I had a great time in Poland. Kimmie's family was unbelievably nice and I ate a ton of Polish food which I really liked. Even had pickle soup, homemade sauerkraut and perogies. New Year's Eve was spent at a club in Warsaw. They were serving sausage and cabbage at the club for free which I found hilarious. Who doesn't want to smell like cabbage and sausage when they are dancing? We also visited about 15 churches, Chopin museum and tomb, Warsaw Uprising Museum, the royal palace, and the old city. Warsaw was almost completely leveled during WWII so everything we saw that was "old" was actually rebuilt during the 50's using Canaletto paintings as a guide. Apparently, the Nazi's didn't think bombing and burning the city was enough, they also burned the plans to the city s
o poor Poland had to rely on paintings to reclaim their heritage. The museums we visited were very cool and interactive. The Warsaw Uprising Museum was my fave. Kimmie and I also spent some time sledding and playing in the snow. We also visited a mall. Everything was sooooo cheap I bought some clothes. The family also took us to pizza hut and indian food! Believe it or not it was really good and also super cheap. Apparently, we all need to move to Poland.After missing a connection in Paris, I arrived back in Florence at 9pm to find that I again had no heat or hot water!!! Also, for some reason my bedroom window was wide open! So again is was a brisk 8 degrees Celsius in my house. I almost started crying out of frustration but I sucked it up, plugged in my heating pad and put 2 extra blankets on the bed. The next day a new repairman came to look at it and said that the old repair man (the one I complained about before) totally broke the machine. I heard later that the bad guy also charged my landlord 600 euro to "fix" it. What a mess. SO the heater is broken and they can't get the part they need til Monday. That was last Wednesday. Today is Monday. Last time I took an actual shower was last Monday night in Poland. Awesome. So yeah, I'm waiting for this guy to call me to come fix it. It's 2pm. I have a feeling that it's not happening today. On the bright side, it is much warmer here now. It's in the 50's so I don't really need the heat that much. I just want a friggin shower and I'm tired of heating water on the stove to do the dishes or wash my hair.
All of the new kids have arrived. So far everyone seems nice but I really miss the old group! Thankfully 4 of the girls are still here to hang out with. One of the new boys already got pick pocketed. Ah Florence... already breaking them in.
I'm working on hiring 2 new assistants. Of course way too many people applied. Also getting my independent study project started. I feel like I have a ton to do and laid awake all last night worrying about it. I'm sure everything will pan out alright but I can already feel this semester is going to fly by.
