Poland Life

Life in Poland.

So I know it’s been a little while since everyone has heard from me but not much has been happening. I have spent the last 9 days in Poland at both Brody’s place in Starogard and also 2 separate trips to Gdansk (the big city). The days in Starogard usually start with Brody’s alarm going off 3 separate times (sometimes more) around 8am to get up. I usually get up with him, but sometimes I managed to push through the alarms. Mostly I get up with him though. Depending on what we had for dinner and how late it was when we ate, depends on what we have for breakfast. When we are hungry Brody or I cook up some eggs with cut up sausage in it with bread and jam (this has become one of our favorites). It’s usually a big breakfast and we don’t eat again tell well after lunch. Other days we just mix some yogurt and granola, or have some cereal. They have some pretty good knock off Honey nut Cheerios at the store that we buy bags of at a time. Brody then heads off to morning practice were he lifts and does shooting drills. I hangout and watch movies or try and stream TV shows and movies online. Brody and I have become professionals at finding websites to steam movies and TV shows on, but I also have to give credit to the help of my tech friendly friends back at the University of Phoenix as well for helping out. When Brody gets back we usually either go to the store to pick up things for us to eat for the next few days. We usually have to watch what we buy because everything we buy we also have to carry back to his apartment so we can’t just stock up like we are coming back from Costco or anything. This is usually why we make 2 to 3 trips a week to grab things. We are doing a pretty good job of making dinner every night as well. I have been doing a good amount of cooking for the both of us while he goes to practice in the evenings. Most days we usually do a good 2-3 hours of watching movies and surfing the internet during the afternoon. I also typically go and watch Brody’s evening practices as well. They are to the point now in the season were they aren’t doing as many drills but doing a lot of 2 on 3, 3 on 3, 4 on 4, and 5 on 5 and a mix of just about everything. They do it in a way that keeps competition high, were the same people remain on the same team and they play it to whoever scores a certain amount of points first. It is very fun to watch and I have caught onto the games in practices that they play and it’s very entertaining to watch the teams compete during practice. Then Brody and I walk back to his apartment after practice which is about a 10-15 min walk. After practice we usually just eat dinner (which has been very good as of lately), we have been trying some different things but the last few days I made beef and potato stew, hamburgers, a pasta noodle lasagna, and of course just pasta itself. The best so far was the beef and potato stew. Even Brody’s teammate Tony couldn’t stop talking about it. Then we either try and stream some more TV shows and also do some skyping (webcam calling) with family and friends or we go over to Tony’s and play some video games, mostly Halo. I try and keep the games close so that Tony and Brody will still want to play with me but we can just say I haven’t lost in my nine days back. As Brody wrote in his blog I came out sniping like I was Mark Walberg in the movie “Shooter” (my dad might not get that reference, so he’s like Matt Quigley AKA Roy). Other than that I try and call my family when I can and I miss everyone back home very much. But one of the first things I did when I got back to Poland was get a Euro cell phone finally! One of my first weeks back to Poland Brody and I went to Gdansk with 2 of Brody’s teammates one of them being the other American Tony from Chicago and one of his Serbian teammates, Uros. Both are great guys and a lot of fun to hang out with. We took the train from Starogard to Sopot which is a suburb of Gdansk, but is right on the beach of the Baltic Sea. It is more of the tourist destination in that area. We went out that night and had a great time, some more than others! The next morning we meet up with our friend Karoline who is the daughter of the café owner that is right next to Brody’s apartment that we always go to. Brody and the rest of the guys from the team had become good friends with the family so when we left Starogard the day before Karoline was leaving as well to go back to school in Gdansk. So it worked out that she then became our tour guide the following day and took us all around Old Town Gdansk as a Tour guide but the weather was not as good as we wished. The one thing about Poland is that the wind is always blowing and makes it so the weather is unpredictable. For example one day while Brody and I made or 12 minute walk to the store it was sunny, then rained on us then not a cloud in the sky all just in a 12 minute span, but rain or shine it never got over 55 degrees the whole 9 days I was in Poland. One of the main highlights of the time in Europe so far was going and watching my first European basketball game. I was fortunate enough that Brody was able to get me on the bus with the team to travel to the game with them and go through all of their pregame. We started off with a walk though in Starogard then went and ate a big Polish lunch that could have feed a small family! We then took the team bus a little over 2 hours south to the town where they were playing. When we got there we stopped and had coffee and this carrot cake with ice cream. Then walked around for about 15 min then headed off to the gym. While the guys got ready I went to the gym and shagged balls for the guys shooting as they came out. As the game got closer I went and claimed a seat in the team section for guests which was front row on the baseline just an isle away from the team bench. I was on the corner of the baseline and sideline (it was the best seat in the house). I was wearing one of Brody’s practice jerseys that sported his number the whole game! The game was good, Polpharmer went up and stayed up by 10-15 all game tell the 4th quarter when the other team made a late run coming within 2 points, which they could have tied and taken the lead, but missed 4 straight free throws that were huge. While Polpharmer had some big stops at the end and some big offensive rebounds topped off by 2 big steals at the end that lead to consecutive dunks to put the game away! By far this was a great win and it was great to experience it all with Brody and the whole team. I am leaving now it is Tuesday, October 13. I few into Frankfurt, Germany last night at midnight and stayed at a hostel across the street from the main train station. My train left at 8:20am this morning and I didn’t get much sleep last night because there was a guy in my 8 person room that sounded like he was sawing logs right next to my ear last night. Which is something that I have just come to realize that is just a part of the traveling and it’s going to happen no matter what. I am headed right now back to Klagenfurt, Austria to see my friend Anna again but also pick up another solo traveler my friend Nicole from Santa Clara to do some traveling together. So now there are 2 of us in my wolf pack! I am very excited as well about getting back to Klagenfurt because Anna is also having one of her first volleyball games at home on Wednesday, so I am thrilled to see my first European Volleyball game as well this week. Again hope all is well back home and if you see a weird number calling it’s probably me trying to call you from my phone or computer… :)