Aackle in Krakow: Things Make Me Happy

With all the runs I've done the last two weeks, it feels like I am preparing for a marathon! I promise I'm not (there's no way I'd ever do that!) but Cameron is training for a 50km run. Because I hate feeling left out, I join him for the first 1-2 miles and then turn around while he finishes the distance required by his training plan. However, while he gets to explore more places with each increase in milage, my inability to keep up means I'm mostly running the same stretch of river over-and-over. But not for long! The packages we shipped from Seattle (finally) arrived and now I have my beloved bike with me, which means I'll be "sheep dogging" (riding my bike besides Cameron as he runs) in no time!

The benefit of having a three-month gap between packing up our things and unpacking them again means there are lots of fun surprises in the unwrapping! I remembered that there would be a few boxes of clothes and a few framed photos, but I had forgotten about packing some wedding-gifted oven mitts and Cameron's 3D-printed "pass the pigs" game. I had forgotten what a treat it is to chop vegetables with good-quality knives and how happy it makes me to walk into a room filled with art. One of the few books we packed was Treasured Polish Recipes which I'm sure we will make good use of; in addition to using it as a cook book I anticipate it will come in handy as a reference before we go out to any future Polish restaurants.

Of course there are a few things that we didn't truly need to bring, and I had to laugh at us for thinking they would be vital for international living. Cameron takes the cake by packing lightbulbs and a single spare shoelace (that does not match any of his currently in-use shoelaces), but I am not blameless for I had to waste valuable closet space on a series of shoes and dresses that I know will not get used more than once a year, tops! Although our closet is quite spacious, we don't have the storage space we used to have in Bellevue and the drawers we do have are filling up fast. Now that we have the car, though, an IKEA trip is in order. That is, once we go through all the steps of insuring the car, converting it to European standards, and registering it.

Yes, it seems our car troubles are still ongoing. I'm already looking forward to selling the car before we leave Poland so we don't have to go through the same shipping-woes when we return to the United States. Even though our car is physically here, we can't drive it yet. We'll even have to use a rental car for our upcoming Slovakian ski trip, assuming we can't get through all of the registration steps over the next two weeks. Also, someone decided it would be funny to put huge Seahawks stickers on the rear-view window, so I'm a little embarrassed to drive the car through Europe at the moment anyways.

Nonetheless, it's been a good week!

Monday was Three Kings Day (also known as Epiphany). To celebrate, Cameron and I joined a swarm of people outside of the Wawel Cathedral as everyone organized themselves for the red procession. In addition to the official groups of volunteers and dressed-up parade leaders, many people wore festive paper crowns. Lots of children had on their royal capes and accompanying wooden swords. The overall parade was amazingly well organized given the number of civilian participants, largely due to the strategically-placed speaker-carrying volunteers. We elected not to buy one of the songbooks since we knew we'd be unable to sing along anyways, but we were definatley in the minority of onlookers.

We didn't watch the procession go all the way to the main square because I had to leave for rabbit shelter training! I loved hanging out with the bunnies so much on Christmas Eve that I signed up to be a more permanent volunteer. I was so pleased to see that my five favorite big babies were still there. I have to shadow other volunteers a few more times before I can go on my own schedule, but hopefully this is a fun way to spend my free time.

The longer I'm not working, the more things I find to do. In addition to the rabbit shelter, Toastmasters, and another evening watching an English speaking stand-up comedy show (which cost less than $2 and included a free shot), I also went to a ukulele and sing-along club. It definitely is not something I would have gone to ordinarily, but a college friend of mine recommended I meet up with her ukulele-playing friend who lives in Krakow. I can't sing well so my sing-along skills don't contribute much to the event so of course now I'm thinking I need to start learning to play ukulele...ojej! Now that I've got some art supplies too I'm going to be a real renaissance woman!