Saturday, July 21, 2007
Back for Round 2...
(I wrote this a few days ago...)
Ahoj again, faithful readers! I was very excited to find that there were so many of you when I was home. Speaking of which, I had an incredible time back in the States. It was so refreshing and rejuvenating to reconnect with friends and family, watch lots of mindless TV, and eat Mexican food. It was very hard to say goodbye again, and I will admit I started having second thoughts about halfway through. But, I committed myself to this, and I’m going to give it a shot.
The three short days I’ve been here have already presented one adventure after another. I made it here without incident, thankfully, and promptly went to sleep for five hours. This, of course, is a horrible idea when you are trying to fight jet lag. Around dinnertime I dragged my butt out of bed (or “mattress,” as I don’t have an actual bed) and decided to get more acquainted with my new home. My first order of business was to purchase a fan. In the two cool spring days I visited my flat before, I failed to remember that heat rises, and collects at the loft on the top floor which, incidentally, is my room. My one piddly skylight window barely offered a breeze of any kind when opened, so I was on a mission to find something to create some sort of airflow. After helplessly searching the five floors of the Tesco downtown, I finally found desk fans. It’s not great, but it helps. I need to buy a hairdryer at some point, but I can think of anything I’d rather do less right now than blow-dry my hair.
I hardly slept at all that first night. The combination of the heat, the hard mattress, and the afternoon nap had me wide awake and wondering and worrying, as I often do when I can’t sleep, if this was a mistake, and that I must have been insane for leaving behind my family and friends again. Alas, dwelling on such things gets me nowhere, and eventually I dozed off for maybe an hour or two.
Monday was insane. I got up and immediately made the trek downtown to the American embassy to get additional passport pages. This makes me sound like I do all sorts of traveling. In all actuality, it’s just that numerous trips out and back to Poland on foot add up quickly, with at least four stamps per visit. For some reason they can’t seem to figure out why an American would be in the small town of Cieszyn (answer: buying pottery), and feel the need to run all sorts of checks on their computer, and upon finding nothing exciting, return your passport with a disappointed sigh, but not without filling up half a page first. Anyway, I expected the embassy visit to be a huge hassle, but was out of there in about ten minutes, with plenty of time to get to my office to sign my work contract.
After that was the part I’d been dreading: my trip to Bratislava. Now if you have ever the movie Hostel, or even heard of it, you’ll know why I was not looking forward to making this little venture on my own. I wouldn’t have if it was avoidable, but unfortunately my stay here requires a Czech visa, which you cannot actually apply for in the Czech Republic. So Bratislava it was.
Despite the fact that I seem to do it often, I don’t like traveling by myself. Sometimes it’s nice to have the time, but generally I get bored on the trains, and I just like having someone to share the experience with. I found a place to stay for the night, wandered around for a while, went to my room, wandered some more, and finally settled into a table at the hostel bar with a book. By this time I was craving social interaction from more than 24 hours of isolation. I looked around. In one corner, there was a table of five British guys very deep in conversation. At the bar there was an American couple, a Brazilian girl, and a New Zealander, but their stools were situated in such a way that I couldn’t join without being really awkward. A few minutes later, a group of eight Dutch guys came in and sat at the table next to me. There isn’t much that will make you feel like more of a nerd than eight Dutch guys staring at you and wondering why on earth you are reading a book and filling out important-looking documents at a bar. One of them finally got brave enough to come ask me if the book was good (it was a Bill Bryson book, of course it was good). I jumped at the chance for conversation, and actually had a pleasant evening talking to these random strangers about their travels and experiences, which is one of my favorite things to do here (the other one is standing at the open window of the train in the summertime).
Still jet-lagged, I managed to hit snooze four times this morning and sleep until 9, the time I was supposed to be at the Czech embassy. Knowing they took applications until 11, I took my sweet time getting down there, never thinking there might be a line, and that it would be outside, and that there would be a very intimidating guard letting people in at a rate of one every 400 years. I know that they must have good reasons for doing things the way they do, but it is quite irritating when someone makes you stand in line for two and a half hours in 98 degree heat only to pay them 6,444 Slovakian…money units…and give them some papers it took you three months to acquire. But I never actually made it that far. Five people from the front, they stopped taking applications for the day. I absolutely dreaded the thought of having to stay another day (which actually wouldn’t have been all bad, as old town Bratislava was quite nice), and by some miracle they decided to have mercy on us and let us come back at two. This time my luck started to turn, and I was called second to come inside, ahead of everyone else in line from that morning. Elated, I skipped past their icy stares, narrowly escaping their flying fists, and burst through the door into the cool air-conditioning of victory. I have no idea why this process takes so long, but it probably took around 45 minutes before I walked out. Granted, part of that was a 15 minute scavenger hunt to find an ATM and exchange place since I only had 3,000 Slovakian money units to my name. In the end, I emerged victorious with a paper stating that my applications have been received, and that I should call in two days to know if my visa is ready for pick up. Which means, joy of joys, that I get to go on this little adventure again next week. I’ll be sure to update.
Well, I’m off to try and sleep in the sauna that is my bedroom. When I get internet working here, I can call you from Skype much more often than last year. When I do, be sure to ask about my horribly embarrassing moment from the weekend and about the rat on the train. Like I said, one adventure after another…
Ahoj again, faithful readers! I was very excited to find that there were so many of you when I was home. Speaking of which, I had an incredible time back in the States. It was so refreshing and rejuvenating to reconnect with friends and family, watch lots of mindless TV, and eat Mexican food. It was very hard to say goodbye again, and I will admit I started having second thoughts about halfway through. But, I committed myself to this, and I’m going to give it a shot.
The three short days I’ve been here have already presented one adventure after another. I made it here without incident, thankfully, and promptly went to sleep for five hours. This, of course, is a horrible idea when you are trying to fight jet lag. Around dinnertime I dragged my butt out of bed (or “mattress,” as I don’t have an actual bed) and decided to get more acquainted with my new home. My first order of business was to purchase a fan. In the two cool spring days I visited my flat before, I failed to remember that heat rises, and collects at the loft on the top floor which, incidentally, is my room. My one piddly skylight window barely offered a breeze of any kind when opened, so I was on a mission to find something to create some sort of airflow. After helplessly searching the five floors of the Tesco downtown, I finally found desk fans. It’s not great, but it helps. I need to buy a hairdryer at some point, but I can think of anything I’d rather do less right now than blow-dry my hair.
I hardly slept at all that first night. The combination of the heat, the hard mattress, and the afternoon nap had me wide awake and wondering and worrying, as I often do when I can’t sleep, if this was a mistake, and that I must have been insane for leaving behind my family and friends again. Alas, dwelling on such things gets me nowhere, and eventually I dozed off for maybe an hour or two.
Monday was insane. I got up and immediately made the trek downtown to the American embassy to get additional passport pages. This makes me sound like I do all sorts of traveling. In all actuality, it’s just that numerous trips out and back to Poland on foot add up quickly, with at least four stamps per visit. For some reason they can’t seem to figure out why an American would be in the small town of Cieszyn (answer: buying pottery), and feel the need to run all sorts of checks on their computer, and upon finding nothing exciting, return your passport with a disappointed sigh, but not without filling up half a page first. Anyway, I expected the embassy visit to be a huge hassle, but was out of there in about ten minutes, with plenty of time to get to my office to sign my work contract.
After that was the part I’d been dreading: my trip to Bratislava. Now if you have ever the movie Hostel, or even heard of it, you’ll know why I was not looking forward to making this little venture on my own. I wouldn’t have if it was avoidable, but unfortunately my stay here requires a Czech visa, which you cannot actually apply for in the Czech Republic. So Bratislava it was.
Despite the fact that I seem to do it often, I don’t like traveling by myself. Sometimes it’s nice to have the time, but generally I get bored on the trains, and I just like having someone to share the experience with. I found a place to stay for the night, wandered around for a while, went to my room, wandered some more, and finally settled into a table at the hostel bar with a book. By this time I was craving social interaction from more than 24 hours of isolation. I looked around. In one corner, there was a table of five British guys very deep in conversation. At the bar there was an American couple, a Brazilian girl, and a New Zealander, but their stools were situated in such a way that I couldn’t join without being really awkward. A few minutes later, a group of eight Dutch guys came in and sat at the table next to me. There isn’t much that will make you feel like more of a nerd than eight Dutch guys staring at you and wondering why on earth you are reading a book and filling out important-looking documents at a bar. One of them finally got brave enough to come ask me if the book was good (it was a Bill Bryson book, of course it was good). I jumped at the chance for conversation, and actually had a pleasant evening talking to these random strangers about their travels and experiences, which is one of my favorite things to do here (the other one is standing at the open window of the train in the summertime).
Still jet-lagged, I managed to hit snooze four times this morning and sleep until 9, the time I was supposed to be at the Czech embassy. Knowing they took applications until 11, I took my sweet time getting down there, never thinking there might be a line, and that it would be outside, and that there would be a very intimidating guard letting people in at a rate of one every 400 years. I know that they must have good reasons for doing things the way they do, but it is quite irritating when someone makes you stand in line for two and a half hours in 98 degree heat only to pay them 6,444 Slovakian…money units…and give them some papers it took you three months to acquire. But I never actually made it that far. Five people from the front, they stopped taking applications for the day. I absolutely dreaded the thought of having to stay another day (which actually wouldn’t have been all bad, as old town Bratislava was quite nice), and by some miracle they decided to have mercy on us and let us come back at two. This time my luck started to turn, and I was called second to come inside, ahead of everyone else in line from that morning. Elated, I skipped past their icy stares, narrowly escaping their flying fists, and burst through the door into the cool air-conditioning of victory. I have no idea why this process takes so long, but it probably took around 45 minutes before I walked out. Granted, part of that was a 15 minute scavenger hunt to find an ATM and exchange place since I only had 3,000 Slovakian money units to my name. In the end, I emerged victorious with a paper stating that my applications have been received, and that I should call in two days to know if my visa is ready for pick up. Which means, joy of joys, that I get to go on this little adventure again next week. I’ll be sure to update.
Well, I’m off to try and sleep in the sauna that is my bedroom. When I get internet working here, I can call you from Skype much more often than last year. When I do, be sure to ask about my horribly embarrassing moment from the weekend and about the rat on the train. Like I said, one adventure after another…
