Missouri in Mazury

Yesterday I took B to a playground in a mall. We were in the elevator heading down to the play area when I got sanctimommied by a total stranger. Scene : B and Mama in the elevator. Mama pushes the button, forgetting that it's B's duty do so. B begins to whine. Enter Older Lady. Older Lady: she's obviously hungry. Mama: [laugh] Older Lady used the feminine version of the adjective rather than the male version. Older Lady also didn't know B had just finished eating chicken strips and fries from KFC. I'm sure I would've gotten additional comments if she had known that.

I'm not sure if it was due to the move and being in a new, unfamiliar location or if it was due to reading this book, but I had nightmares while reading this one. I woke up each night screaming, thinking someone was standing above me. So, by any standards, I'd say this book was amazing. The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey is about a little girl named Melanie, who is very special. As the official description goes, "every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau...

I'm not much of a cook - I've burned noodles in the past - but there are some recipes that I really have to try, and they usually end up turning out well. I'm a pierogi-making master, for example. For our housewarming party, my cousin-in-law brought over this awesome salad that I've been obsessed with ever since. I'm not sure where she got the recipe, but I'm going to share it here, because it's amazing. I suppose you'd categorize it under "pasta salads", so it's definitely a healthy food for every occasion. Proszę bardzo: tortellini salad! Ingredients /Składniki: Tortellini (the recipe in Polish calls for pork ones, I think any kind are fine) / 500 g makaron tortilla z szynką 2 cucumbers / 2 ogórki 2 chives / 2 szczypiorki 1 can of corn / puszka kukurydzy 150 g (5.3 oz.) ham / 15 dag szynkę 1 package of dill salad dressing / sos koperkowo ziołowy 1 or 2 spoons of mayonnaise / 1, 2 łyżka majonezu Cook the tortellini, drai...

We recently picked up and moved across the country - from Mazury to Lower Silesia. I'm not changing the blog name just yet, because "Missouri in Śląsk" doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Not only was this a big move, because of distance (it's 580 km / 360 miles, or a 6.5 hour drive from our previous location), but it was a big move due to the fact that we're no longer in a tiny village. Our previous street address listed the village name as the street, because the village was too small to have street names. Now, we live in Wrocław (pronounced vrots-wahv). We went from a village of barely 100 people to a city of almost 700,000. We went from me being the one of three immigrants in the county, to being one of hundreds. Wrocław is currently the European Capital of Culture. It is also known as the "miasto spotkań" (the meeting place) and the city of bridges, as there are around 100 bridges in Wrocław (if you include footbridges in parks and bridg...

We're not in Mazury anymore, Toto.

Years ago, my mom bought a magnet that I'm able to relate to more and more. A woke me up this morning by calling my phone and having B talk to me. B came into our room, made himself comfortable on the bed next to me and was chatting away. Then he asked about the kitty. Slowly it dawned on me that B thought he was talking on the phone with my mom. Oh shit, I even sound like my mother!?

Rage (Gniew)  by Zygmunt Miloszewski is the third book in its series. I mainly read this book, because it was one of those Kindle First books offered (for May?) and the rest of the books offered looked terrible. I had also previously read  A Grain of Truth (Ziarno prawdy)  in Polish and English (recommend!) and really enjoyed it. Now all I have to do is read the first book in the series,  Entanglement ... I read this series a little backwards. I actually preferred book #2 over this one: I didn't like the ending, mainly because I found it too confusing as a reader (I don't like being left out of the loop for so long, though I had suspected something). I especially liked this book, though, because I'm familiar with Olsztyn and its 11 lakes and did enjoy reading a book set in a familiar location. As a person with a translation degree who works in the translation industry, I also have to give a shout out to the translator, Antonia Lloyd-Jones, who totally kille...

You can actually catch them all in Warsaw! It's not sadly barren like up here in Mazury - I was very excited. You can tell I'm such a dedicated Pokémon player, looking at my level... Park Łazienki   Centrum Andrzej Duda also plays ;)

Missourians would hate these Mazurian roundabouts ;)

I was introduced to Kelley Armstrong in September 2014 with the first book in the Cainsville series, Omens . While impatiently waiting for the next books to be printed, I dove into her other series, including the Darkest Powers, Darkness Rising, and, finally, Women of the Otherworld series. While I highly recommend reading her books, I'm just finished the Otherworld series and it's fresh in my mind. I really enjoyed most of the characters, though I absolutely hated the 5th book and thought it was completely unrealistic (and I know - it's a book about ghosts, so how realistic can it be? But that was bad). I especially liked the stories about Savannah, which we got to follow to the end. The prologue to  Thirteen  describes Kelley Armstrong's own journey while writing the novels. She writes that it took her a while to figure out the direction of the series, but that when she did, it really clicked. As a reader, that's very apparent. The books ranged from amazing to...

Customer service in Poland is always something interesting to compare to that in the US. In a lot of ways, it's improved considerably, but as an instructor once quoted the French as saying, it leaves much to be desired. Two examples. My brother, his wife, and her dad were visiting last weekend and we wanted to have a good ol' American BBQ. Except for hamburgers, because beef in Poland, at least this part, isn't used that way and when it is, it doesn't taste the same. We also added in some kaszanka (blood sausage), because when in Poland, do as the Poles do. And kaszanka is delicious. But we needed corn on the cob. Luckily, we have a Tesco, which features a lot of foods that "typical" Polish stores don't have (it's a British store). Tesco had corn on the cob, A grabbed it and went to check out. Unfortunately, he couldn't actually buy it, because it wasn't in their system. No corn on the cob. Fast forward to their visit. It was HOT. For...

First of all, if you had told me 10 years ago (or even less) that I'd be excited for my little brother to visit, I'd call you a freaking lunatic. But, that's how it goes, I guess, and here we are: me, excited to have my brother and sister in law (and her dad) visit in a few days. Three sleeps and they're here. That's what I get for living in a village in the middle of nowhere. And I'm actually excited for my little shit of a brother to visit! You would be also if you lived in this village, though, trust me. As I told him, I'm mostly excited to see his reaction to my MIL speaking Polish to him and laughing at her jokes, which he won't understand, because it'll all be in Polish. My mom recalls our Polish wedding, when my MIL was chatting away for a while, and then brought my mom to "chat" with her sister (all in Polish). My mom can say "jesteś dupkiem", "dzień dobry", and "do widzenia" (kinda). This is gonn...

A's nieces and nephews range in age from 18 to 5, and most of them are learning English. Most are also really shy to speak English around us, because they're afraid to make mistakes. I always tell them this story to try and break the ice, hoping that they'll see mistakes happen and it's not that awful. I mean, can it get worse than this? Story One: Poop. First, some vocabulary: Głowa (gwoh-va) - head Gówno (goov-no) - shit This was way back when I started learning Polish. I was visiting a friend for the weekend and had a headache. Instead of telling her that my head hurt, though, I informed her that my poop hurts. I don't remember the rest of the conversation, but I'm guessing it was interesting. Story Two: Sputnik. For the longest time, I also thought everyone here was weirdly obsessed with the Russian satellite. Everything was Sputnik this and Sputnik that, even though the rest of the conversion was not space-related. I finally asked about i...

I don't actually live in Mikołajki, but it's close enough that I think I can still call this past weekend a "staycation". We are in a converted Prussian schoolhouse that now has six apartments; one apartment is empty, one is ours, two are neighbors, and two are brothers in law and their families. My MIL lives a mere 3 minute walk away. Needless to say, I sometimes need to get away. Last weekend we stayed at a cousin's husband's parents' guesthouse on a lake near Mikołajki. The only downside was that the weather decided to suddenly become cold and rainy (whereas the previous week had been in the upper 70s and lovely). Poland . We headed out Friday evening after work. As soon as possible! There was some sleeping in the car on the way there and we had to take some drastic measures to ensure the light wouldn't be in our eyes (he covered his face, not us). I recommend visiting Mikołajki, especially in the off-season. It's probably prettie...

The first thing I have to confess is that I've never read Jane Eyre . In all honesty, descriptions of the book have seemed boring and overly romantic. I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time just two years ago (and have since read three more by Jane Austen), so I really should probably give Charlotte Bronte another try, especially after reading The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I got this book, because there was a kind of "chain letter" going around Facebook where you'd basically swap books with strangers - I had done this type of chain once before when I was about 8, but that was with bracelets and it didn't go so well. In this Facebook book exchange, I've so far gotten six books and this is the second one I've read of them. I had another Jasper Fforde book on my list of books to read, so I was really excited to get this one in the mail. I had another book to finish, so I wasn't able to start on this one immediately. The Eyre Affair ...

Spring has arrived in Mazury officially (it's been at least a week of good weather, I call that official)! You might even say that summer has arrived, since this weekend reached a high of 25C/77F, which is basically a Polish summer. Here are some things you can enjoy during a Mazurian spring: 1. Scenery! 2. Mosquitos and mosquito and fly poop all over my monitors (thanks to living in the Masurian Lake District!) 3. Lakes (thanks to living in the Masurian Lake District)! There's more, like BBQs, dog poop everywhere, etc., but I won't post pictures of that. One food item that was present at our most recent BBQ was this thing: Which led me to the conclusion (although it's been obvious for a while) that Poles will make sausages out of ANYTHING . This particular sausage, I had just assumed it was a white sausage - a meaty one. The descriptions says "nasza kiszka ziemniaczana" - so something with potatoes, but I disregarded tha...

This weekend is "Majówka" (my-OOV-kah) in Poland. It is essentially our American Memorial Day weekend, except that May 1 is Labor Day and May 3 is Constitution Day, but it's also celebrated with BBQs and trips to the lakes (all the Varsovians are up here in the Masurian Lake District for the weekend). Side note: we bought B some new t-shirts on Friday and I noticed yesterday that one shirt says "festival dates" and underneath "3TH". Oopth. May 2 falls in between, so it's also usually taken as a holiday. B's preschool was supposed to be open today, but when we took him in they informed us that too few kids were there, so they were closing also. Awesome. For the first time since September, the weather is actually also really nice. And I'm inside. OH MY GOSH. My windows are open, but I can see into the garden where everyone's having BBQs and I can hear the music (disco polo, obvz - here's a sample of disco polo , the best of 201...

2/5 Mr. Muo is one of the sleaziest main characters I've encountered, and the story drags on - overall, I would not recommend this book. Mr. Muo is searching for a virgin to have sex with Judge Di as a bribe. Ew. The book follows his quest to find this virgin, with some odd tangents along the way. While I enjoyed the tangents and some of Muo's escapades, the story was overall just too sleazy for my liking.

Growing up with a bike-obsessed dad, I learned to also enjoy bike rides. Now that it's warming up and B's got his balance more or less under control, we've also started biking together. B has a balance bike here, which he loves riding. In the past two weeks he's started to enjoy riding with other kids, watching them race and balance. Now that I have my first Polish bike EVER, he also insists that I hop on my bike and ride around outside with him - which is what we did today. We rode around on the side roads outside - him on his balance bike and mama on her bike. After a while, he noticed his helmet sitting in the kid seat attached to my bike, and we rode around on my bike for a bit. Then he decided he missed his bike and that he also wanted to ride in puddles, so we parted ways. The puddle was deeper than expected a few feet further along, so we had to run inside for a costume change. Hopefully it warms up soon so we can go on longer bike ri...

I learned a new phrase this week, thanks to the moms in that mom group mentioned in my previous post. It literally translates to "buttery butter", but means "tautology" in English. That's not quite the best translation, since the words are different registers, so maybe something like "talking out of your ass" is a better description. Either way, the Polish version is better. Now, here's how I learned this wonderful phrase! As mentioned in the post before this one, I signed up for an event comprising of local moms. I was excited to meet some new people who live nearby. The group itself is called "K Moms" - K being the city I'm located in. The event was called "Meeting of Moms in K". You'd think that most of the moms would be located in K, right? Sorry, nope! Most who are attending the event are located in W, which is 35 minutes northeast of K (for reference, I'm located 15 minutes from the event location in K). Ok...

I've been here for a while, but have yet to find women nearby who I'd consider friends. For most, the roles of men and women are very clearly defined: women take care of the home and family; men go to work and do manly things. There's no grey area, and I don't really fit into the mold of the typical village woman. I've been waiting and searching for someone (my age!!!) in the villages and small towns nearby to prove my observations as incorrect. I don't define myself as just a wife and mom, although my family is important to me. I also like talking about things like languages, history, books, sewing, travelling, and  Buffy the Vampire Slayer . I can be the typical woman, but it's not really my style. I can sew (when I'm in the mood): I sometimes cook (varying degrees of success, sometimes there's a need for a fire extinguisher): Side note: I also like putting my kid to work! Recently I've turned to Facebook to find like-minded pe...

I feel so inadequate. All the stay at home moms here have blogs. What am I supposed to do? Just watch my kid and work?! No way, I need to re-start this blog thing. Because when I write it totally makes sense and things. And who else am I going to whine to? My husband? Friends? THE INTERNETS!!!! So here's a story: The mailman is afraid of me. We live in an old schoolhouse (Prussian) turned into six apartments (one is empty). Our apartment has its own entryway, so we have a mailbox there. But, there's this big thing called "theft" here, and if anyone delivers anything larger than a letter (which goes into the letterbox on the door - we had to buy that because the mailman kept whining, but that's another story), then it has to be delivered to an actual person. Anyway, I guess the mailman is sick of me and my foreignness (although last time he told me my Polish is much improved, because I said the word "tutaj" without an accent, I guess). Now inste...