My German Counterpart

Friday morning, I couldn't sleep. At 5:30 am, I was completely awake and alert (of course, I made myself a cup of instant coffee--that always helps). There were people coming...people with flat midwestern accents...people I've known longer than four months...people from home. Well, not just "people"--my friends.

At 8:00 am, I met Lacey, Nate, and their friend Sirina (from Washington State) at the Wrocław airport. They were the first familiar faces I had seen since leaving Nebraska in February. Actually, I hadn't seen Lace and Nate since they had moved out of their campus housing at NWU in January. Therefore, we had five months worth the bullshitting to catch up on--on Friday, I don't think we stopped yapping.

They had left their Universities in Marburg and Giessen at around midnight, so they hadn't actually "slept." More or less, they'd napped in the airport and on the plane. We took the bus back to the bus station in Wrocław (about a 30 minute ride) and then we took the tram to Hala Torgowa so the Americans could expirience the Polish bakery. We arrived at Ołowek at aout 10:00, and spent an hour hanging around my flat catching up since the dorm administration wouldn't allow me to check in my guests until 11:00. The room they ended up with was on the 17th floor, which was really cool. Honestly, this guest room was quite a bit nicer than my room...but that may have been because it was cleaner...and it had a loft. Anything with a loft is cool--maybe that's why so many people move to New York.

After checking my German visitors their Ołowek rooms, we went out to explore the city. I took them to Misz where they expirienced their first real Polish meals. Either they liked periogis or they're all really good liars. They also tried barszcz and bigos.

Lacey can't walk down the street like a normal person. Lace and I met at church our freshman year of college, so it was only fitting that we have our photo taken in front of a Catholic church while we're in Europe (at least, that's Lacey's reasoning).

We went to St. Elisabeth's church near the Rynek where this woman was nice enough to give us headsets that tell you the history of the building (she failed to mention that it would cost us 5 złoty--it felt really strange to be cheated out of money in a church) and play some very nice classical music. Lacey was dancing to Ave Maria in the back of the vestibule.

Lacey's St. Ives face wash was taken from her at the airport due to the new liquid rules. So, we stopped at Rossman to try and replace it. Nate made himself at home while we bought water (they didn't have the right kind of face wash).

At the University main building, we stopped to see a choir of American students from Wisconsin. They're discussing something very important here...just not important enough for me to remember what it was. I was busy taking pictures.
It was really fun to usher my friends around the city and play tour guide. In the past month or so, I've gotten very accustomed to Wroław--all the sights and sounds have become a part of my daily routine. That's not necessarilly a good thing; I've sort of stopped "seeing" the city. Once again (at least for those two days), I had people whoe would ohhh and ahhh at Polish architecture with me.

Nate liked the Ostrow Tumski...he took lots of picures. Of course, I have this tendency to copy people when they have good ideas, so I took a few more pictures of the Cathedral to add to my collection. Nate's pictures are much better than mine...which is why I'm making plans to steal them ASAP.
We went to the top of the Cathedral--the final tower in my tour of city viewing points. There's an elevator, which means you don't have to risk your life on the stairs.

Nate, Lacey, and I ended up hanging out at the top of the Cathedral and talking for almost an hour. It was about 15 degrees cooler up there than on the ground, and the view was unmatched. It seemed like a good place to share stories of our study abroad expirience.
We may be University students who are supposedly mature enough to study abroad, but we couldn't resist playing in one of the fountains in a graden near the Cathedral.
Poor Nate.

Back at the dorm, Nate had to climb up the ladder outside his room just to see what was there: nothing that interesting.

We ended up at Bravo, the little pizza place down the street from Ołowek for dinner and then we went back to the Rynek for piwo at Spiz. Nate was honing his photography skills (and consequently has some really cool pictures of the Cathedral at night), so it took us at least 45 minutes to get through Ostrow Tumski and to the Rynek. I tried to take cool pictures too, but all I got was a nice picture of a spider. My camera doesn't work well in the dark. Nate dubbed the carmel piwo at Spiz "candy beer," and Lace said that it was good as far as beer is concerned. We got back to the dorm at 12:30ish...and just talked. As I said before, that entire day, I don't think we ever shut up.

Saturday morning, Nina and Steffi joined us for pancakes complete with peanut butter from my parents. Then, we headed over to the Odra river for a kayaking extravaganza. Lacey and I are very bad kayakers. How either of us has a driver's liciense is beyond me. We hit the bank within the first five minutes...but we did get better. Nate and Sirina have a little more skill with navigating aquatic vehicles. And they found a soccer ball in the river...which they threw at Lace and I.

While attempting to get from his kayak to the dock, Nate dropped his cell phone in the river. It just fell out of his pocket and "ploop," it was gone.

After kayaking, we wandered around the city a little more. Sirina found a playground and this weird swinging ladder thing. Lacey was the only one who got across it with "no hands." We definately need one of these in our back yeard next semester.

It may be cheesey, but it had to be done.

The Germans-for-a-semester left this morning; they had a 9:20 flight. It was sort of difficult to see them go. It was the first time in over four months that I had seen anyone familiar and had a really close friend to talk with face to face. Though it had been a while, it didn't feel like we had missed a day. This weekend, I got to share my expirience in Europe with one of my very best friends--that's something I will always remember.

Now, I am once again the only Nebraskan in Wrocław. And I have a Polish test tomorrow...ick.

PS Megan is now updating her blog about her summer in Ann Arbor, MI. It involves DNA, out door adventures, and her fascination with all scientific things related to water. It's good stuff, and it's only a mouse click away...