Not for the squeamish

I guess the title for this entry could have been "Just for the guys" or "We don't need no stinking dentists!"

About three weeks ago I started getting this horrible throbbing toothache that was keeping me up at night. I had to pop asprin a couple times a day so I could eat. I made an appointment with a dentist, but by the time I got there 4 days later, the pain had finally dissappeared. I just had a bunch of dental work done right before we left the states, and the new dentist said everything looked good. She also said that sometimes you can have some discomfort from getting a lot of work done at the same time and to come back if the pain started again. About a week later it started to feel funky again, but it was more the gums than the teeth. It was most painful when I pushed on the outside, just next to my nose. So last night I pulled my lip up and saw that it was puffy and bruised. It felt kind of like a blister, all squishy and whatnot. So I decided to do a little surgery on myself. I took a knife (not just any knife, the engraved one Alan got me for being in his wedding) and cut a slit into my gum.

That. Shit. Hurt.

At first it started to bleed a little. Then it started to bleed some more. Then I pushed on the squishy parts. Now, I'm not exactly sure how much puss a human head can hold but if there was a category for it in the Guinness world record book, I would definitely be getting my 15 minutes of fame right now. After a good 20 minutes of pushing, I finally got all the creamy goodness out. And now my teeth and gums feel 90% better and it didn't cost me a thing. Now as long as it doesn't come back even worse and make my head explode, everything should be fine. I hope.

One more thing...

I almost forgot one of the best things about Poland: the ice cream! It's so much better than back in the states. So creamy. So tasty. So loaded with flavor. And they have all sorts of different flavors. And it costs about half as much. People usually get at least two scoops, and they think it's wierd if you don't get each scoop a different flavor. My favorite combo so far: raspberry and lemon. Yummy!

Pros and Cons

Things I love about Poland:

1. The sites. There are so many amazing things to see here. Tons of old buildings, statues, parks, etc. Every time we go somewhere new, there's always something unexpected and really cool. Luckily I have my camera on me about 90% of the time so I'm able to document most of what we see. I post the best stuff on my Flickr page, but that's only a fraction of the pics I've taken.

2. Public transportation. It's pretty easy to get around to wherever you need to go here. For 20 bucks a month you can ride the trams, buses, and metro all you want. That's way cheaper than taking th DC metro. We've only been on a couple buses so far, but the tram is our best friend. Our stop is just outside the apartment and the most you ever have to wait is 10 minutes, but it's usually a lot shorter than that.

3. The history. I don't know much about it, but I'm going to learn as much as I can while I'm here.


Things I hate about Poland:

1. The language barrier. Everyone told us not to waste our time learning Polish because almost everybody speaks English here. Bullshit. It's a lot harder than we expected. Even though we can get around just fine, it make things pretty difficult sometimes. Some of the younger people speak English because they teach it in the schools now, but you can forget talking to any of the older people.

2. The language. I want to meet whoever is responsible for this crazy ass language so I can bitchslap them. It's hard enough that half the letters sound like other letters, but some of the sounds in these words are humanly impossible to pronounce. "Sz" sounds like shh, "cz" sounds like ch, and there are words that start with Szcz. "Krz" and "prz" sounds like shh, too. Don't even get me started on all the letters that have little squiggly things on the bottom of them.

3. The drivers. Our car isn't even here yet and I already have road rage. These people are crazy. I've heard that it's because they've only been driving for about 20 years, but that's not a good enough excuse for me. I've only been driving for 13 years, so screw that. There are posted speed limits, but I don't even know why since the cops don't seem to care. And somehow they manage to squeeze four cars into three lanes. And they LOVE their horns. I was shocked that I hadn't seen any accidents since I'd been here, but last weekend Kim and I saw someone smash into the guy that pulled out in front of him.

4. The fashion. Lots of the females dress all nice and business-like, but the others wear the craziest clothes. They LOVE red shoes. The brighter the better, wether or not it matches anything else they're wearing just doesn't matter. Camouflage is everywhere. And not normal camo, either. Just about any color you can think of (think pink). The only one I haven't seen is hunter orange, so I'm thinking I should bring some back from the states and sell it here. I'd make a fortune!
And there are tons of people that wear shirts with English text on them, but I can't help but wonder if they even have a clue what it says...

5. The haircuts. I don't know what the hell the dudes here are thinking. Half of them have the same stupid haircut. Kinda like a mullet and mohawk hybrid. They shave the sides of thier heads, except that it looks more like when a dog chews out patches of it's own hair.

6. Movie release dates. We get most of the movies the US does, but they can take a few months to get here. The last Pirates movie was released at the same time as the US, and The last Die Hard movie was only about a week later, but we still don't know when Knocked Up is coming. But the worst thing is that Transformers isn't here yet and it's driving me effing crazy!

*Funny little FYI about the last Die Hard movie (which was awesome): It's called Die Hard 4.0 in the rest of the world because nobody outside the US would understand the "Live Free or Die" reference.

Back online baby!

Well we finally got our internet set up. It was quite a chore, and the partial language barrier didn't help. The people at Kim's work sent me to a store to pick up the wireless router which would work with the particular isp that they use. When I got there, they said they didn't have it so they sent me to another store. So I went to the other store. They told me I had to talk to my representative, who is the person who sent me to the other store in the first place. So I went back to her a couple days later and she told me that she had just called the original store and that they had some more in stock. So I went back to that store. This time they had it, except I recognized it from the last time I had been there. So they had it all along, and even though the first guy that helped me seemed to speak ok english, something apparently was lost in the translation. Whatever, I was just happy to get the damn thing so I can get hooked up and start earning some money again. Don't get me wrong, a 2 month vacation is sweet, and having a sugar mama is awesome, but I need to get more cash so we can do all the travelling that we want to. So anyways, I take the wireless router home and start to set it up. After about 3 hours last night I give it up and decide to try again in the morning. I don't even want to get into the issues of last night. But it's working now and that's all that matters. And it seems to be pretty fast, so hopefully it'll be good enough for the transfer of the huge files I be downloading and uploading for work.

Oh yea, our Vonage is working now too so I'll be calling or emailing people with my new phone number. It's a Virginia number so it won't cost anything extra for calling to Europe. And all the calls we make to the US are free, so if you wanna talk all you gotta do is give me a jingle and I'll call you right back.

Rock!

The concert was fan-friggin-tastic. The venue was really cool, too. The inside was painted all sorts of crazy designs with lots of bright colors. There are two areas outside with some dudes grilling up kielbasa and selling beer. Next time we plan on getting there early enough to test it out. We missed the opening band, but we don't even know who it was so we didn't really care.

I wore one of my KMFDM shirts thinking that I would probably fit in with the crowd, which I basically did. But I was a little surprised that I didn't see anyone else wearing one. There were tons of Type O Negative, Slayer, and Danzig shirts but not a single KMFDM. I figured since KMFDM is a European band, that I would see more here than back in the states. Then I realized something. KMFDM is a German band. Oops. I guess I forgot to take that whole WWII thing into account. I'm not sure if Polish people have a grudge or anything, but I wasn't about to find out that night so I spent most of the concert hiding behind Kim so no one could see the front of my shirt. Luckily no one yelled at me or tried to beat my ass on the way out, but I don't think I'll be wearing KMFDM shirts around here anymore...

First concert in Poland!

YAAYYY!!! I'm going to my first concert in Poland tonight! There's a club that's only about a 10 minute tram ride and another 10 minutes of walking from where we live and Type O Negative is playing. I know none of you know (or care) who that is, but I love 'em and this will be the third time I've seen them. They are the reason Alan calls me "Stewed", by the way. There are a couple other bands that I like playing soon, but I probably won't see them since they're playing in other parts of the country. I need to get Warsaw all figured out before we start venturing out too far. Hopefully there will be plenty of other great concerts soon, though.

**UPDATE** I just found out that Skinny Puppy and Frontline Assembly are playing in July and August. Anyone who knows me should at least recognize those band names as a couple of my favs!

We're here!

So after a few minor bumps along the way that kept us wondering if we were actually going to leave when we were supposed to, we set out for our new adventure to Europe. Kim's dad was able to transfer some of his frequent flyer miles to us so we could upgrade to business class. If you've never been on business class before, don't do it. You will never want to fly economy ever again. I knew it would be nice, but I had no idea the kind of pampering they give you. You get to choose from a full menu (I had filet mignon), they bring juices and alcohol around, you get a little pouch with slippers, a sleep mask, toothbrush and toothpaste, mints and some other stuff. You even have your own personal monitor that you can choose from 10 different movie channels. I watched one of them but then pulled out my laptop so Kim and I could watch The Fountain on dvd (amazing movie! unlike anything you've ever seen, I promise). But the best part was the seats. They fully reclined and the footrests went almost straight out so you could basically lie down the entire time. Huge thanks to dad for the upgrade because I can't even imagine how much the 8 hour flight to Frankfurt would've sucked ass if we were squished into economy. And with my luck on airplanes, I definitely would've been seated right next to a rather large and particularly smelly german man who thought his ticket was good for 2 seats and wouldn't give up the armrest or put his damn shoes back on (sorry, still bitter from the trip back from Costa Rica).

We arrive in Warsaw around 2pm and one of Kim's new coworkers picks us up and takes us to our apartment. Wow. Kim said it would be bigger than our condo in VA, but she didn't tell me it would be twice as big. This place is awesome! All wood floors, two bedrooms and an office, big spacious living room, and tons of closet space everywhere. We're on the 11th floor and we have a fantastic balcony that overlooks the courtyard and has a great view of downtown. There's a table and chairs out there so we can have dinner outside whenever we want. We also have a very nice fitness club with a lap pool that was supposedly negotiated into our lease, but we're having trouble activating it. They're supposed to take care of it soon, so hopefully it'll work out. I need to start swimming laps again and getting back into shape.

Kim's coworkers have been great. They've taken us around town and helped us go grocery shopping since our car won't be here for another 2 months or so. We've gone out to dinner a few times with them and even went to see Pirates of the Carribbean sunday night. They all seem like good people who really want to help us out and make the transition easier. Too bad 3 of them are actually on their way out within the next month. Hopefully whoever replaces them will be just as cool. And I'm sure we'll meet more people soon.

*side note* The movie theaters here are sweet. They play the movies in english and the screens are about 50-75% bigger than in the states. The sound is great and the stadium seating is very comfortable. You can drink beer and in some of the upper levels there are couches to relax on. When you buy your ticket, which is about $1.50 cheaper than in VA, you look at the monitor that shows you which seats are still available. Then you pick where you want to sit and that's where you go, so you don't have to worry about finding someplace to sit once you get in the theater. And the best part? It's in a huge 3-story shopping mall that's only a 10 minute walk from home. In fact, I think I may wander on over there in a few minutes to go see Pathfinder (ultra violent viking movie), since it was only in theaters in the states for about a week and I missed it.

The public transportation system is so much better than the US, too. There are buses, the Metro, and the trams. I've only used the tram so far, but it's very easy to get around as long as you know which stops you need. They come every five minutes or so, so you never have to wait long.

The only thing that is a little difficult is the lanuage barrier. Everyone told us that it wouldn't be a problem and that we shouldn't even bother learning Polish since everybody speaks English here. Not true. The younger people all know English well enough that we can converse with them, but none of the older people speak a word of it. So we definitely need to learn Polish. At least the basics, anyways. We're enrolled in the free classes where Kim works, but those don't start for another few weeks. I guess it's a good thing I bought Rosetta Stone, now I just have to remember where the hell I put it.

That about covers it for now. I'm using the computer they have for us in the apartment as part of our welcome kit until all our stuff gets here. I hate PCs, but this will do for now. Right now it's just dial up, which is pretty expensive, but we should have our broadband set up in a month or so. You'll probably see me online alot more once that's taken care of.