the words that he provided for me to say, and the wisdom that He gave me for teaching, that got this woman's attention. Now I'm going to give her some books, and the rest is up to the Holy Spirit...and your prayers!

Anyway, it's time for another picture post..."Why?" you may ask. Well, because last week, I went to Kraków, Auschwitz, and Wrocław! So prepare yourselves to be amazed!

On Friday, April 27, 2007, Christie, a Canadian/American (she has dual-citizenship), and Linda, a German, both language teachers that I met while I was living in northern Poland, arrived in Warsaw!

I picked them up at the Warszawa Centralna train station.

Here's Christie:

Here's Linda... She spoke perfect English with almost zero accent. I literally forgot that it wasn't her first language several times. So no language barrier there. :-)

I took them back home and we spent Sabbath at the school.

Then on Sunday we got up bright and early so that I could show them around my city, Warsaw!

First stop, the mall next to the train station. It's BRAND SPANKING NEW. I've been waiting all year for them to finish it, and it's finally done. :-)

It's so cool. There's actually an entrance to this mall from the underground, so it's literally connected to the train station.

This picture was actually taken in that entrance. It's nice!

I love the architecture of this place...

Linda found the Apple Store.

One of my favorite spots in this mall is right here. Look at all those escalators! Perfect for people-watching, haha...

The view from the window in the mall

We decided it was time for our daily minimum requirement of ice cream. mmmm...

I got two scoops: Tiramisu and Grapefruit. BAD COMBINATION. But I was excited anyway, see?

I love the ceiling of this place! It's made of glass. At night, you see the city skyline out of the windows, and it's beautiful. I can't describe what this ceiling looks like...

Ah heck, here's some more pictures of it:

Alright, enough of the mall. Here's the Palace of Culture and Science.

From what I understand, it was originally built as a "gift" from the Soviet Union. It was just a symbol of Soviet power.

But since then, it has become a symbol of Warsaw. It's one of the first things people think of when they think of Warsaw. Oh yeah, and it's the tallest building in the city.

Recently, though, there has been some talk of the possibility of tearing it down to rid the country of the symbols of communism. But I hope they DON'T!!! It's history and it should be protected. I mean, besides that fact that it gives the city character (and serves as a nice reference point for people who are lost in the city), it's also a piece of history and reminds us of mistakes in the past. If they were to tear this down, they might as well tear down the Colosseum too because of the horrible things that took place there.

Ok, I'm done.

It's like the Hollywood walk of fame! Those are my initials!

Random Warsaw pictures...

Ok, time for some more structure in this story...

I took them to Łazienki Park to show them where I proposed to Lynsey...

Linda said I made funny faces in my pictures and she wanted to try it too. (I never told her the truth: that I just have a funny looking face *sobs*)

The obligatory Łazienki Park pictures:

They're so cruel to the fauns here...

Christie bought some cheap sunglasses that broke before the week ended, haha. If you zoom into the sunglasses, you can see me standing over by the edge of the bridge staring down into the traffic and wondering if I could time a jump well enough to land on a car...

Linda's dad is Hungarian or something so she got a picture by the Hungarian Embassy:

Christie, in turn, wanted a picture by the Canadian Embassy:

I was going to take them to the US Embassy, but we never went in that direction. Oh well...

Instead, we went to see the Polish government buildings, which I hadn't seen yet either.

Here we are in front of the Parliament Building. (The guard took the picture for us, haha)

Here's a better angle. Astounding, isn't it?

The famous Nowy Świat street. It means "New World" in Polish.

We popped into the "American Bookstore" to take a gander at their merchandise.

Here's Christie and I trying to imitate the statures. I sucked at it.

I don't know what these guys were doing. Change of the guard, maybe? They marched really gay-like, though, swinging their arms and such... Their boots remind me of Mickey Mouse, haha...

The Polish version of our White House... (It's called the Presidential Palace)

There are lion statues everywhere in Warsaw...

Oh Poland, will you ever stop following the Catholic church? Answer: Probably not.

Case-in-point:

Old town here we come!

The Royal Castle

SOMETHING is funny...

On the narrow streets of Old Town, Warsaw.

About this time, we started looking for something sweet again... (I hadn't eaten ice cream all winter so I had to make up for it!)

So I decided to flirt with the ice cream girl so that I'd get an extra big serving... I realize, Lynsey, that at first this statement might have shocked you. But I'm confident that after a short pause for thought, you have realized that this was perfectly fine. I mean, we're talking about ice cream here... It's a matter of ice cream or MORE ice cream. When the situation is as grave as that, one should spare no means to accomplish one's goal!

Anyhow, you'll be pleased to see that it worked very nicely:

The girls were not as successful as me with this girl, so they searched elsewhere. They were finally able to secure some cotton candy from a man on the street. And they tore into it like a couple of she-bears:

Old Town Square

It started to get late so we began to work our way out of Old Town and head in the direction of the train station. (queue the moon)

Oh wait, here's the Polish Supreme Court:

And again...

We walked through the former Jewish Ghetto on our way back...

The next morning, we left for Kraków!!!

Here's me cooking breakfast before we left. I think I was talking to Lynsey on the phone...

I invited Honorata to go with us, so she did... The girls stayed with a friend of Christie's in Kraków. And I rented a bed in a hostel.

The train ride down was nice. Christie's very talkative with strangers, so we met several people. We met two Turkish students, a sober Pole, and a drunk Pole. The drunk guy liked Christie and called her "sunshine" in Polish, haha...

The countryside was beautiful.

We got there on Monday night, and on Tuesday morning, we set out to see the sights!

We started in the Jewish Quarter. I read somewhere that prior to WWII there were around 60,000 Jews in Kraków. Now there are about 100.

Here's the Jewish cemetary. It's really OLD. You'll see...

Here are some of the buildings in this Jewish quarter.

What kind of name is "Bla Bla" for a coffee shop? haha...

Then we went to Waweł, a famous castle on a hill in the middle of the city. It's amazing, really...

Here's part of it in the reflection of Honorata's glasses. Linda took that picture. She's artsy like that, haha...

Then I took an ordinary picture of Linda next to the same place.

The Vistula River from Waweł. It reminds me of some the scenery in Prague. This same river flows through Warsaw too.

I love it when vines grow on the sides of buildings...

There were lots of tourists up there...

This dragon is the result of some old legend... If you want to know it, ask me, and I'll tell you.

Ain't she a beauty? ...The castle, I mean... I mean...I'm not saying Honorata's not pretty... She's pretty too........I mean...not that I'VE ever noticed... I mean I......I don't pay attention to that sort of thing... I mean...ummm.....nevermind.

We were a little tired from all the walking so we sat down on the banks of the Vistula and rested. There was a guy with a guitar, just singing his heart out. He had a pretty thick accent but he was singing in English. I don't know where he was from. He was talking to his girlfriend in English, so they must have been from different countries, I think. When he finished the song, we requested another :-)

Some things we saw on our way back home for the night...

We were pooped when we got back:

Then after awhile, I left them and went to my hostel. On my way, I took a picture of Waweł at night. :-D

The next morning, I got up REEEEALLY early and went for a walk. These are pictures in and around Waweł and the Vistula at 6:30am:

Look at the steam coming off of the water! I loved it! It was so peaceful...no tourists:

Compare these to the same place the day before. :-) The sun was just coming up and I was there all alone.

Photoshop is fun :-)

I love this picture...

Then as I was leaving, I saw two hot air balloons floating over the city. That was awesome...

I like this lamp across the street:

Later that morning, Linda and I dropped Honorata off at the train station and she went back to Warsaw.

After that, we took the long way back to the apartment so we could see something new.

This is an awesome barbican that stands just outside the gates of Kraków.

Here's a cool statue:

These girls are wearing some traditional Polish outfits:

And these boys are also dressed traditionally:

This is definitely my favorite statue in the city...I'm not sure why...

This tree looked like a wicked hand...with 6 fingers...

Which way is home?

After we got back, we made the necessary preparations for a visit to Auschwitz. That's right, Auschwitz.

I bought the necessary ice cream for the journey. Thankfully, the bus was equipped with an ice cream holder.

So here are my pictures from Auschwitz...

This is the famous gate. It says "Work Makes Free" or something like that. And the little white sign on the cross bar says "Halt! Identify yourself." Oh, see where the guy with the read shirt and the girl with black shirt
are standing? That's where the Nazis used to put the bodies of people
who were made examples of for everyone to see.

That was the first part of Auschwitz. Those building have exhibits with pictures and stuff in them telling the story. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to read nearly all of them. :-(

HERE is the second part of Auschwitz and the most disturbing. It probably looks familiar to you... This is where the trains came in. This is Auschwitz Birkenau.

These buildings were originally designed as stables intended to hold less than 60 horses. The Nazis kept 400+ prisoners in each building. When I walked in there, I couldn't imagine seeing 400 people in there. It would be soooo cramped! And of course there weren't nearly enough beds. And the beds they had weren't big enough to easily share.

This is from the inside. I can easily imagine guards with machine guns looking down at me from those windows. It's creepy.

There were rows and rows and rows and ROWS of these buildings...

Most of them are long gone cause they were made of wood and they decayed. Also, the Germans burned as many buildings as they could on they're way out before the Soviet troops got there. All that's left are the chimneys.

You see this big gravel space between the train tracks? This is where the Nazi doctors decided which prisoners would work and which prisoners would go straight to the gas chambers.......75 percent of the prisoners who arrived faced immediate death.

Think about that... See all those buildings? each holding 400+ prisoners? There were fields of them..... These people were worked to death and starved to death. They were often tortured or shot as punishment for minor offenses. But now consider that ALL of those people in all those buildings were ONLY TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT of the total... THE REST OF THE ARRIVALS WENT STRAIGHT THE THE GAS CHAMBERS.

This is looking from the inside out...

These barbed-wire fences has electricity running through them at night...

On occasion, a prisoner who felt completely hopeless or distraught would "go to the wires" and his body would be found in the morning.

These are the remains of a gas chamber/crematorium...

As Soviet troops neared, the Germans disassembled the gas chambers. Then, on their way out of camp, they blew them up with explosives.

What you're looking at now is where the actual gas chamber was...

I'm not sure, but I think this is closer to where the ovens were...I mean this section of the building... and the next 3 pictures too...

This is what you saw before, but from a little farther away and from a different angle. At the bottom right, you can see part of the hallway where the prisoners were told to undress before entering the gas chamber. To prevent chaos, they were told that they were about to take a shower to be deloused. So they were instructed to remember where they left their clothes so they could find them when they came out. But they didn't come out alive.

This is the entrance to the building. Here again, is the undressing hallway.

Nearby is this guard shack... They're everywhere...

Here's a picture of what one of these crematoriums looked like when they were still standing. It was taken by one of the SS officers.

These are part of a sewage plant for the camp...

The sun was almost down, and I was frantically trying to see as much as I could before it set. But I noticed that this road goes directly toward the setting sun. It looks so awesome... I wonder if any of the prisoners noticed that?

A couple more pictures of the sewage plant...

These are some of the prisoners' belongings that were found on the ground after the camp was closed. Anything they brought with them to the camp was taken, so all they had left was the eating utensils they used everyday, I guess...

This was a building used for orientating the prisoners. By "orientating," I mean, it's where they took their belongings from them, inspected them for lice, gave them showers, and issued their new prison clothes.

A view from the side:

After that I had to run to the entrance because the place was closing, and I didn't want to spend the night inside...

UNFORTUNATELY, there were NO BUSES OR TRAINS back to Kraków that night! There were only taxis and they wanted to charge us like 225zł ($80)!!! I didn't even HAVE that much, haha...

So we tried to hitch-hike back to town, hahaha... It didn't work either. We tried for 2 and a half hours. We knew that a train was going at 3:30am, and it was freezing outside, so we decided to give up on hitch-hiking, and we went back to the train station.

BUT the station closes from 12:30-3:00am!!! So we were stuck outside in the freezing temperature! So we found a hotel (which was locked) and we sat in the outer lobby on the floor. It was no warmer than outside, but it protected us from the wind. Boy, it was miserable...

In the end, we ended up taking the 3:30am train back to the city and got no sleep. :-(

Later that morning, we packed up, and went to the train station to go to Wrocław!

While we waited for the train, we decided to go to the mall and get...more ice cream, haha...

On the train, we ate chrupki and acted silly, hehehe:

I made a chrupki arm and hand...

Then I had a cell phone and Kleenex sandwich.

Me and Linda giggled because Christie fell asleep...

But I laughed too soon...

This is me, needing a haircut:

Shortly after this, we arrived in Wrocław... And I don't have pictures from that yet. Linda and Christie have them. But I will post them in my next update.

I got a haircut this week...

That's all for now! Sorry it was soooo long!!!

Love,

Matthew Mize

God is Good...

2007-04-21T03:57:00.000-05:00

I've never been this excited to see the spring! When I walk to class, I see the trees budding with flowers and it's so beautiful. And last night, I went outside on my way to see Daniel, and for some reason, I realized right then that I LOVE fresh air! It was breazy, and I just started breathing really deeply, and I was like "Yes! I LOVE air!" Hahaha..... I think spring is just having a bigger affect on me this year because now I have time to notice it... I have to walk everywhere I go, and it gives me lots of time to think.

Anyway, once again, I'm apologizing for my scanty posting. It's been another chunk of time with more bratty kids testing my patience. My patience failed a long time ago. But God has given me more. Just enough to keep me from snapping!

But I did go see Lynsey in Prague since I wrote last. That was nice! :-) You can see pictures from that trip on Lynsey's blog. We had a great time. It's sad though, because now I won't see her till I get to California in July! :-(

But there is good news... MY COMPUTER IS FIXED!!! YAAAAY!!! So I'm writing this on my own computer in my own room!

Guess what? I only have like 9 1/2 more weeks before I come home!

Alright, well... that's about it...

- Matthew

PS: Mom, you hate me. When are you gonna CALL ME again!??!?

um....not much here...

2007-04-03T11:27:00.000-05:00

A few days ago, I was walking to class, and I saw someone do the Sign of the Cross as they passed the Catholic Church. It was funny. This lady was just pushing her baby down the sidewalk in a stroller, and she looked at the church and did the Sign. I didn't know that they had to do that, haha...

Last night I had a class with a new student. She and I were talking about religion. She wanted to know about our church so I told her some of the main points... After noting her surprise about my keeping the Sabbath, I went on to tell her that one of the main differences between our church and the Catholic Church is that we follow what we believe the Bible says, and we don't stray for what any man says. And furthermore, we don't just believe that when a priest says something, it must be true. We believe that you should check everything with the Bible to see whether it's true.

She agreed with me that most Polish Catholics are not true believers. They think that they can go through the motions and that's it.

Sometimes I'm tempted to wish I had it like the Catholics. I just have to get baptized and observe some certain traditions, and then I've earned my ticket to heaven! Maybe I could even buy and indulgence!

"Tempted" is the key word there. Satan would love us to believe that we can earn our way to heaven. OR even better, he would love us to lose hope and believe that we are doomed.

What we really need is to give God our all... and that's enough. "Love God and love your neighbor as yourself." Pray David's prayer "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." And of course, first of all, believe.

Tomorrow night, I'm leaving for Prague to see Lynsey for a few days. It could be the last time we see each other before we get home! I would like to go visit her on some weekend.......but I'm starting to doubt that it's possible. We have to try and jam as many classes into these last months as possible. So I can't miss any!!! :-(

Anyways, speaking of classes, I'm subbing for Dolly tonight, so I have to run!

Love,
Matthew

Argh...

2007-03-30T02:59:00.000-05:00

It's been pretty.....normal lately.

Classes and classes and reading and more classes.

The kids that I'm teaching can be spoiled brats sometimes...

This morning, I prayed for patience, and maybe God gave some to me. But I think he mostly gave me self-control, cause I wanted to hit this kid! Argh... He wouldn't do ANYTHING I said. He just yelled incoherently, and threw things, jumped on his bed, scribbled all over the paper we were working on, and finally just laid on his bed and refused to respond to me.

I was so angry, I started shaking, trying to hold it in!

Finally, I asked him if he wanted me to talk to his mom, and he said "that's fine with me." Because he's not afraid of his parents! That's what happens to spoiled kids. I talked to her and the best she could do was tell him that he couldn't play on the computer today. And of course, he started crying for like 5 seconds when she said that. But I don't think it was enough. Plus, he'll probably just talk her out of it now that I'm gone.

A couple weeks ago, one of my students refused to do what we were working on because he wanted to play a computer game instead. (normally, we did class, and then in the last 15 min. we would play a game.) So I told him, "No, we'll play at the end, like we always do, but if you keep asking, we won't play the game at all today." So then he ran out of the room to his mom, and then I hear his mom call to me from down the hall, "Matthew, let Kuba play a computer game for 15 minutes because he wants to." I was thinking, "WHAT??!?!??" I was so angry. Now the kid will never do what I say because he thinks HE'S in charge. When he came into the room, he LAUGHED IN MY FACE!!! I was so mad...

But the game that he wanted to play is MY game. So when we went to the computer, he looked at me, expecting me to give him the game. And I was like, "I don't have it. I guess you'll have to play something else." Haha... I know, it was a lie. I had the game in my bag, but there was NO WAY I was going to give him the satisfaction! He was so disappointed that he didn't want to play anymore. So I was like "Alright then, let's get back to our lesson." And we didn't play computer at all that day.

As long as I can help it, no kid is going to get his spoiled brat way with me!

BUT then the kid's mom (at the urging of her son) told me that from now on, once a week, she wants me to just play on the computer with him. :-|

WHAT. EVER.

I don't care anymore. If she wants to pay me to play games all the time, FINE. I'm done.

Anyway, I'm going to Prague to see Lynsey next week, thank GOD!!! I need a break from these monsters!

Pray for me to have wisdom, knowledge, patience, self-control, and love.

- Matthew

Not much to say...

2007-03-11T08:42:00.001-05:00

Sorry I haven't written anything since I got back from Paris. I just haven't really had a lot happen...

I taught my friends here how to play "Speed" and "Speed 2" with the cards that SWAU sent me. And now they're already as good or better than me at it, haha... Then again, I've never been good at it.

I also bought "Uno" but the first couple times we tried to play, we just gave it up cause we spent the whole time fighting over the rules. We all had our own ideas of what the rules should be... and NONE of them were in the rule book, haha. So that made it extra hard to agree on one set of rules. And the last time we played, after we had finally agreed on the same rules, Honorata decided that she didn't want to play anymore cause she didn't like Uno. So then there were only 3 of us left, and we didn't think it would be much fun to play with only 3 people. So we just gave it up. :-(

I've been just teaching alot lately... Kay's mom told me that his grades were going up and his teachers were singing his praises. She said it was all because of me! :-D That made me happy... Some of my students quit coming, so now I'm getting new ones...

I'm still waiting for my computer to get fixed. And I finally took my iPod back in to get it fixed. I'm gonna be paying a lot for that. :-(

And I'm going to Prague at the beginning of April to see Lynsey again... We're just gonna be lazy for a few days...

Anyway... I don't know what else to say...

I've been reading a LOT lately... That's fun... I'm catching up on all the literature that I never read before...

Anyhow, pray for me... I still have 3 1/2 months... And then I have to find a job!

Paris was fun...

2007-02-22T14:24:00.000-06:00

I don't feel about writing about Paris though, so I'll just say that I'm home, and if you want to see pictures from the trip, look at Lynsey's blog.

Love,

Matthew

I'm leaving for Paris in 3 days!

2007-02-06T14:48:00.000-06:00

On Friday, February 9, 2007, I will meet Lynsey in Paris for a fun-filled week! YIPPEEE!!! I've been having a rough time ever since the last time I saw her... I'm not looking forward to the next month without her. :-( But I won't think about that now!

We're going to Disneyland in Paris! haha...

Anyways, when we return, I will have pictures and maybe some video too! ;-) So keep an eye out starting on the 17th... (I get back on the night of the 16th...)

Alright, that's all for me now. Peace out.

- Matthew

Snow finally came!!! Now I want it to be warm again...

2007-01-26T04:12:00.000-06:00

I went to bed at midnight and everything was normal...then I woke up and there was like 2 inches of snow on the ground! And it didn't stop all day!

I talked to Lynsey online and she was thrilled because it was snowing there too! She kept going on and on about how she was going to make a snowman...and it inspired me! So after lunch I grabbed two of my friends and told them that they were going to help me make a snowman too, haha... At first, they looked at me like I was joking...but when they realized I was serious, they reluctantly agreed. I guess they're too adult to do such childish things, haha... But by the time we were done, we were all little kids again! haha... We had snowball fights, wrestling matches in the snow, and built a 6ft snowman! It was a great day, I must say... :-)

I've gotta say, this is the biggest AND funniest looking snowman I've ever made...haha... The snow wasn't very sticky so we had to stomp on it and shovel it around for awhile first... Then, when we finally started working on it, we couldn't make big snowballs, so we decided just to sculpt it like Michelangelo... Can you see the resemblance or our work to his? (personally, I like his eyebrows, haha, good one, Daniel!)

He's waving at you! (we gave him a hat...but I took this picture the next day, and there's like 2 inches of snow that fell on top of the hat so it looks huge, haha...)

Lynsey's mom bought me a shirt and tie! THANKYOU! I like them alot and I decided to model it for you...well, ok, I wore it to church and took a picture of it afterwards, heh heh...same dif...

Here's our bunny friend... I forgot his name... but it was a really cool name...

The friendliest bunny, I've ever met.

I did some exploring in Warsaw awhile back, and I found this skate park in a giant tent. Haha... I felt a little out of place there...cause I was still wearing my church clothes.

This one's for Ky and Andy:

While I was wondering, I decided to go back to the spot where I proposed to Lynsey and take some pictures. Unfortunately it's 100% uglier now because it's winter and there's no leaves on the trees, the sun's not out, and...well it's winter, like I said.

Lynsey will recognize these spots ;-)

Over by that big tree is where I popped the question :-)

A closer look from a different angle:

From across the water...

A close-up:

Well that's all... BYE!!!

Love,
Matthew

My New Friend...

2007-01-17T05:12:00.000-06:00

There's a rabbit being kept in our kitchen for a short time... If you stay real still, he'll look, but he won't see you!

"Oh, well, when in Rome." "...Yes?"

2007-01-04T15:51:00.000-06:00

I just returned from Italy on Tuesday!!! It was SO AWESOME!!!

The purpose of this blog post is to give you a photo record of our trip to Italy for Christmas so...be prepared! And enjoy!

First of all, I have to come clean... Remember when I posted the pictures of me with all that facial hair? Remember how I said that I shaved? Well.....I did......but not ALL of it! Haha... I kept some of it so that I could surprise Lynsey with it when I met her for in Prague for our trip! Haha...

Here's just a small taste of the goatee...

Yeah, I know you love it!

So anyway, the trip began... I rode something like 9 or 10 hours on the train to Prague and met an American guy who sat right next to me. That was...refreshing. This guy says he comes to Europe for EVERY break from school. That's intense... He's some kind of photographer. I hope he makes money from those pictures cause those flights are expensive!

Anyway, I got to Prague and after a little bit, I found Lynsey! We were oh so happy to see each other! She was happy in spite of my facial hair! Yeah, I'm THAT good. Haha...

I met all of her fellow SMs and that was cool. Then Lynsey took me for a short tour of Prague. That was fun. Here's us on the Charles Bridge:

Take a good long look at the beard...it's the last time you'll see it... She made me shave it later that night... She threatened me with no kisses! I'm such a weak soul...

Anyway, the next day, we were off to the airport and headed to Milan!

Upon our arrival in Milan, we knew we were in trouble... We learned shortly before we left that even though we had bought rail passes, we still had to buy reservations for each train that we wanted to ride! The only problem was that you have to buy the reservations 5 days in advance! So we didn't know what to do... But after some investigation, we discovered that the slower trains didn't require reservations.

So we took a slow train that left some 3 hours later than the one we had hoped to take... That train was so packed that we weren't able to find a seat. We ended up having to STAND for at least 5 of the 7 hours it took to get to Rome. It was pure hell, haha... Not only were we forced to stand, but we only had about 2 or 3 square feet to stand in because the whole aisle was full of other people! Bleh... I'm tired of thinking about it...

We finally got to Rome at 5:00am, effectively waisting the money we had spent on a hotel reservation for the previous night. But we didn't care. We were just glad to finally have a place to lay down!

So after a few hours of sleep, we decided to hit the town! We jumped on the metro and headed into downtown Rome!

First stop: The Spanish Steps

Haha, see those huge bags under our eyes? Yeah, that was from the train ride the night before, haha...

Here's some...thing...I thought it looked pretty cool at the time. But they're EVERYWHERE in all different shapes and sizes in Rome. So I just stopped taking pictures of them after the first couple...

Then we went to the Trevi Fountain! This thing is pretty awesome.

So here's us with the Trevi Fountain...

We were surprised though, to find it so crowded...especially since it was the "off season"... I guess that even though winter is the off season, we made the mistake of going during the Holidays...

These guys were literally everywhere... Some looked like this and others looked like Egyption Sphinxes. Don't ask me what the Statue of Liberty or an Egyptian Sphinx has to do with Rome, but if you have any insight, let me know. Anyway, the idea is that they just stand there until you put money in their little can. When you do that, they bow. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it...

Lynsey says that this is a monument to Victor Emmanuel II, but I think it was just Victor Emmanuel. If she thinks I'm wrong, she's just have to prove it, so HA! ;-)

After we looked around for a bit, we headed back to the Spanish Steps to see if we could meet some of Lynsey's friends who happened to be in Rome at the same time as us. But I guess they couldn't make it... Anyway, here's us sitting on the Spanish Steps, waiting for them. :-)

Here's a good tourist picture of Lynsey. She's holding our Rome information book, haha... I think she looks adorable...

As we sat there, we heard the sound of...you guessed it: BAGPIPES???

The next morning we set out for the Roman Forum and, of course, the Colosseum!

We took turns posing with the beautiful giant...

Then, I mustered up enough courage to approach it and yes, even touch it!

We're good friends now. Here's a little perspective (and this is the shorter side):

I was still in awe of the Colosseum when Lynsey discovered another interesting artifact... *giggles* I must say...this picture is...intimidating...

Later, we found an awesome view of the Colosseum and I knew that I had to get a picture of Lynsey in front of it! Look at it... It's like a postcard!

Ok, I took a turn with it too...

Then we shared.

This is the only picture I'm putting up from the Roman Forum cause...quite frankly...it was kinda boring. Too much rubble. I like stuff that's more.....intact.

THE PANTHEON!!! Now THAT was cool.

Lynsey loves the Pantheon...

Next on the agenda was the Vatican City. When we got there, I took a short video clip with my crappy digital camera because...well it's a big circle and no single picture could do it justice unless it was from a helicopter or something...and I left my helicopter at home...

Here's the entrance to Saint Peter's Basilica. See the little balcony that the Anti-Christ, OOPS...I mean, the Pope, comes out? He came out that day, but we weren't there then.

Anyway, that's about all from Rome. To be honest, Rome was one of our least favorite cities in Italy... It was crowded and dirty. We could handle the dirtiness... Heck, we could handle the crowdedness. Most annoying was all the Indians (from India... No offense to Richard and family or Philip and Josh...) who kept trying to sell us crappy rip-offs, flowers, and bracelets made of string. They were so pushy and they kinda ruined the experience. That being said, we don't regret going to Rome... We just wouldn't go back again any time soon, heh heh...

The next day, we headed to Florence. It turned out to be our favorite city on the trip! :-)

In the middle of Florence is the Duomo. It's a big cathedral. I'm really not sure about what's famous about it, but it was a pretty awesome sight! Here it is...

In front of the Duomo is the baptistery. It is believed to be the oldest building in Florence. It has 3 sets of famous doors on it. Each set of doors has a series of bronze panels with Bible scenes engraved in them. One set of green doors tells the story of John the Baptist. The other set of green doors tells the story of Jesus. The gold-colored doors are different because each panel tells a different old-testament story on it. Anyway, here are some close-up pictures of the panels on the green doors depicting different scenes in the life of Jesus. My favorite one is of Jesus' cleansing of the temple.

The doors below are the ones that depict scenes in the life of John the Baptist. From birth to death and beyond... We couldn't get close enough to take many good pictures of that one so I just took one of the whole thing... There's more cool stuff inside but you have to pay to get in, and I'm not down with that, heh heh...

Mmm.....Florence....... It looks so peaceful, huh?

While we were walking the streets, we found a 3-wheel truck, haha... It was so TINY...

How could a person even fit in there? This is me standing on the GROUND and it still looks like I would have to squeeze to fit, haha...

Lynsey found a bottle of what we think is pee... At first I thought it was just a bottle of juice...but closer inspection revealed that it was actually bottle for water...so that made us even more suspicious...so naturally, we took a picture!

Lynsey and the Smart Car matched...picture time!

Some big famous bridge in Florence that has tons shops on it. They look like they're being held up by little sticks. One day they're just gonna fall in...

Here's Hercules and Nessus, the centaur...

Nothin' to see here... OH, well there's David in the background, I guess... Heh heh... Actually that's not the original... The original is inside. That is an exact replica standing in the spot where the original once stood. It would have cost money to go in and see the original.....and well, ya.....

So this is the building where Michelangelo and other famous artists are buried.

That's all I got from Florence... It was a great city though. :-)

When we got to Venice, we were unpleasantly surprised by how cold it was!

But we braved the cold anyway... And so did many others...

With all the little tiny alleys and crowds, you can understand why it would be easy to get lost in Venice... And it didn't help that we had a BAD MAP. :-|

But it was ok!

Here's a gondola.

This picture was taken from on top of the Rialto Bridge. If you haven't heard of it, you should have. Don't ask me why.

This part of the trip was lots of fun! San Marcos Square is so cool! Look at all those pigeons!!! Can you spot me in the picture?

We decided to feed them! :-D

Then we decided to catch one! :-D

This is one confused looking "pigeon."

Ok, the time came to leave Venice for Milan once more...

Here's the train station in Milan:

Here's the Duomo of Milan. Some STUPID person put a big banner up in front of the place. I don't know WHY... >:-(

Here's some of the inside...

They have a dead cardinal in there... He's been there since 1954!

Here we are, resting from all that walking... We were hungry here...and we couldn't find our pizza place...

But we found it and then we went back to the hotel because we were tired and that night was our 3-year Anniversary/New Year's Eve party! We decided to take it easy that day and order room-service for dinner! :-D It was cool. And we thought that since so many special events were happening at the same time (anniversary, New Year's, trip to Italy), we might as well buy a bottle of wine...after all, we WERE in Italy!

BUT, it was a bad choice... I don't know if it was because wine is gross or if it's because we bought cheap wine from a grocery store. But we took about two sips and dumped the rest out! We probably should have bought some from a restaurant or something...or gotten advice from someone who knew SOMETHING about it, haha.

Here's me hating the wine:

She didn't like it either:

We both hated it.

The next day, we had to leave back to Prague. And then a few hours after we arrived there, I had to leave for Poland again. :'-( It was a SAD goodbye that we're both still trying to recover from...

Here's sad us right before I got on the train...

But we are so happy that we were able to spend that time together and to visit such an awesome country!

Until next time...

Love,
Matthew

ps: The BEST thing about Italy is the food... You wouldn't believe it... Find the cheapest Italian restaurant you can find, and it will taste good! The first night in Italy, I ate a deeelicious pizza... I didn't find out until 3 days later that it didn't even have cheese on it! It was a marinara pizza. I didn't know those didn't come with cheese, but the flavor was so good that it didn't matter. I could be a vegan so easily in Italy, haha... If you ever go to Italy, eat as much Italian food as you can there cause that is literally 50% of the enjoyment! (Believe me, I've measured)

The dead know nothing.....except for how to put things into perspective.........

2006-12-20T16:51:00.000-06:00

*****************************EDITOR'S NOTE*****************************

He's alive!!!

**************************************************************************

Tonight in Warsaw, we saw a dead guy. He fell over the ledge by a stairway leading to the underground. My friends and I just happened to be IN the underground and walked by right after it happened. His head was...in bad shape and there was blood everywhere. At first we thought that the people around him were giving him first aid and that he was probably still alive. But when we came back by later, he was still laying in the same position (on his side) and there was nobody around him except for one policeman (standing about 3 feet away just talking on his radio). I'm assuming that he was just waiting for someone to come collect the body, and he had nothing to cover it with.

It was a very disturbing site.

The train-ride back was much more quiet than the ride there. It was just a very sad thing that happened. I don't know any of the details... It doesn't seem very easy for someone to fall where he did, though. They have barriers around the stairways. You'd have to climb over them to fall down. They're too high to trip over...

I know the title of this post mentions putting things into perspective, but I'm not going to talk about that. You get the picture.

- Matthew

ps: On a lighter not, tomorrow night I leave for Christmas break. So don't expect to be able to talk to me on instant messenger...and don't expect any updates until early January! When I DO update, there WILL BE PICTURES from our trip though! :-D

slow week...

2006-12-17T04:17:00.000-06:00

This week is going to be sllllooooooooowwwwww.......

Almost ALL of my classes have been canceled. I could have left for Prague earlier if I had known that everybody was going to be gone and wouldn't need to have class. But ooohh welllll...

On the bright side, it will give me the chance to do laundry/ironing/packing for my trip! :-D

Last week was pretty good. I just did the whole routine, and it was fine. Thursday night, I took my class to the cafeteria and we made burritos! Mmmm....... It was a hit! One of the students told me, and I quote, "It was very very very very very very good." So that made me quite happy. Plus, he was right, it was extremely good!

On Friday, Kay's mom gave me a Christmas present. It was so sweet of them. It was a box of chocolates and a Santa Claus Christmas tree ornament. I ate all of the chocolates that day and the next morning, ha ha, and now Santa Claus is hanging by my window.

Daniel left last night. He was ready for a break from school I guess, so he left a week early. WHERE IS THIS SCHOOL'S PRIORITY, ANYWAY? Honestly! They actually let people just leave whenever they want to? They let students skip class to work....AT THE SCHOOL! How stupid is that? Why don't they have a work schedule that allows them to work AROUND their classes? What part of ED-U-CA-TION does this school not understand, or just not care about? *sigh* It just seems like the school doesn't really care what happens with the students' academics. Do they really just want their money? That's a serious accusation, but honestly, I don't see what else it could be. As Austin Powers' nemesis, Dr. Evil would say, "Throw me a frickn' bone!"

Anyhow, It'll be lonely here without Danial for the week. Daniel, if you're reading this, I miss you. *tear*

After Daniel left, Honorata (say that ten times fast, ha ha) and I made some of the instant mashed potatoes that SWAU sent me for Thanksgiving. They were pretty good...after I added some black pepper, heh heh... They reminded me of mashed potatoes from Ryan's, Luby's, Furr's, and all those other buffet/cafeteria-style restaurants in the States.

We also made the cornbread that SWAU sent us......not so good. In fact...bad, ha ha. It was "Texas-style" cornbread. I don't know what's wrong with those Texans, but I don't take too kindly to having onion, red and green bell peppers, cheddar cheese, jalapeño pepper, parsley, and dextrose (whatever THAT is) in my cornbread. I like my cornbread sweet. Heck, it can even be plain. That's better than spicy. But anyway, I told Honorata that if she could tell me where to get corn meal, I would show her how REAL cornbread should taste. As for the cornbread we made last night....we split one piece....took a bite of it, and then through the whole thing out the window for the birds..... We later concluded that it was probably a death-sentence to the birds, but oh well.

Anyway, I must go do some laundry so that I will have something to wear for.......LYNSEEEEY!!!!! I'm gonna see her on Friday! And then it's off to Italy where my cares will be forgotten forEVER!!!!!!! Or for a week, at least. After which, I'll probably fall into a pit of depression. But why worry about that now??? Heh heh....

Have a good day everyone!

Love,
Matthew

ps: pictures will follow after Christmas Break, so you'll see them next year! He he...

Christmas is coming! And so is Italy!!!

2006-12-11T19:31:00.000-06:00

That feels good to say...

Tomorrow, I'm subbing for my friend, Dawn's, classes. There are 5 of them. And she's paying me! Merry Christmas!!! Hahaha... On the downside, I didn't know what all was involved until late last night. Now I'm cramming (like last year in college) to get lessons planned for this 6-hour chunk tomorrow! AAAH!!!

It's all gonna be Christmas-themed...but I have like....zero resources. If I had more time, I would've gotten some craft stuff or something, lol... But I've starting downloading Christmas songs and I'm thinking about playing them in the background during the entire class, heh heh.....maybe the songs will distract the students and serve as more conversation starters? Conversation is key...

This is a massive amount of stuff to prepare for... I must say that I'm quite intimidated... I almost got nervous a minute ago.... So I did what I always do when faced with too much to do in too little time... I put it off to come here and write this blog post! YAY!!! Now I feel better...

Here's the way I see it: If worse comes to worse, it will just be really akward, with me asking them questions about Christmas, and telling them about Christmas in the US...I just have to keep talking...and if I suck.....well too bad! I'm only doing it once, so it's not like she can fire me or anything, lol... Besides, I really didn't have much time to prepare...like 1 day. And not an empty day, either. A day full of other classes. I had no chance to go to the library or ANYTHING. So they can't expect too much from me. I'm only one man! (and barely that, lol, but that's another story...) Anyway, the important thing is that she get's a good day off cause she works really hard all the time to teach these people, and raise her own 3 kids at the same time. She deserves a break.

Anyways, while I listen to this Christmas music, it excites me! For some reason, right now, I'm feeling the Christmas spirit more than I have in years! Too bad I'm not in my home country for it... But then again...I wouldn't give up the opportunity I have to go to Italy for anything in the world! I'm gonna be at the Vatican City for Christmas day! Stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it, Santa!

Anyway, I'd better get back to my digging. I have to go to bed SOMETIME..... I've literally stayed up all night for the past 3 or 4 days in a row... and then I slept till like noon and started my day again, hahaha.... I need to stop doing that... But what can I say? I'm a night-owl!

I'm sure I have more to tell you.... Oh yeah...my iPod stopped working AGAIN. :-( Who wants to buy me a new one for Christmas? If there weren't only like 3 people that read this blog, I would say that you could all split the cost...but if the 2 or 3 of you split the cost, it'd end up being like $100 apiece, lol... Oh well, I can wish...

I went to Warsaw on Saturday night and watched the Adventist choir practice for a little bit. It sounded quite good... Then again, I haven't heard a choir in awhile so that may have been part of the reason, heh heh... Warsaw is BEAUTIFUL at night-time during the Christmas season. I wanted to take some pictures but when I took my camera out, the battery was dead. Sad day.

When we got back to my pad, we made vege-burgers! Mmmm! except we couldn't find any tomatos that looked appetizing. So we had to rely on the ketchup for our tomato fix. No biggie though.

Did I mention that we have no refrigerator in our kitchen, so I have to use my window-sill? I don't think that's going to work much longer. The weather's getting colder... My milk will start freezing soon... On the plus side, I'll be able to start buying frozen goods! Woohoo! Just in time, cause the fresh foods are starting to be a little less tasty now that they're out of season, haha. And now I can buy lody (icecream)!!! mmmmmmmm.......ice cream....mmmmmm............

Ok, procrastinatin' time is over, now back to the grindstone.....so that I can......grind.......things............

Love,
Matthew

A Gun in the classroom...

2006-12-06T15:49:00.000-06:00

So yesterday, I taught Dolly's class for her while she was gone attending a funural... And one of the students brought a HUGE GUN!!! He had it in this carrying case, and he took it out in class... I looked up and he was holding this enormous gun that looked like some kind of assault rifle! And I was like "WHAT is THAT? PUT THAT AWAY!" (I didn't know what the rules were at the school, but in the U.S. he would've gone to jail automatically!) Anyway, he put it away and class went on without incident...that is, nobody got hurt. Although I WANTED to hurt some of them, haha. Those kids are crazy and they don't listen at ALL!

I'M GONNA SEE LYNSEY 2 WEEKS FROM FRIDAY!!!!!!

that is all.

Love,
Matthew

The pictures that I referred to in my last post...

2006-12-03T03:02:00.000-06:00

Ah heck, I'll just give you a TON of pictures! (40 to be exact :-D) Thanks for being patient! (Not that you really cared...)

Just so you know, I'm putting the captions ABOVE the pictures :-)

This picture was taken in front of my room in the dorm. The open door was mine. I've moved into a new place since then. Anyway, the guy in the middle is Daniel. He is probably my closest guy friend here. Next to him is Kristian. He's one of my flat-mates now. He works in the kitchen and he knows Jujitsu!

Daniel appears to have some sort of obsession with bunnies... Oh and the guy in the middle in this picture is Jarek. He was in the pictures from my trip to Warsaw a few posts back. Check them out...

The girl is Dolly, and the guy is Janusz. He's one of my flatmates. If you're wondering what Dolly is doing, don't worry... There's a painting of a Nintendo controller on my shirt and she's pretending to push the "buttons." Heh heh...

This is Monika Mizura. She's another English teacher at the school. She's Polish, but with a British accent, hehe... I make fun of her for it all the time and she hates it!

The guy on the left is Kristian...I mentioned him before. The guy on the right another English teacher and flatmate of mine.

Speaking of my new home, here is what it looks like from the outside! Well, this building is actually a group of flats. It's like a duplex, sort of... And our apartment is on the left end. So everything on the left side of the brown door is our flat.

Here's my room! In this picture, Janusz is putting up my window-shade so that I could have some privacy...mostly from that pesky sun which always tries to wake me up in the morning... Notice the avacados sitting gracefully on my bed...just waiting to be turned into savory guacamole...... mmmmm.................guacamole..................mmmmmmmmmm................................

This is me in my room, doing one of the things I do most here...playing guitar. :-D

One day, it snowed. Then it disappeared the next day... They tell me that the really cold winter won't start until January.

These next few pictures are from a couple weeks ago at church. Me and my "band" performed for our first time! Heh heh...

I was nervous and in this picture, I was out in the lobby, practicing.

Jarek gave the "appeal" that day. The "appeal" is part of the church service that they have every Sabbath in Poland...all over Poland. But we don't have it in the U.S.A. The appeal is after Sabbath School, but before the sermon... From what I can tell, it's a miniature sermon, and it's always some sort of challenge...like trying to get you to stop a certain sin or trying to get you to improve your life by doing.....whatever. Anyway, they were really surprised when I told them that we didn't have that in America.

Then some of the singers from my group did some praise songs...

Then another group did a special music... (You can see me and Dolly sitting on the row behind the guy playing the guitar, hehe... I was waiting for my turn to sit in his chair and play...)

THEN the time came!

Awww...look at them sing...

Alright, enough of that.....

Now let me show you the pictures from Thanksgiving...

This is Mike's (the American dude's house that we went to for Thanksgiving in Warsaw) evil cat. It's deaf and it's eyes are different colors. But it ALWAYS attacks me when I go there. And for no reason! I try to pet it and it bites and scratches me! Mike didn't believe me when I told him that I did nothing to provoke his cat......oh well...........

Dolly cooked the food...

I helped :-)

Before long, the Turkey was in the oven and my FriChik was on the stove!

I set the table...............what? You don't believe me? I'll prove it!

SEE?!??!?

SEE?!!???!!?

SEEEEEE?!?!?!??!?!??

Here's Mike. He's pretty rad. I love his 'stache, haha... In this picture, he's sharpening his kitchen knife because his landlord (he suspects) has been using his knife as a tool and now it's dull.

Then the guests arrived, and they were hungry!

So Mike and Dolly read Psalm 100 (their Thanksgiving tradition...and I think I'll hold onto it myself too, I like it) and I prayed...

Then we dug in!!!

Before long, I was stuffed...

But I ALWAYS have room for some pumpkin pie with ice cream!

I told like 3 terrible corny jokes within 15 seconds, and Mike informed me that everyone hated me now, haha.....

Here's what was left of the turkey... My FriChik was all gone...I don't know why they didn't finish THEIR bird...wimps.

Dolly wanted a picture with the poultry remains...

Another foul shot.....*snickers*...........

Oh and here's a creepy picture of me looking at you through the mirror.....where's the camera? MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't shave for the entire month of November and all I have to show for it is this:

I put this one in there so you could see more of what my room looks like...

Don't worry, Lyns... I shaved last night.....

Tonight, me and my friend, Honorata baked a pumpkin pie!!! I just took it out of the oven while I was writing this post... Here, I'll go take a picture of it...

THERE!!! Ain't she a beauty? Not too shabby for my first time...

Well I'd love to put more junk up here, but honestly... it's like 2:45am......I gotta sleep SOMETIME......

Love,
Matthew

ps: ONLY IN EUROPE, hahaha..... I took this picture in Warsaw.

This is for you, dad!

Thanksgiving and since.....

2006-11-30T04:45:00.001-06:00

Last Sabbath, Dolly and I went to Warsaw and had Thanksgiving at the apartment of another American living there! It was great!

I'll post my pictures as soon as Dolly sees fit to give me her pictures from that day (hint, hint, Dolly, heh heh.....)

On Sunday, I had classes... and the mother of one of my students told me (based purely on her 9-year-old's complaints) that I need to make my lessons less boring. "Play some games, go for a walk, watch a movie, or something," she said. She agreed that her son was probably only finding it boring because he's 9 and he has school twice in a day. But instead of deciding that her son had better just get used to it, she still insisted that I try to make it more fun... "Ok," I thought, "but she better not expect him to learn as much..." Then she tells me that she wants me to make it as educational as possible... "Pack as much knowledge as you can into each lesson." And I'm thinking "That's what I was DOING before, but now you want me to start watching cartoons with him, playing games, going for walks, etc..." And THEN she tells me that she wants me to start coming 3 times a week instead of twice!

Anyway, I think she's taking her son's complaints too seriously... I mean, I used to say that school was boring... Heck, I probably told my parents that church was boring. But they didn't tell the school to play more games with me (I'll note that the school DID give us recess and P.E., and I still thought it as boring, so I guess games don't work...), and they didn't ask my Sabbath-School teacher to start taking us to the movies to mix things up either. I just had to deal with the boredom because it was for the best. And this kid won't die from a little boredom. I mean, come on.....the class is ONLY 45 min. The class I teach at the school here is an hour and a half! (by the way, his mom toyed with the idea of increasing the lessons to an hour, but I finally spoke up and told her that if he's bored with 45 min., he probably won't learn more by increasing the length of the lessons.

So the last couple of times we've met, we just played games, heh heh... whatever, it makes my job easier...

Ok, sorry for that rant...

Monday night, I had practice with my "band." Hehehe..... It makes me happy to be in a band! I was there when they practiced once, and they asked me to be in it, so now I am! Haha... Anyway, in our practice on Monday, they were brainstorming for names, so soon I'll be able to tell you the name of my band! I didn't offer any suggestions cause I don't speak Polish, heh heh. We're working on some songs... I taught them how to sing "Shine, Jesus, Shine" so we're gonna do that Choir-style... (It was THEIR song-choice, not mine, heh heh...) And we're also singing a Ukrainian song, choir-style. I still need to work on that one...strange words. And then there's a song that they're singing, and Daniel and I are playing guitar for it. We've only practiced that on one night, so we've got work to do on that.

I borrowed a microphone from Janusz for the last few days, and I was able to talk to Lynsey on Skype a few times this week. So that was really nice. Although he took the microphone back last night. I still have another one that I borrowed from him. But It's not a cool headset. Oh well...

Tuesday night, the Apple place called me and said that my iPod was fixed! So yesterday, I went to Warsaw to get it. And MAN, those busses are confusing! Daniel told me that they were confusing and I told him "nah, they're not too bad." But yesterday, I proved myself wrong, haha... I thought the busses went in a big loop, but it turns out that they go all the way to one end of their route, and then they stop, and another bus with the same number leaves at that point and heads back the opposite direction again. So I rode this bus all the way to the end and had to get on the other bus and go straight back the way I came again! I rode 20 stops the wrong direction! All I had to do in the beginning was cross the street and take the bus 6 stops in the other direction! So I wasted tons of time, and money, cause I had to buy a new ticket when I switched busses. Argh... But it's ok, cause when I finally got to the place, I found out that they weren't going to charch me for fixing it! Yay!

Then on my way back, I stopped at a grocery store, and I had a list of things that I wanted... So I started putting things in my basket as I walked around. But then I noticed that they didn't have everything that I needed. So I went and put everything back. "I'm not gonna buy some things here and some things at another place. I'd rather just find a place that has everything that I need," I thought. But as I left the store, some guy stopped me. He didn't speak English, but he motioned for me to follow him. So I followed him back into the store. And he took me to where the soap was (one of the few items on my list that they had). He pointed at it and said something in Polish. And I was like "I don't speak Polish." and he said "I don't speak English." Then he motioned to me to follow him again. He took me to a back room of the store and said "Empty." and he pointed at my backpack. It was at this point that my suspicians were confirmed: He thought I had stolen something. So I empltied my bag, let him search my coat, etc. Then he was like "ok, sorry." And I left. Then he stopped me again on my way out cause he saw a lump in my coat (more like a poof. It was made when I put my backpack on). So I showed him once and for all that I DIDN'T have anything. And he let me go.

I'm NEVER going back to that store. They don't have the things I need, and then they accuse me, an AMERICAN, of stealing?!? I don't THINK so, mister!!! Just because Polish people like to steal things, does not mean we do. Haha... But seriously, I'm not going back.

Last night, I made haystacks! They were SOOOO GOOOD. And I stuffed myself to the max! That made me happy.

Anyhow, I have to go eat breakfast.... I will be surprised if any of you read this whole thing. I babbled a bit...sorry.

Love,
Matthew

ps: pictures to come......right Dolly? ;-)

I'm Not Dead!!!

2006-11-21T17:29:00.000-06:00

I'm still here!

Sorry I haven't written in awhile! I've just been keeping myself busy...or at least entertained, heh heh.....

I moved into my new apartment on Friday! I live in a blue room! I put a poster of Uncle Sam on the wall! Haha... Anyway, I have Internet now!

I've been enjoying myself lately... I have a bunch of friends here now and my favorite hobbies lately have been cooking and playing guitar! Both of which, I've been improving on greatly! So I'm really happy about that.

Other than that, it's just teaching classes and stuff...

The other day, I ran out of money and I prayed for God to find me a way to make some more money, and then out of nowhere, I met a girl who spoke English at the train station... She asked me for my number cause she wants to take private English lessons! So I might be able to make the extra money that I prayed for! God really takes care of us... :-)

So now that I have the internet, I should probably post some pictures.....

This is me and my boss... (Dolly!) The picture was taken the first weekend after I got here:

This is the burrito I made using the pinto beans that my mom sent me!

Here's some pictures of the preschool I worked at in October. Lynsey came with me to see the kids when she visited. But I don't work there anymore.....little kids aren't my cup o' tea for teaching... But they were cute kiddos:

Here's a bunch of pictures that I took when I visited Warsaw for the first time with Jarek.

This is MY train.

And......his.....

Here's a view of the train, from the train...

Here's some buildings in Warsaw that they are renovating. they're turning it into a giant shopping center, me thinks.

This is the Culture Center... It has a movie theater, a regular theatre, and a Museum....maybe even more... (Can you see the bird about to land on the fountain? Mwahaha.....)

Here's me in the movie theater part of the Culture Center:

Jarek and I actually went to Warsaw that day to try and find places that would be good for me to propose to Lynsey at. Here's a little park we found. He had these two girls take a picture of us on the bridge, haha..... Can you read the discomfort on my face? Hahaha.......

It rained.

Then we saw a concert......a concert for the Pope..........the dead one. Haha... They were praying to him while we were there! Jarek got scared, so we left...

Here are some scenes from the old town:

Anyway, life is pretty good now..... I took my iPod to an Apple place in Warsaw and they're gonna try to fix it! So I'm supposed to pick it up sometime this weekend! :-D

Well, I love all of you friends and family! Have a great second-half of your week!

Love,
Matthew

I'm moving soon.....

2006-11-13T08:59:00.000-06:00

I was just told that I should be moving into my new apartment this week. And when I do, I'll have internet IN MY ROOM!!! WOW!!!

When that happens, I promise to write on here more often, and will start posting pictures again!

Love,
Matthew

PS: MY GLASSES BROKE TODAY. I just picked them up to put them on, and my lens fell out. So I thought "Oh I just need to pop the lens back in." But then I looked, and the frame around the lens had broken in half. They're irreparable. :-( I think it was because I left them at the house of one of my students one time, and his dog chewed them. The lens kept popping out ever since, and I had to keep putting it back in. And over the course of time, I guess the frame just became too week and broke. Now I can't see very well anymore......

On my classes...

2006-11-06T12:57:00.000-06:00

My private lessons are going pretty well, I think. Here's how they look:

Kay: (pronounced "Kie" like... "Kite" or exactly the same way my friend "Ky" pronounced HIS name) This kid is like 6 years old. He speaks English, but at a 6-year-old level. That's pretty good considering it's his second language. Anyway, he could always use help building his vocabulary, and plus, anyone who knows a second language needs to practice it or they get rusty, and sometimes even forget most of it after awhile. (That was a run-on sentence, and I don't CARE) But his REAL problem is that he can't read. Not in Polish, and certainly not in English. He can write... I mean, he can copy letters, write his name, etc. So at least I don't have to teach him how to use a pencil, haha... So anyway, my job is to teach this kid to read, build his English vocabulary, and talk with him so that he can improve his fluency. Oh yeah, and I'm also supposed to teach him math. Haha... Hey say what you will about my math skills, but I think I've pretty much mastered it at the first grade level! Today, I started teaching him how to read. Up until now, I've been trying to teach him the alphabet, doing some math with him, reading to him, playing with him, and other stuff. We meet EVERY DAY except for Sabbath and Sunday. And I have to WALK like 30 minutes to get to his house and of course, 30 minutes back. Good for the old legs, I guess.

Cezar: This guy is about 40 something, I'd say, and he's a very polite man who needs to improve his English for his work at the airport. He's an emergency airport fire dude. (That's the technical term for it...) Anyway, he is a very smart man... And he always does his homework. He used to take English lessons from another girl, I think, and she left, so I just told him to bring the book he was using before, and picked up where she left off! I enjoy talking to him. We meet anytime we have a chance. See, his work schedule is different every week, so at the end of every lesson, we take out our calendars and decide when we can meet next, haha... He comes to the school for the lessons.

Jędrzej: (Pronounced "Yen-Jay") This guy is 17. He plays hockey on a league. He's nice....strange, but nice. I have to take a train to get to his house every Thursday at 4:30pm. His room has strange writings all over the walls with black marker. On his door there is a drawing (in black marker) of a man with spiky hair getting kicked in the face by a giant foot. There are scary-looking posters on the wall... And he has a drumset in his room too. Basically, when I walked in, I thought "This dude is a hardcore punk-rocker, and he's going to kill me if I make my lessons too hard!" His head is buzzed so he resembles a skin-head... So that didn't help. But then I heard the music that was playing from his computer......and it didn't sound like hardcore punk at all! It was Bobby "Boris" Pickett's 1962 hit "Monster Mash!!!" And the rest of the music he played was all ska! Strange...I never expected him to be a ska fan. And most of it wasn't even rock ska. It was some kind of light ska! Anyway, I must say, I'm puzzled and rather curious to learn more about this guy, haha. He wants to learn English better because he has to take a test next year in order to make it into college. Plus, by learning English, he'll be able to talk to people from all over the world when he travels with his hockey team.

Wiesław: (Pronounced "Vee-yes-wav") Dolly and I call this guy "Tit-man" because when we first met him, he told us everything we wanted to know about cow tits and more. Hahaha... He works in the dairy farm equipment business. He needs to improve his English because he travels alot for his company. He's a salesman, I believe. Oh I forgot to tell you, he looks like he's about 35. He's also a very polite man, and when he talks to me, he seems sincerely interested in everything I say. It makes me feel very grown up, haha. He's a Catholic, so I can't have classes with him on Sabbath, and he can't have classes with me on Sunday. We meet on Mondays and Wednesdays......usually, heh heh. These things change pretty often though with his work/family schedule. He also meets me here at the school for the lesson.

Kuba: (Pronounced "Koo-Bah") He is like 8 or 9, I think. He can read, but he doesn't speak very much English. I have to walk to his house, and it's also like 30 minutes away. Nice kid. I think he's improving. We meet twice a week. Sunday and Monday.

B-14: (That's actually supposed to be written in Roman Numerals, but I didn't want to confuse you and make you think that it was someone named "Bxiv", hahahahaha......) This is the name of the one CLASS that I teach. It's a class of 6 or 7 students (depending on who shows up, heh heh). They're all really funny, and it's SO fun to teach them. I teach them on Thursday nights at 7:30pm.

Kris: I just started his lessons today. He is about 50. He needs to learn English for HIS company. He works for Mars Inc. (you know, the candy bar company?) Anyway, he's a nice guy. I have to take a train to his house, which is in a city that I've never been to before today. It's a city called "Grodzisk." I think I spelled that right. Anyway, he's a really nice guy. His wife is nice too. She's an interior decorator, and I can tell by looking at their house! I think we'll be meeting twice a week: Monday and Tuesday. But this week we meet 3 times. So maybe if he likes that, we'll keep meeting 3 times a week.

I should be getting two or three more private students in the mornings starting this week... We'll see if I do or not... If I don't, I'm going to contact the pastor of the church here (who speaks zero English, by the way...) because he really wants to take private lessons from me..... I'm only hesitant because I don't see how I could teach him if he can't understand a word I'm saying..... But I may have to... Hopefully he can meet with me on Sundays...

AND That's all....

I have to go get some sustenance or I'm gonna pass out.

Love,
Matthew

Just a Thought...

2006-10-31T01:20:00.000-06:00

It used to be that when I was counting the days till I got to see Lynsey, I knew I was getting close when the expiration dates on the milk jugs started landing on the days that I would see her.

Today, I looked at my milk carton, and the expiration date was March 29. By then, I will have seen her twice!

Why does this system seem less comforting in Europe?

- Matthew

PS: Happy Halloween. Get lots of candy for me cause they don't have Halloween here in Poland. However, tomorrow is All Saints Day or something like that. So I have the day off! Woo Hoo!!!

I think I broke my foot / I miss my fiance...

2006-10-29T07:32:00.000-06:00

Ever since I jumped out of the second-story window over a week ago in order to go pick up the love of my life from the train station, I've had a ever-worstening limp. Last night, after I took my shoe off, I noticed that I had an ankle the size of a watermelon! Ok, maybe that's a small exaggeration, but still, it was obviously swollen... My friend's girlfriend saw me limping and asked me a few questions about it. She told me that I should wrap my foot/ankle. But I don't know where to get an ace bandage or anything... *sigh*

It doesn't help that I've been depressed ever since Lynsey left... I got into the groove of things here and I was doing ok... Then Lynsey came and I had the most amazing 3 days since I arrived in Poland, and one of the most important days in my life. But now that she's gone, I feel like I'm starting all over, and I don't know what to do. :-( I no longer feel comfortable here. I feel like a lost puppy, haha... That sounds so lame and cliche, but seriously, that's a good description of me. I wonder around trying to find something interesting to do to keep my mind off of Lynsey... I don't feel very much like I'm in control of what's going on anymore...

Ok, now that I've complained, I'll be a little bit more positive now... I'm starting to come out of that rut... I only feel that way when I'm not busy, haha... and last week I was not nearly as busy as normal because 2 of my students were out of the town for the week. One of them was Kay, who I spend the most hours with every week. So with him gone, I was left with not much to do but sit and think.

So I started cooking more. Last week, I went and made pasta for Monika, who told me that she normally doesn't like pasta, but she loved it when I made it! :-D Then, Friday night, I (well, Dolly and I...) made Mexican food! Tacos and Burritos and guacamole! They didn't turn out perfect because I undercooked the beans by about an hour, haha... But I've never cooked raw pinto beans! Sue me! Anyway, everyone still loved it so it was great. Then last night, I made pasta again for Daniel and I. Daniel didn't think that he would like it, but it turned out he loved it too! He told me that "Lynsey's lucky because your such a good cook," haha... That made me happy.

This morning, I played ping pong with some of the guys. I was surprised...I haven't played in who knows how long.....at least a year. But I think I was just as good as the other guys as soon as I started, hehe...yay! However, that's not saying much...none of us are that great. But if you know me, you know that I love to play games with people who are either worse than me or at the same level as me, haha. I hate to lose. That's why I hate baseball and basketball. I'm horrible at them! Haha...

I finally got my computer connected to the internet for the first time since I got to Poland. So now I can get on my instant messengers again every once-in-awhile. The only problem is that I don't have internet in my room. So I have to take my laptop to the computer lab or the library to get it online. It will be that way until I move into my flat which they are renovating. It's almost done....I think. When I move in there, I'll have internet, so that will be great.

That's all I can think of right now...

- Matthew

A Very Long Engagement...

2006-10-22T12:41:00.000-05:00

Lynsey got here on Saturday morning, and after some trouble (to say the least) finding eachother, we came back to the school and spent the day here. It was much fun...

Then today, we went to Warsaw.

To make a long story short, we went to a beautiful park, and I proposed to her there. She said YES!!! And then we spent the rest of the day exploring the beautiful Old Town Warsaw and talking about everything. It was fabulous.....

The End.

PS: Here's the ring!

PPS: If you want all the details (in a way that only a girl could tell them), I'm sure Lynsey will be writing a blog post about it soon here www.lynseyholm.blogspot.com As for me, I'm just happy that it's over, hahaha, too much stress!!!

Lynsey's Coming!!!

2006-10-20T08:12:00.000-05:00

Lynsey will be here tomorrow at 6:15am!!!

I'm really excited because.....well, I miss her. :-)

This week was pretty cool. I never told you about my trip to Warsaw on Sunday. I was going to post pictures from it, but...eh....not now. They weren't very good anyway. I don't like my camera very much. It keeps taking bad pictures.

I had a good week though.

LAST NIGHT I GOT MY FIRST SWAU PACKAGE!!! THANKYOU SWAU!!!

They sent me pinto beans, AAAHH!!!!! So I'm going to make Mexican food soon... They also sent me a SWAU T-shirt, a bunch of candy, the SWAU weekly planner (with my picture on the front!) and some other nifty trinkets! But my favorite thing was the little American flag! I hung it on my wall to remind me of home! :-D

Anyway, I've gotta go prepare for my last lesson of the week! Then I'll have a weekend of fun with my lovely Lynsey. :-)

- Matthew

MMMMMMmmmmmm!!!!!

2006-10-15T01:12:00.000-05:00

I made guacomole (my very first time ever!) on Friday night, and it was deeeeelicious!!! Maybe the best I've ever had! Or maybe I just missed it so much that it made it taste better, heh heh. But I made it at my friend, Monika's apartment, and she LOVED it too! Mwahahahahaaaa!!! I made it again last night, for some guys in my dorm and they liked it too...well except for Daniel, but that's just because he hates Czosnek (garlic). What a freak, haha. Anyway, I'm so happy that we have all the ingredients for guacomole readily available so that I can make it anytime I want! Now all I need is some pinto beans for burritos! But I think I'm going to try making them with kidney beans soon, just to see how it tastes... Any suggestions? No, dad, they don't sell dehydrated pinto beans here either.

Yesterday afternoon, there was a concert by a group call "Via Fides" in the church. They weren't that great in my opinion. Well, actually, they would have been much better if they had made the music a little bit quieter and turned up the mics. But then again, I think it's also partly that I don't like hearing songs that I know in Polish...the language messes up the songs! haha... Oh well...

I'm going to try to go visit Warsaw today...we'll see if I can......anyway, I'm outta here.

Till next time,
Matthew

God is good... But Satan can be sooooo annoying!

2006-10-13T03:37:00.000-05:00

I've been doing pretty good with teaching, I think. MUUUUCH better than I was afraid I would be. I feel really comfortable in front of my class and in the private lessons. I think it's because I pray to God every day, and usually before every class. So He has helped me tremendously! Thankyou, God!

Contrarily, Satan is annoying the heck out of me! I accidentally left my glasses at one of my students' houses, and when I got them back, they had bite marks on them from the dog! The glass has teeth marks on it! *heavy sigh* LUCKILY most of the marks on on the right lens...and that's my bad eye, haha, so I'm still ok. :-P

Anyway, I gotta scram. I have to go to the preschool. But hey, remember to pray without ceasing, it's been working for me!

Love,
Matthew

Ps: According to Dolly, I'm the best-dressed guy on campus! Take THAT, Lynsey!!! Hahahaha...

PPs: Tonight, I'm making guacomole so that Polish people will be able to get a taste of some Mexican food! And...so poor little Americans like Dolly and I can reminisce about the beauties of home... And.....because that's the only Mexican dish that we have ingredients available for in Poland.

How do you teach someone to read?

2006-10-10T08:56:00.000-05:00

So my first week of teaching is over and I'm well into my second...

I think I'll live through this year...but that's easy to say now...considering Dolly's helping me with my lesson plans...ok, since she reads my blog, I should tell the truth.....she's actually WRITING my lesson plans for me, haha...

My weekly schedule is filling up. I work at the preschool every day but Tuesday. Then I have a class on Thursday nights. The rest of the time during the week, I spend teaching private lessons. I have 4 students that I'm giving private lessons so far. But it looks like I could be getting 2 or 3 more soon. So I don't know how I'll cope with it. I'm afraid of taking more than I can handle and looking stupid, but then at the same time, I don't want to look like I'm lazy and refuse students either. I want to feel like I'm settling into a nice routine (cause I loooove routines!), but I don't want to get too comfortable or else I might get caught with my pants down (figuratively, of course.....)!!!

Anyway, I've been talking to some of the students here and making friends, so that's cool. I've decided to try an open-door policy for my room. I don't have a roommate so sometimes I get a little lonely. And all the guys here sneak into their rooms and close the doors at night, never to be seen again. So I'm going to leave my door open and play music at night to try to coax them out. I want to make my room sort of a chill place. So they can come in and chat, learn English, etc. It'll be the H-I-P place to be! Party at my place!

WELL......I got nothin' else right now. I'm out.

- Matthew

My new home, new job, new boss, and new life...

2006-10-03T16:11:00.000-05:00

I'm tired, but I don't know when I'll get another chance to write, so I'm gonna tough it out!

I got here on Sunday, and I met Dorothy. Dorothy, also known as "Dolly", is an American girl from Pennsylvania. She came here like 3 years ago as a student missionary like me...only.....she decided to come back the next year...she learned Polish...and then she decided to stay! Crazy huh? She switched schools and graduated here in Poland. Now she's the head of the school of English here! She sings opera...and......so far, I like her! It's fun to have an American around finally! Even though she's a little older than me (24) and she's...my boss. But Maciek was my friend and my boss too, so it can happen, I guess.

She has a pet rabbit that lives in her room.....it lives only to eat. It's not afraid to walk up and jump into your lap...but it won't come near you if you don't have food, hahaha.

The town that I live in is like...1/5 the size of Kartuzy (the town that I worked in before), and THAT was a small town! There's basically NOTHING here. There's like 3 or 4 tiny shops in the whole stinkin' place! Basically, if I want anything other than fruit, vegetables, mayonaise, and meat, I have to go to Warsaw, haha... But again, that's ok, because the fact that warsaw is only 25km away is awesome! It has everything!!! I even saw iPods for sale in a store there! And if you ever came to Poland, you would know that's not a common occurance.

As for my room, I live in the dormitory at the university. My room is a typical dormroom, bunkbed and all. But the matress is much better than anything I've slept on since I got to Poland! Last night, I actually slept all the way through without waking up once! That's the first time since I left the USA, I think! Oh, and there's a possibility that I will be able to have the internet in my room soon! However, if I know anything about Adventist technology departments, they take their time... So I'm not expecting to have the internet for awhile...until they get AROUND to it...

And now for my new job...

Well...for starters, I'm working at a PRESCHOOL Monday-Friday for 4 hours every morning. I'm supposed to try to teach the kids some English while I'm there.....THAT will be interesting. Heh heh... Let's just say that I'm studying to be a HIGH SCHOOL history teacher for a reason. But, I knew this year was going to be a challenge before I came, so I must press on! Besides, I might learn some important lessons for the future?

Then, in the afternoons, when I'm done with the preschool and I've had my lunch, I will be teaching English to...everyone and their mom. Heh heh... I mean, I'm teaching private lessons to anyone that comes and signs up for them. So far, I know I'll be teaching a 6-year-old boy, a big scary-looking man, and another kid...he looks like he's about 11 or 12. I don't know if that's all the people that I'm gonna be teaching or not. It doesn't sound like it though. I think there are more that I don't know about. See, ever since I got to Poland, I have had a huge problem with people not telling me things until the last minute. I mean, I didn't even know I was moving clear across the country and getting a new job until a few days before I left! Polish people don't seem to value COMMUNICATION as much as we Americans do, heh heh...

Today was my first day at the preschool. It went ok. None of the kids speak English. And my co-workers don't either...just a few words. But that's also kind of good, haha. You see, I never have to take a leading role because they can't tell me what to do, hahaha. I just follow their lead and play with the kids the rest of the time. By the way, I work with two girls. They look like they're about my age. They're really good with the kids. It's funny, the kids all have their favorite girl to go cry to. And the girls pick them up and hug and kiss them and make them feel better. It was beautiful to look at. It made me miss my mommy. :-(

Then when I got back to the school, I had a meeting with a lady that wants me to give her son private lessons. When she asked me why I came to Poland, I tried to be vague, and I told her that I took a year off of college to experience living in another country and to see some historical sites since I'm studying history in college. I didn't tell her that I'm a missionary because I thought it might make her scared to let her son near me. Most Polish people are Catholics, and they think anyone that's not Catholic is just...well weird and cultish. So I was surprised when Dolly went on and told the lady that we're Seventh-Day Adventists and proceded to tell her in detail why I came! And I was even MORE surprised when the lady asked us to give her some literature about our church because she was interested in knowing more about us! It turns out that she's "searching"!!! So we'll see where that goes. :-)

UGH, then while we were eating lunch, Dolly got some crazy allergic reaction to the food and she ended up having to go to the hospital... I was originally supposed to be observing her class this afternoon so that I could see her teaching methods and get a feel for a class in action. But since she was going to the hospital, she wasn't going to be able to teach this afternoon. So as she was going out the door, she told me "My class starts right now. There is a yellow book on the desk, do the exercises in it with the students." and that was it! Suddenly, instead of observing my first class, I was expected to teach my first class!!! I was horrified. So I went in, and the problems started right away: There wasn't one yellow book. There were 3! I finally figured out which one was the right one. But then I found out that 5 of the students didn't have books. They said that Dolly had made print-outs for them. So I had to look for the printouts. Well there was a stack of papers about a foot high sitting on the desk. Haha... So I finally found them. And we had a class...or something like it. I ended up talking with them for an hour and then letting them go a half-hour early because we ran out of things to talk about, heh heh. But I think I could have and would have made it if it wasn't for the fact that I couldn't do the listening activities cause I didn't have a tape player. It was locked in a cabinet, and Dolly had the key. But the kids were happy to get out early, and all was not lost.

I ended up having to put a note on the door telling people that Dolly was sick and her classes were cancelled. Then I put on my scarf/jacket and went on a long walk to relax my spinning head and find my legs that were still shaking from being in front of the class. I finally stopped at a small cafe and bought some of the most delicious zupa (soup) I've ever had! Say what you like about Polish food, but they know how to make soup! I'm almost possitive that this soup was artichoke flavored, and it had chopped, boiled egg in it. It was deeeeelightful! And it came with bread and some delicious garlic/chive butter. Mmmm...

While I was eating, I got a call from Dolly. She said she was back from the hospital and was teaching the last class of the day...what a hero! So I came and watched her teach.....she's a genius, I tell you! I hope to be as good as her one day.

Anyway, tomorrow holds more challenges so I must go to bed.

Love,
Matthew

Ps: Lynsey's coming to visit me in 2 1/2 weeks!!!

PPs: My birthday's in 2 1/2 weeks!!! (October 22) So if anyone wants to send me an iPod (yeah right, in my dreams)...or some American food...like refried beans!!! My address is:

MATTHEW MIZE
WSTH
UL. JANA PAWŁA II 39
05-807 PODKOWA LEŚNA
POLSKA

I told you that most people in Poland are Catholic...notice that the street I live on is called "JANA PAWŁA II". That means "John Paul II," HA HA... By the way, did you know that in Poland, PUBLIC SCHOOLS teach Roman Cathololicism? They have "religion class" in Public schools! That would be EXTREMELY ILLEGAL in the USA, hahaha...

I'm here!

2006-10-01T14:06:00.001-05:00

I'm in Podkowa Lesna! It's 25km outside of Warsaw.

I'm happy so far. I have my own room, and I will have the internet again! Anyway, I have to go now...

- Matthew

I'm Moving!

2006-09-29T07:15:00.001-05:00

Our school is not working out. We don't have enough students.

SO, on Sunday, I'm leaving for Warsaw to work at the Adventist university there. The ONLY Adventist university in Poland.

I'LL BE THERE FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR.

So this is BIG NEWS!!! I'm moving clear across the country and I'll have a new boss and everything. I don't know how much my stipend will be now or even everything that I'll be doing...

I know that I'll be working at a preschool for like 4 hours a day and then I'll also be teaching English classes...probably private lessons.

So like I said, I leave the day after tomorrow...pray for me!

A New Phone!

2006-09-26T05:36:00.001-05:00

I bought a cell phone yesterday, so if anybody wants to call me, either comment me asking for the number, or sent me an email. I’ll send the number out to all my myspace friends in a bulletin, and I’ll try to send a small mass email to my family with it. I just don’t want to post it here for EVERYONE to see. If you want to call me, I suggest buying an international calling card. It’ll save you some money! If you want to call from a cell phone, I think there might be separate calling cards for that too… As for me, I can receive calls and text messages for free, but I can’t call out of the country for free. In fact, it costs a lot… Anyway, if you need someone to talk to, I’m a great listener, heh heh…and…I’m lonely. L

So lately, I’ve picked up reading…pretty much anything that I can get my hands on, heh heh… Right now, I’m working on a book of American Literature…a sure sign that I’m desperate for the English language, haha. However, I will be SKIPPING any sections on poetry, bleh!!! Yesterday, I read “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”…or at least as much as they had of it. I think it was only part of the whole story, but whatever… Then, last night, I read half of Benjamin Franklin’s “The Autobiography.” It started out slow, but now I’m into it, and I’m enjoying it. The guy was incredible! A little conceited too, but at least he admitted it, heh heh…

Anyway, Maciek’s girls are running around, screaming, so I’m a little distracted. I’ll write more later.

Love, Matthew

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a REAL update…

2006-09-25T03:41:00.000-05:00

The last couple of weeks, we’ve been frantically trying to advertise the school. We’re running into problem after problem and it’s really frustrating… People don’t seem to be very trusting of new-comers here. There are 3 other language schools here, but we’re the only school with a native English-speaker (me). So it’s strange that we haven’t attracted more people. Maciek has been really stressed because if we don’t get enough students, we won’t be able to afford to keep the school open…or to feed his family! He hasn’t been sleeping at night because he’s so stressed. It’s sad…

This week has been a little encouraging, though. We’ve been praying, and it looks like we just might have enough students for one group… That’s pretty good, considering that we were afraid we wouldn’t even get that. The only problem is that we are supposed to have a lot more than that! At any rate, it looks like we’re changing our strategy. We’ve started advertising private lessons. So if we don’t get enough students, I may end up not teaching classes, but rather working with people one at a time and charging them by the hour. In fact, I’m meeting with my first student on Tuesday at 5:00pm. It’s an 11 year-old boy who barely speaks any English… He didn’t understand 80% of what I said when he came in to sign up. It was frustrating. His sister speaks English pretty well though. So maybe she can help me…at least translate some vocabulary words for him.

Last weekend, Maciek and Agatha had to go to a wedding on the other side of Kolobrzeg. I went, and stayed in Kolobrzeg at Tomeck’s house. Tomeck is the guy who runs the language school in Kolobrzeg that I was originally SUPPOSED to work at this year. While I was there, I got to meet a girl named Christie who is from the US! She goes to Union College, but this year she’s a student missionary at the language school in Kolobrzeg. (In other words, she took my job!!!) Some other people that worked there include an older Australian couple, and a German girl who speaks English very well. They were all really nice, and it looks like they have a lot of fun there…I was a little jealous. But that’s ok… I got to go to the beach while I was there, so that was fun. Plus, I bought myself some European shoes so that I won’t look conspicuous, haha…

I’ve been settling down here… I’m well acquainted with Maciek and Agatha, I know the city pretty well, and I’m enjoying myself. Buuuut, I wish Lynsey was here with me so that she could see what my experience is like…and so I’d have someone to hug. L Oh well. This week I met a couple of Englishmen in town and talked with them…I could barely understand what they were saying most of the time. I had horrible sores all over my mouth (And I don’t know where they came from!) so that it hurt to eat and drink, but they got better this weekend, whew… OH, and I read To Kill A Mocking Bird in 3 days. It was aight.

But THIS weekend was really cool! We were expecting like 15 people to come over on Sabbath, but they called the night before and told us they weren’t coming. So we decided just to spend Sabbath at home, resting…considering there’s no Adventist church around here. So we had our own worship service in the living room (ie: my room), and then afterward, I went on a long bike ride! I road to Lapaice, the town that we live by (about 2 kilometers from our house). Then I road to Kartuzy, the town that we work in (another 5 kiloCommeters). And then I ate some ice cream and read in the park for a couple hours. Then I road back home. It was a looong ride, and a great workout. But at the same time, it was a great Sabbath rest. My mind was what needed resting the most! Today, we got up and did yard work aaaallllllll day. I was excited because I love doing yard work here! It’s the only thing I do here that I can actually see tangible results from! Working at the school is frustrating because I have to try to make lesson plans, and I don’t even know HOW. But at home, when we work in the yard, I can do what I know how to do, and no stress is involved. J We cut down like 4 or 5 trees together and burned the branches. Then Maciek decided we should stop for the day. But after we ate, I snuck out and cut down another tree, haha. Maciek found out and he laughed because I kept working even though he had stopped. Then I cut down ANOTHER one after he left! I got a good workout this weekend, heh heh……and a lot of blisters. K But the yard is looking muuuuch better. Now we have a view of the lake from our house! When we’re done with this yard, it’s going to look like the hanging gardens of Babylon! Oh and I forgot to tell you that I went for another bike ride today. This time Maciek came with me, and we got ice cream. So my legs feel like noodles after this weekend.

Tomorrow it’s back to the ol’ grindstone… Pray for us so that we’ll get enough students to be able to support the operation of the school and so that we’ll have more chances to witness to people about Christ.

Time to hit the sack...

PS: I bought myself a packet of garlic powder this week. It has solved all of my food problems, hehehe…

PPS: I want a new iPod for my birthday this year. Mine broke. L Last time I bought mine used. This time, I want to get a brand new, 60GB iPod and keep it for the rest of my life.

PPPS: I’m going to post more pictures next time.

Love,
Matthew

Some pictures from my new home...

2006-09-13T09:52:00.000-05:00

This is where I live....on the other side of that wall, heh heh...

This is the driveway leading away from the house...I took it in the same spot as the last picture. I just turned around.

Below is our view as we drive down the driveway. This was taken the first day I got here. Normally it's very sunny. At least for now. Later this winter, it'll be all white, haha...

The rest of the pictures were taken as we drove home from work one day.

This one's in Kartuzy (where our office is)

Another one in Kartuzy. I thought the sun made it look really cool.

This is what the drive is like between Kartuzy and the house.

Here's the gate to our driveway....Yeah, I live in a cushy gated community....next to a castle. It's not as great as it sounds, heh heh, but it's fun to say. The fact is, everything is super high-security here. There are so many burglaries and robberies that all the windows have bars and all the cars (no matter how ghetto) have alarms. I once saw a mini-van's car alarm go off...I laughed so hard... As for the castle.....well I'll put more pictures of it up later, and I'll tell you it's story then.

Click on these pictures to see them bigger...especially the ones below. This is the view from the top of our hill. I think it looks like something out of a fairytale it's so pretty. :-)

And last, but not least...here is our car...alarm and all. Haha.

PS: I hate posting pictures on blogger. It's so confusing!!!

Trip to Gdansk...

2006-09-09T14:07:00.000-05:00

I'm in Gdansk right now at my friend, Kris's house.

Maciek brought me here on Friday for two interviews at language schools... Our school's turn-out isn't looking too promising so far. We don't start for two or three weeks, but we only have like 3 people signed up so far! So Maciek is trying to find me a teaching job in Gdansk at one of the 150 language schools in Gdansk, haha... He wants me to work here for 2 or 3 days a week and then help him in Kartuzy the rest of the week. That is, IF things don't turn around at our school before the school-year starts.

I didn't like the idea at first because I didn't come to Poland to work at a language school run by non-Adventist strangers. But I'd just be doing it on the side while I helped them start the school in Kartuzy. This is our school's first year, so I can't expect everything to run completely smoothly. Besides there are alot of English-speaking people in Gdansk. And if I work at a language school here, I'll be around lots of other Americans! So we'll see what happens.

Maciek took me to a vegetarian restaurant (who knew they had vegetarian restaurants in Poland???) called Green Way. I had the enchiladas. I haven't had any Mexican food since I got here...in fact, most people here haven't had Mexican food in their LIVES!!! The only person I know here who has had Mexican food, had it while he was visiting America. So when I saw that this restaurant had Enchiladas, I HAD to have them! They didn't taste the same as American-Mexican enchiladas, but they were still REALLY good!!! I'm definitely going back there!

Tomorrow, I'm going shopping for a nice jacket to wear with my dress-clothes, a big thick coat to wear in the bone-chilling Polish winter, and a battery charger for my camera. I haven't taken a single picture since I got to Poland because my batteries are dead! So once I get that, I'll start putting pictures up all the time!

Well, I'd better go...goodnight!

2006-09-06T06:35:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, September 6, 8:48am:

Yesterday, a journalist came to the office and interviewed us. We’re gonna be in the newspaper on Friday! That lady was seriously crazy… She took a picture of us, but she kept snapping it when we weren’t ready. It’s going to be a funny picture, heh heh…

Then later on, a couple girls came into the office. They were probably about 15 or 16. We all talked for awhile. It was fun. Then, one of the girls brought in her English homework from school, and we helped her with it.

Today those girls are going to bring some friends, and I’m going to teach them a practice lesson. That’ll be interesting…
Also, we’re going to go to schools today to try to advertise our language school. We’ll see how they respond.

Read ALL the previous posts!!!

2006-09-04T03:14:00.000-05:00

I just posted like 5 or 6 entries that I had saved this whole week. So after you read all of them, you'll be caught up!

2006-09-04T03:13:00.000-05:00

Monday, September 4, 6:58am:

Yesterday was a pretty good day. Maciek sat me down in his kitchen and we had a meeting about teaching. We took a break to go outside and pick mushroom (bleck!) and then came back inside and finished.

Then Maciek and I cut down three trees to try to get a good view of the lake from the house. So far, we still can’t see the lake, but I think the neighbor is going to cut down a couple of his trees also so that will help. I had fun doing that. I’m much happier here when I’m keeping busy. I chopped up all three of the trees myself, and we’re using them as firewood this winter…as soon as they get a woodstove installed… Yeah, this house is pretty ghetto.

Maciek was very impressed with my hard work. I’m glad because ever since I’ve gotten here, they’ve treated me like I’m sort of…inferior… I mean, they have a stereotype of Americans being lazy and spoiled. And maybe that’s true for a lot of us, but not all of us. America didn’t become the world’s only superpower by being lazy!!! That’s been bothering me this whole week. I keep hearing snide remarks here and there about what they suppose I’m thinking. They have to try to guess what I’m thinking because in actuality, I haven’t complained or failed to do anything they’ve told me to do all week. I didn’t even make a face when they fed me the slugs (mushrooms)! I’ve been fighting the stigma as hard as possible, and I think I’ve finally made some progress yesterday.

Dinner was good last night. We had broccoli pasta. And they put lots and lots of garlic in it…mmmmmm….I love garlic. Then after dinner, Maciek wanted to watch a movie with the whole family, and he asked me if I had a good comedy. Well I had “The Gods Must Be Crazy” (a very old, but very good comedy, haha) on my computer, so we watched that. But I don’t think they liked it…The girls couldn’t understand it because it was in English, so they talked all the way through it. And by the end of the movie, Maciek and Agatha had wandered out of the room. *sigh* I guess I chose a boring movie, haha. But I still like it.
Today, we’re supposed to go pass out more fliers…fun. Oh and I might get to use the internet on a dial-up connection in the office! Maybe I’ll FINALLY be able to post these entries?

2006-09-04T03:12:00.001-05:00

Saturday, September 2, 11:14pm:

Yesterday we were supposed to pass out fliers in surrounding villages, but we never got around to it. We started out the day shopping for supplies for the school. Then we went back to the office and met a friend of Maciek’s who came to visit.

They started talking, so I went for a walk. It was a very calming walk. It was good to get away from them…and just be alone. So I went and bought an ice cream cone, and then I looked around in little shops for awhile. Then I found a small…what looked to be a mall. There were a whole bunch of stores in it, and then I found a grocery store with a lot more selection than Biedronka. I was happy to see that it had a lot of American stuff in it…although it still had no cheddar cheese or pinto beans…so no Mexican food. *sigh*

On my way back to the office, I ran into Maciek, who was on his way to buy more school supplies. So I went with him. After we got those, we bought some groceries. He was impressed by the store that I found, so I think we’ll go there often. J We got some cake for Agatha because her birthday was on Thursday (nobody told ME!!!). And when we got home we had a birthday dinner for her with candles and cake. That was fun…

Today, we got all dressed up and went to Gdansk for church. The church was actually someone’s small apartment, haha… We sang and had church in their living room. Maciek translated for me. A couple of the guys spoke English, so that was cool. Then after we were done with church, they let me use the internet FINALLY!!! So I was able to check my email and I saw that Lynsey was really worried about me (I’m not surprised, I knew she and probably everyone else would be…). So I sent some emails and checked my blogs. That felt really good…to finally communicate with the outside world. After that, my day turned up. J

I came out of the room and had lunch. We had some kind of soup with cauliflower in it. It was actually really good! I burped it up the rest of the day, and it was good every time, hahaha… Then I went back and used the internet a little more. Too bad I didn’t know that I would be able to use the internet, or I would have brought my flash drive with these journal entries so I could post them online. Oh well, next time… Maybe Monday.

When I came out of the room that time, there were a couple of girls in the living room with everyone else. They spoke some English too, and they wanted to practice on me, haha. So everyone decided to go for a walk to the small lake nearby. And while we walked, I talked to the people who knew English. That was fun. We decided that we would definitely come back and have church there again sometime.

Then we left because Maciek wanted to show me the Teutonic Knight castle in Malborku. I guess it was the biggest castle that the Teutonic Knights had. It was really cool. They let me go in while they waited outside. They said they’d been there a bunch of times and they didn’t want to spend the money again. So I went in and looked around for a little bit, and then I saw a group of people taking a tour and the guide was speaking English! So I followed them around. It turns out that this was a class that had students from all over Europe in it. I think they go to a bunch of historical sites or something. Anyway, I had some nice conversations with them during the tour.

On the way home tonight, Maciek’s daughter, Yagota (spelling?), put her face up against my cheek and hugged me. Then she said (in Polish, of course) “Why does he speak English?” Haha, she’s five years old and she’s so cute. Her sister, Yashmina (spelling?) is also very very cute. She’s three. I’m trying to help them learn English, while also trying to learn some Polish from them. They both call me “Wuyak,” (spelling?) pronounced “vu-yock,” which means “uncle.”

Tomorrow, Maciek and I are going to cut down some trees. Then we might also go for a bike ride, and I don’t know what else. I’m thinking about riding a bike to the school from now on…but I’ll wait till after tomorrow to make that decision. I’d probably have to walk the whole way back because the hill we live on is a doozy!

I’ll write again tomorrow night, maybe…

2006-09-04T03:12:00.000-05:00

Friday, September 01, 9:22am:

I woke up early, took a shower and shaved. Then, after my devotions, I cooked some breakfast for everyone. I made oatmeal on the stove with cinnamon and raisons. Then Maciek came downstairs and told me that they don’t eat oatmeal very often…like once a year. Hmm… I don’t think they liked it. I thought it was pretty good, but they never complimented me on it or anything. They just ate it. Haha…oh well…

Then, to make matters worse, once I was all full, he started making the mushrooms that we picked yesterday! So I had to eat an entire plate full of mushrooms and onions…Lynsey, I know I always criticize you for judging food by its looks and texture alone, but I literally gagged when I ate this because it seriously felt like I was eating a plate full of slugs. I feel like I’m in a year-long episode of Fear Factor.

Anyway, it’s about time for us to leave for town again.
Bye bye…

2006-09-04T03:11:00.000-05:00

Thursday, August 31, 7:01pm:

When I woke up this morning, I could barely walk because my calves were so sore from yesterday. I had to walk like my legs were made of wood. Chris and I made some pancakes and I had to whip eggs with a fork. That’s hard to do when you’re used to using an electric mixer, or a “robot,” as Chris calls it, hehe. Anyway, the pancakes were good. I ate them with honey…not the kind of honey we have in the US. This honey is harder, and more natural. It’s not transparent; it’s like a pale yellow color.

Then later we went to town and Chris helped me buy some hairspray and cleaner for my glasses. After that, we passed out fliers at houses around town for awhile. Then Chris got on the bus and went home. This weekend he has a wedding to go to, but the next weekend, I’ll go to Gdansk and visit his house.

After we left Chris at the bus station, we went back to passing out fliers for awhile longer. Then we went to another city to pick up some white boards for our school and some chairs for the office. When we got to the store with the chairs, I could hardly walk. My legs hurt so badly. That’s NEVER happened to me before! Anyhow, the store looked like a Home Depot inside. Maciek said that stores like that never existed in Poland until two years ago.

When we got back, we found out that lots of people had called and asked about the school so it looks like we’re in business! Then we came home. When we got here, Maciek, his daughters, and I looked for mushrooms growing in his yard and they picked them. I guess we’re going to be eating them tomorrow… I’m nervous.

I’m a little stressed out right now… I was hoping that I could let you guys know how I was doing on Tuesday, or at least by Wednesday, but it’s almost Friday, and I’m still just writing these things and saving them for later. I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to get in touch with any of you yet… I’m worried about what you might be thinking. I hope you aren’t too worried about me. We still don’t have access to the internet. L

I miss Lynsey. I love you, babe…I wish I was talking to you now. It looks like we won’t be able to go to England this month…I think school starts for me that week. L

Love,

Matthew

Ps: On a positive note, the sun was out today and everything was beautiful. J

2006-09-04T03:10:00.000-05:00

The first day of work…

Wednesday, August 30, 9:36pm:

My calves are killing me! We distributed fliers today in “flats,” a word that is very deceptive, considering that they aren’t flat at all. They are huge apartment buildings and they are everywhere here! So we had to go in and put fliers on the doors of every apartment in every flat. That’s like 109,302,390,920,238,900 stairs!!! Well, that’s a rough estimate. Anyway, I got lost at one point and had to wander around for awhile, but Maciek found me later, heh heh.

Then, tonight, we visited the only other Adventist family in the city. We had a Bible study…except I couldn’t understand a word anyone was saying, so I just sat there. I tried to stay awake by petting the wiener dog that they had (a VERY common dog around here). But it was to no avail, I fell asleep. It was kind of embarrassing, but I didn’t care too much because I was so exhausted from the day’s work/jetlag. Then I woke up and I was freezing because I was wet. I forgot to tell you that we passed out those fliers IN THE RAIN in cold weather…like in the 50’s, I think. But I was so hot from running up and down all those stairs that I took off my pull-over and my long sleeve shirt, and I went just in a t-shirt. So then I spent the rest of the day in wet clothes.

Maciek told me that he can give me some recorded English-speaking sermons. So I can listen to them on my iPod when we go to church. So that’s good J.

Oh I almost forgot…Lynsey, you’re going to love this. I had to eat coleslaw, bread, tomatoes, three different kinds of cottage cheese, a cucumber, and some lettuce for BREAKFAST today, haha. I’m seriously going to die here. Where’s the pancakes?!?!??

Polish ice cream bars are different than American ones. They taste a little different, but just as good, only in a different way. The one I had was called “The Big Milk.” Haha… Anyway, those things don’t melt! Seriously, Maciek opened his ice cream bar package, took a bite, laid the thing down on the dashboard of the car and left for 10 minutes. Then he came back, picked it up, and ate the rest of it! It hadn’t melted at all. It was so funny.

Alright, well I’m hitting the sack now. Tomorrow, we pass out MORE fliers. But this time they are at separate houses instead of flats. So no more stairs! Yippeeeeee!

The Trip to Europe

2006-09-04T03:09:00.000-05:00

Monday, August 28, 12:11pm:

I was supposed to be flying to Chicago at 12:19, but now my flight is delayed. This is the second time that’s happened to me. And I was flying to Chicago that time too…… I just hope I make it there in time to catch my flight to London! I don’t want to spend another night on a wooden bench in Chicago O’Hare!!!

Tuesday, August 29, 6:45am:

Well, I’m in London!!! The flight to Chicago was ok, except that there was a baby sitting right in front of me who cried the ENTIRE way there. Ugh… But anyway, by the time I got to Chicago, it was already time to board my flight to London, and I was very happy about that! And let me tell you this: I have NEVER been on a plane that big! It was a Boeing 777, and it was 9 seats across! (Yes, Israel, I realize that I’m being excessive with my exclamation points, but this is big news to me!) I found my seat, and it was exactly THE WORST seat on the plane. It was right behind the bathrooms so there was a wall right in my face, no place to store my laptop under my seat, no TV screen to watch the movies, AND I was smack dab in the middle seat with 2 people on each side of me! I thought it was going to be the worst flight of my life…..BUUUUT since all the flights into Chicago were delayed, a lot of people changed their flight plans and didn’t show up for this flight, so I was able to choose a new seat….A WINDOW SEAT with nobody beside me! Thank God for delaying the flights to Chicago! I never should have questioned him! J Oh, I forgot to mention that I left my passport at the check-in counter in Tulsa, and the guy who helped me there just happened to be the same guy who loaded us onto our plane so he just brought it with him and gave it to me when he got there. I didn’t even know I had left it! Then, on the plane ride to London, I accidentally left my watch in the “lavatory” (I never call it that…) and when I realized it was missing, I checked the bathroom, but it was gone. Thank goodness, though, that somebody turned it in to the lost and found, so I got it back (although, I don’t think anyone would have wanted to steal it…it has a picture of Lynsey and I in the background, heh heh).

I can only describe the view from the plane as we landed in London as a giant sea of lights…everywhere…… As I looked down at the streets and saw the cars driving on the wrong side of the road, I realized that this is FOR REAL.

Now I’m waiting in Heathrow airport for my next flight which will take me to Copenhagen, Denmark… (DENMARK?!?!?!? Yes, Grandpa, Denmark. Haha, inside joke) Anyway, that will be the first non English-speaking country that I will encounter on this trip. Thank goodness I don’t have to change airlines there because it was a NIGHTMARE here…so complicated! I had to check my carry-on bag because it was too big. I can’t imagine going through all that in a country whose language I don’t speak.

Well, I guess I’ll write more later!

Tuesday, August 29, 9:54am:

I’m still waiting for my flight to Copenhagen, but I thought I’d let you know something about my wait…

First of all, it’s crazy here cause they have a BIG waiting place where everyone stays together and they all watch the screens to see which gate their plane is taking off from…It seems very inefficient because…I don’t know, it just seems like they should already know which gate they’re taking off from. But at the same time, it’s a pretty genius strategy for business. You see, this place is not just an airport…It’s a MALL. And the mall surrounds the giant waiting spot. So people get bored of sitting around and they go and spend money.

I had a bowl of porridge a few minutes ago. It was my first experience with it. It was pretty good! They served it with a little thing of honey. Mmmm… I had some orange juice with it too, and that wasn’t so good. It tasted like they made it strictly out of the orange peelings.

As I sat there eating my porridge, a man who had just bought some coffee was looking for a seat and I told him to come over and sit at my table. I noticed that he had paid with American Dollars, so I wanted to talk to someone from home, heh heh… The man was probably in his 60’s, and it turned out that he was Ethiopian. We had a nice long talk about politics, religion, history, and everything in between. It was great.

Well that’s all for now…

ps: There’s tons of people from India here, haha…

Tuesday, August 29, 6:37pm:

I’m here! I was the LAST person through customs, but when I walked through the doorway after the baggage claim, there was Maciek and his friend, Chris! Yay! We went from the airport to our office in Kartuzy right away. And on the way there, I discovered that they drive on the same side of the road as we do in the US! I used to think that everyone in Europe drove on the left side of the road, but now I know that it’s not America who is backwards, it’s England!!! That makes me so happy! Haha…

On the way to the office, Chris gave me a banana because I was hungry. The banana was good, but when we got to the office, I was still holding the banana peel and a wasp landed on it and stung me! This was as Maciek was introducing me to his wife! That was embarrassing because I threw the banana peel on the floor, and they didn’t know why, hahaha…

Anyway, I need to try to shorten this, so I’ll make a short list of things I’ve learned here so far:

“Dobra” means “ok”
Here, they have little tiny shops that sell everything, whereas in America, we have little shops that sell one type of thing, and huge stores that sell everything.
To flush the toilet in my house, you have to pull up on some sort of...thing…
Not only do I not have my own apartment anymore, I don’t even have my own room…There’s only two bedrooms: One for Maciek and his wife, Agatha (she told me to call her “Aga”) and one for their two daughters. They said that they haven’t figured out where they’re going to put me, but it seems pretty obvious to me. There’s no place but the living room.

Be right back, I’m being called to eat some cake, hehe…

I’m back. Mmmmmmm, that cake was good! I normally hate cake, but this wasn’t American cake…it was different. Some kind of apple cake.

Anyway, Maciek’s friend, Chris, and I went and bought me some toothpaste and hair gel in Kartuzy earlier. It was fun! I like that little town. Chris is 25 years old and he lives in Gdansk. He’s going to be helping us pass out fliers for the next few days. He says he wants me to come to his place on weekends and I can go to his church where there is a youth group and possibly some English-speaking people! This is great because I’ve been hoping that there would be a way for me to spend lots of time in Gdansk, and now here it is!

Well, anyway, I’ll write more again later…when I actually have access to the internet. By the time you read this, I will have probably been here for 2 or 3 days.

Thank you for your prayers!

Love,

Matthew

Standby for updates...

2006-09-02T07:24:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted any updates. I've had ZERO access to the internet since I got here. I've been writing blogs in Word on my computer every day, so I'll post those when I get a chance. Right now I'm using the internet at church, which is in someone's small apartment. I didn't expect to have internet here, or I would have brought my blogs on a flash drive. Anyway, I'll keep trying to get internet though, so until then, be praying for me.

Love,
Matt

2006-08-28T07:49:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm leaving today...yikes.........

There's no turning back now........

PLEASE PRAY FOR ME!!!

Updates will come...

2006-08-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

I leave for California next Wednesday... and then I get back...only to leave for Europe a week later... AAAAHHHH!!!!!!!

By the way, here's a small update...

I signed up to go to Europe as a student missionary thinking that I was going to have a pretty easy job... I mean, I wasn't going to be doing evangelistic meetings in hostile jungle villages or anything... I was just going to teach English to Polish people. The only thing that made my job qualify as missionary work was the fact that I just might make friends with some of my students and end up sharing my beliefs. No biggie, right?

So I bought a book about teaching English, and began the wait for more teacher training when I got there. Well, guess what???

I GOT A CALL FROM THE TRANS-EUROPEAN DIVISION...

And to make a long story short, they changed my whole mission... I'm still going to Poland, but now I'm going to a totally different city where there is no school, no Adventist church.....no Adventists at all!!!

Maybe I should give you just a little bit of background (as far as I understand it, at least)...

These two guys (Tomasz and Maciek) started this school 10 years ago... It's lasted till now. But at the end of this last school year (Beginning of June), one of the guys (Maciek) decided to move away to a new city and start another branch.

So he's there now, and they are sending me to stay with him and his family. My job: I HAVE NO IDEA. But apparantly, I'm supposed to help him start a new school from scratch. Oh AND start a CHURCH in a city with no Adventists!!! AHHH!!!

So I'm pretty much terrified.

But we'll see what happens... I'll make it through the year alive, and that's all that counts...well......not ALL that counts. But my point is that, yeah, it may be hard. And maybe sometimes I won't know what to do. But even if I just sit there and do nothing and screw everything up, I'll still have my health, right??? Ew...that's still not a good way to look at it.....umm..........

No matter what situation I get into over there, I'm going there for God. And if God wants me to be there, he's going to use me in a way that will further his work. So I know that I will be successful, even if I don't feel like it sometimes.

*gulp*

I Leave in 18 Days...

2006-08-10T03:24:00.000-05:00

Wow...

I'm gonna make this short and sweet for the record. I signed up to go to Poland and teach English at a language school with other student missionaries.

Turns out that now It'll just be me, a Polish man and his family. Our mission: To start a new school and a new church in a city with no Adventists. *faints*

Can it be done? I've never done anything like this.

Stick around, and you will see how I cope this coming year. . . . . . . .