A few of my favorite things...

A few of my favorite things (we watched Sound of Music over Christmas...):

1.  Making my own vanilla latte! - I've trained 'on the bar' and I love it...I need more training but that will come and I enjoy it all so far!  Work at the coffee shop is going well...continuing to do the laundry since I have the washer/dryer combo deal.  I did train once in the kitchen as well so I have more to learn there...but I am enjoying working there very much...hoping to get more of a routine down but sure that will come after coordinating a bit more with the gal that makes the schedule:).

2.  Pieroigi, golabki and Krakow czekolada (chocolate) - Joanna took us to an awesome pieroigi place (often potatoe dumpling but usually filled with other things here in Poland and they had dessert versions which were amazing!)  Golabki is stuffed cabbage - I tried a recipe...had good flavor but not as good as the restaurant I had it at here in Krakow...that was amazing.  And there are a couple chocolate places here on the Old Town Square...very good!

3.  Things happening at the coffee shop! Having a youth game night this coming Saturday...hope that goes well and plan to have that about every 4-6 weeks.  There are a several people part of the planning and I met some new people through that was awesome in itself (see #4).  I'm going to work on the brackets for the X-box games....pretty simple right?  We have 2 X-boxes and so I'm hoping we will have a lot of kids rotating through the brackets!  Music, food, board/dice/card games going on...should be pretty good chaos hopefully:).  Also we are going to have a worship group once a month...Second Saturday Gathering (sound familiar Sacramentans?)!  Met another gal through that  works with YWAM (see #4) and so this too should be a good time at Sweet Surrender.  Different musically talented people leading songs, having prayer, parables, proverbs, testimonies etc....nice!

4.  Meeting new people .  A gal who has been here almost 2 years with the Wesleyan National Church and knows Polish very well!  I'm impressed...she was great to meet and chat with a bit.  Will be good to see her again Saturday.  They have their church earlier on Sunday so I think I will see about making it over there (all in Polish) and then head over to Sweet Surrender for church that is in English and Polish:).  The gal that works with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) has been to Ethiopia also!  It was good to talk to her; she was mostly in the South East part of Ethiopia so different people groups and climate etc.  Good stuff!  Joanna - there are 2 in my Polish life now...the gal I met the first day which I had coffee with on Friday and she is awesome.  And....my new Polish teacher!  She is great, so patient and very good.

5. Eating with friends here in Krakow...coffee with Joanna...then the volunteers that live in the lofts with me - dinner Saturday night and tonight as well as a big group of us after church on Sunday.  What a great way to get to know people...

6.  Learning Polish - Joanna is my teacher and she is a linguist so she shows us how to pronounce words...with the mouth, with 'vibration' in our throat or not etc...it is pretty awesome.  We are learning vocabulary, started on case/singular/plural today.  We (there are four of us Americans in the class...all people I work with currently) have 3 classes a week for 2 hours and 15 minutes.  So 9:30 - 11:45 a.m. (or 12:30 - 2:45 a.m. for you in Pacific time zone) on Monday/Wednesday/Friday - feel free to pray!  I need it but I do love it.  I can say some basic stuff like - good morning...how are you...what is your name...please repeat...how do you say...etc etc but the answers come back so fast in 'real' Polish it makes me crazy.  So today we learned the word for slowly...wolniej.  That is my new favorite (volnea...the w is our 'v' sound and j is silent like in Spanish).

7.  Learning I'm the 'oldest' of our group of workers here in Krakow :)   Crazy but I guess that is what I get starting a new phase of my life at this point.  And volunteers in missions etc are usually people just graduating from college so there you have it.  I'm the old one.  I'm okay with it so far...I feel young just starting so many new things I guess!  With this colder weather (no snow yet but man it gets cold)...my joints are acting at least my age but that too shall pass:).

8.  Hearing from people that I miss!  I do enjoy receiving emails and I even got an actual Christmas card in the mail over here...loved that!  Thank you for your communication - any and all of it.  It makes me feel more 'connected' and I like that.  I know - out of sight, out of mind...life moves on but I do enjoy hearing from you.

9.  Music and concerts available here in Krakow!  I found a website that has musical activities so I have on my calendar different nights that have concerts at the Old Town Hall, Philharmonic Hall, Cathedrals etc etc.  My first adventure was last night...there was some vocalists singing in a monastery and I was assuming it was going to be like a vespers service (monks singing) and I went to that in Seattle back in the day - loved it.  I was excited so I headed off...my phone died which had my map but I remembered the address so I found it early and had time to walk around the square for a bit etc.  Went back - it was at a church and it ended up that I was in the church but didn't go far enough back -- the monastery was further back so I sat through full on Catholic mass!  It was beautiful, sat in those old seats that are on the side that look like the choir lofts...loved it.  After the first service there were more people coming in so I thought I'd see what that was all about and it was the 'contemporary' service...they had guitar (instead of organ) with several vocalists for the songs and had the LCD projector with the words on it etc etc.  I loved that too because I could actually sing along!  So my concert night ended up being a cultural experience alright...2 full mass services :).  Next one on the calendar is at the 'Cloth Hall' - the main (huuuge) hall in Old Town so we'll see if I can find the right place that night. 

That is it for now - hope it gives you some insight to my view on life here in Poland.  I love it...feel safe, sound and warm in my loft apartment for sure!  It is convenient to my work, school, shopping, public transport etc etc so life is good and God is still proving to be waaaay better.

Hugs (yes...hugs) to all!

sgb.cms@gmail.com

ul. Zablocie 25 - #30

30-701 Krakow, Poland