9/8/13

I went to church for the first time in Poland with my host parents. My host parents took me to Ania and Monika’s church so I sat on the bench next to them. There were so many people outside and inside the church trying to listen to the ceremony. Everyone walks into the building, gets on their knees, and prays. Ania asked me later if I enjoyed the service and wanted to see if I wanted to go to services more often with her. This service was specifically dedicated to children so all the children sat at the front on the steps. I informed Ania I am of the Jewish faith and she didn’t understand. This completely shocked me because she lives in a country where World War II mainly occurred. There are the biggest concentration camps stationed right near her city. My whole host family is very religious which doesn’t bother me other than the fact that I have to wake up early on Sundays to go to church.

Later all of my host sister’s friends came over. Ola, my sister in Ohio on exchange, has a lot of nice friends. I met Ola, Adam, Andrew, Julia, Kuba, Peter, and Bartic. (Trying to spell Polish names are hard with the American alphabet). Everyone was super nice, spoke pretty good English, and invited to me hang out with them in the future. The girls were all making future plans with me like attending rugby games, school plays, and to the mall. Ania even invited me to spend our winter vacation in France with her and her friends. It makes me feel super welcomed here.

(Everyone with their winning “American” smiles! Polish people apparently don’t smile with their teeth but they wanted to be American this time.)

Tonight I ended up drinking alcohol with everyone. They gave me a lemon light beer with about 1% alcohol that tasted like soda. They also gave me a beer with tequila in it called Desperadoes. That contained about 6% alcohol which was actually delicious.

The kids, surprisingly, had 4-5 beers each. I couldn’t even believe my host parents were okay with us drinking right next to them. My father offered me drinks throughout the night and said I should have more…This all shocked me!

When Ania, Agata, and I went to meet up with Peter and Bartic…we were harassed on the streets! 4 boys came out of nowhere and starting harassing us as soon as we started walking away from the house. They each wore nice Nike shoes and were about 12 years old. They threw pine cones at my head and back. A pine cone hit Ania really hard on the butt and hit me really hard on the arm. When the boys ran out of pine cones, they started throwing sticks at us. I am now truly too scared to walk around at night around my neighborhood. We gave them a cigarette and they finally left us alone.

We walked to this dark area next to tennis courts where Ania showed me graffiti that was dedicated to Peter’s sister. The graffiti was a girl crying and had dates next to her head. Ana, the girl on the wall, is Peter’s sister. She passed away during an accident. Ana’s boyfriend designed it and designated it in respect to her. There was so many emotions between the colors and lines that it is honestly beautiful. Peter said he will take Ania and me to go do our own graffiti one day. This is different than in the United States because graffiti isn’t as popular as it is in Poland.

Back at the house we played Dance Star and Sing Star on play station. It was really funny watching Agata sing, Adam dance, and Kuba dance. I laughed a lot at everyone. I even ended up beating Ania in the Sing Star game against an English song.

What a super fun day!

Stephanie Raquel