11:34 pm. But I was worried it would be midnight by the time we got home, so this is good.
Today I awoke after six hours of sleep at six in the morning. For two hours I lay around, trying yet failing to get back to sleep, but not being able to keep my eyes open if I wanted to. At eight, I admitted to myself that it was time to get up and get ready. We were supposed to be getting picked up at nine to head over to the farm where we have family members.
After getting dressed, I ate a crossaint and some grapes. We weren't sure if we were having breakfast over there as well, so we ate a little just in case.
The guy picking us up--my uncle--ended up being forty-five minutes late due to his work, so I did some reading while we were waiting for him. Then me, my mom, my sister, and my grandmother all piled into his car and we began the hour-long drive to the farm.
We took a detour on the way there to look at another cathedrale--Pelplin. We paid our way in and I assure you, it was totally worth it. The place is massive and positively gorgeous. It's true beauty couldn't be captured no matter how many pictures I took, but I tried my best. There was a crew setting up flowers and candles and things for a wedding there. I wonder how much it costs to get married there...
Food was served almost the moment we walked in the door. We were greeted by my mother's aunt. I wish I could talk to this woman. She just seems to upbeat and awesome. Like a gameshow host or a younger, foreign Betty White. Plus, ohmigosh, her cooking. That food tasted like falling in love. Everything was homemade, from the cakes to the sauces, straight down to the noodles in the chicken soup. They live on a farm, like I've said, so they grow a lot of what they eat. Anyway, the food was just fantastic. Like, MasterChef fantastic. Though I don't think she would qualify for MasterChef because in the winter, when the farm is inactive, she cooks for weddings. She cooked all the food for my parents' wedding. I want her to cook for my wedding. Did I mention that the food was phenomenal?
Also, they gave me wine. I know the legal drinking age here is 18, so I thought it was odd. The following conversation occured between my sister and I once she took a sip of her own drink:
"So, is it wine?"
"Yup. Guess they think you're old enough."
"I'm kind of scared to try it."
"Don't get wasted."
Eventually, I took a sip. I almost chickened out when the smell reached my nose, but I managed to take a little sip. Tasted about as good as it smelled: that is, like piss. Seriously, why do people drink wine? Excuse me while I go wash out my mouth.
So lately I've been meeting a lot of family members, and I'm starting to lose track. Below is a quick list of the family members I know of.
In America:
-mom
-dad
-sister
-sister
-brother
-godmother
-godfather
-uncle
-aunt
-three cousins
In Germany:
-uncle
-aunt
-two cousins
In Poland:
-mom's mother
-dad's parents
-mom's mother's two sisters--my great aunts
-uncle that lives with grandmother
- my uncle, Woytek, and his brothers--three sets of aunts and uncles
-four cousins from those three sets
-great aunt and uncle at farm
-three sets of aunts and uncles met at farm
-six cousins met at farm
And that isn't even including the parents of my aunt in America and my aunt and Germany, and everyone that they are related to. I was so used to having a neat little family that I could keep easy tabs on. Now my mind has been blown.
11:52pm.
We eventually left the farm, laden with gifts despite the fact that we were the ones visiting them and they had cooked us the fantastic meal and like, they didn't have to. A few minutes after we got back, we called a taxi and drove over to the Oliwa cathedrale for a concert my mother and sister really wanted to go to--the finale of the Mozart festival thigns, Mozartiana. There was a bit of a misconception, so we waited in the cold for a while before getting in and buying tickets. We met some guy with a son who lived in London and had a British accent. :D
Then we had a half hour to kill, so we went to the Oliwa cemetary where some family members are buried. My mom wanted to see the grave of her father. I don't really want to get into the family grave parts, because anything interesting related to it is really more my mom's story to tell, and I'm low on time to get into all the details of my day. There was one grave that was buried in bouquets of flowers, so we assume the funeral was today.
The concert was nice, though I spent the whole time focusing on not falling asleep. The place was packed and probably sold out. The music wasn't exactly my favorite--more the kind you play in the background at Christmas parties--but it sounded very good and was altogether an enoyable thing, I suppose.
We walked for a bit before finally finding a big post that said TAXI, and a taxi eventually came and took us home. Two minutes to midnight, so I'm signing off for tonight. I've probably missed something, but.
PoKEMON StATS
Same as yesterday, no time to copy and paste.
Showing posts with label cathedrales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cathedrales. Show all posts
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Today We Did Things and It Was Fun :D - 8.18.2011
Today was, in short, a good day.
We woke up and ate breakfast, and then quickly took off towards the trumway to go into downtown Gdansk. The trumway ride was cool, I guess. It wasn't that striking, really, other than the fact that it is the most hardcore roller coaster my mom will ever ride. More hardcore than the autoban and the ski lift to one of the castles we visited in Germany.
After a quick bit of walking (in which my mom gave money to a guy that reminded me of Mike Lombardo playing guitar because my dad used to do that. She likes giving money to musicians) , we went into a small chuch which I believe was St. Catherines church. It was pretty. A lot of things we saw today had things in Polish, English, and German, but the English translations weren't always that great. I could understand them, and it was nice that they did it at all, but you'd think they could've found someone to proofread their signs. "Book also available in English and Germany." And that doesn't have anything of the "Blef stek" at the restaurant we ate at.
(I'm such a hypocrite, because without internet I'm not spell-checking these, and foreign countries spell check in their own language on blogger.)
The St. Dominic's festival is currently going on. It's kind of like a flea market, or at least that's what people keep calling it. It's basically just tons of vendors selling stuff. I like it a lot, regardless of whether or not I can descibe it well. Anyway, we walked through some streets, taking a detour to visit the World's Holiest Store.
This place was just packed, and I mean up to the ceiling packed, with church-related things. Crucifixes, batisimal outfits, church wine, holiday trinkets, pope-related things, paintings having to do with church-y things, and even the goblets churches use to administer the church wine. I wasn't really sure why my mom wanted to go there--I guess it was there when she was growing up--but it smelled funny and I wasn't sad to see the exit.
After some more walking, we came to the amber museum. I don't know what it's actually called, which is why there are no capital letters. Just amber museum. XD Either way, at first it seemed to be mystical and kind of...mystical. There were showcases of amber and some fantasy-esque music playing from little videos relating to amber. Then it got to be kind of creepy, when you got in range on the museum it was a part of, which had to do with the war and weapons and torture. You could hear the screams from the actors-pretending-to-be-tortured on the screen they had, so that was. Yeah. The stairs were also extremely steep, which was a massive workout going up and a danger going down.
Side note: the top two floors of the amber museum were wicked cool. The place went from medival castle to modern loft, with marble floors and a central spiral staircase, also marble, with a shiny silver banister that led up to a circular balcony deal. I want to live in a place like that. ._.
More walking, and we decided to eat, as it was around one. We finally picked a restaurant that was apparently one of Poland's top 100. We figured it would be good, but forty-five minutes of waiting for our dishes later, we were beginning to have our doubts. We ended up asking another waiter what was going on, and the wait turned out to be like, insane. The other waiter probably took our orders and went on break. Pah. The food was pretty good, though. I ordered off the Kids Menu, since my strategy for ordering in Europe has basically been to find the dishes with french fries and order one of those with a Cola. My mom thinks I'm crazy, but hey, vacation. No one lets me eat like this at home.
While we were eating, two young guys sat outside the fancy outdoor area of the place and began to play guitar and sing. I thought one was kind of attractive, but like, I'm shy and awkward and with my mom and there's the language barrier. Besides, I couldn't understand a word they were singing, and he kind of looked like a prick. But then they sang PokerFace, and it was like, "ATTRACTIVE GUY WITH ATTRACTIVE ACCENT, WANT."
Then we left.
We walked more through the festival-flea market, making our way towards the St. Mary's church, which is the biggest brick church in Poland, if not the world. Our facts aren't totally straight, so don't hold me to that. I'd been there twice before, but it was still beautiful and, well, big. Despite having gone twice, I'd never climbed the tower to the top. The three of us paid to climb up, but near the top my mom was really feeling the air pressure and went back down. The woman behind her went with her, saying how they should warn people about that kind of thing. So that was nice.
Just over 400 (they were numbered) stairs later, my sister and I were at the top. The view was just gorgeous, though I was hanging on to my camera for dear life so I wouldn't drop it. I noticed that people dropped money onto a little ledge between two peaks in the roof. I had found one grosy (grozy? I don't know, Polish cents) on the way to the trumway, so I dug it out and followed suit. I wasn't sure if you were supposed to make a wish or not, but I did just in case. I figured since it was a big cathedrale that it should be an important wish, but it was kind of a silly thing to think was important. I don't want to say what it was, partly because I don't want to jinx it and partly out of embarrassment, but it wasn't like, to be successful or to get home safely to America or to live to retirement or anything. But important in it's own way, maybe.
Another 405-ish stairs later, we were at the bottom. After we had passed the part with the domes of the church ceiling and all, it was a tight spiral staircase to the bottom, just like when we had been going up. My legs were unhappy with this, and it was kind of uncomfortable going down. The stairs were pretty steep, too.
I'm tired, but I need to finish this post.
Once we left the church, we began to meander our way home. There was one stand a young girl, probably a college student, was running, the jewelry she sold was very cool, centered around watches and mechanisms and things. If she isn't an art student, she should be, because it was all very cool. I ended up spending 59 zloty ($20.70) on a bronzey-brass necklace with a pendant shaped like a teapot, that has a working watch on it. I can't describe it well, but I adore it.
Then we bought some things at a congregation of fruit and veggie stands, which was heaven for me. It just smelled divine and I wish we had something like that at home. We never go to the Farmer's Market anymore. D:
After dinner, we took a walk on the beach. It was postively gorgeous, with a pinky-orange-blue sky where there weren't clouds. The waves were a pretty color under the sky, crashing quickly and cold and very much unlike yesterday morning when the sea was hardly moving. My mom and sister were kind of complaining back and forth to each other, so it was nice to be next to the loud waves, not being able to hear them well. I want them both to be happy here. I'm happy and having fun. I want everyone to be happy and having fun.
Quick side notes before I skip off to bed.
1. The sand makes my legs really dry, and I didn't want to use my mom's lotion since it's with macadamia nut oil, and I'm allergic to macadamia nuts. We took the strawberry body lotion from the room that basically belongs to my cousin in Germany (the one with the wasps). This stuff appears dangerously edible. It looks like strawberry yogurt and smells like all your hopes and dreams just came true. I may have to take it home with me.
2. Is it me, or was the Elite 4 way harder this Generation? I didn't lose to any of them, and maybe I just wasn't used to difficult battles, but it felt way harder (lololol, that's what she said. I'm tired). Then I beat N just fine, and lost to Ghestis because I was low on supplies. Zekrom is cool. I like Reshiram better, to be honest, but I wanted the White Forest, so I got White. EDIT FROM THE 21ST: WHERE ARE THE POKEMON IN THE FOREST THAT I WAS PROMISED? DX
PoKEMON StATS
Hours played: 34 hours and 46 minutes
Current team:
- Emboar, 60
- Zebstrika, 58
- Vanilluxe, 51
- Zekrom, 50
- Swanna, 46
- Sawsbuck, 45
Badges: 8
We woke up and ate breakfast, and then quickly took off towards the trumway to go into downtown Gdansk. The trumway ride was cool, I guess. It wasn't that striking, really, other than the fact that it is the most hardcore roller coaster my mom will ever ride. More hardcore than the autoban and the ski lift to one of the castles we visited in Germany.
After a quick bit of walking (in which my mom gave money to a guy that reminded me of Mike Lombardo playing guitar because my dad used to do that. She likes giving money to musicians) , we went into a small chuch which I believe was St. Catherines church. It was pretty. A lot of things we saw today had things in Polish, English, and German, but the English translations weren't always that great. I could understand them, and it was nice that they did it at all, but you'd think they could've found someone to proofread their signs. "Book also available in English and Germany." And that doesn't have anything of the "Blef stek" at the restaurant we ate at.
(I'm such a hypocrite, because without internet I'm not spell-checking these, and foreign countries spell check in their own language on blogger.)
The St. Dominic's festival is currently going on. It's kind of like a flea market, or at least that's what people keep calling it. It's basically just tons of vendors selling stuff. I like it a lot, regardless of whether or not I can descibe it well. Anyway, we walked through some streets, taking a detour to visit the World's Holiest Store.
This place was just packed, and I mean up to the ceiling packed, with church-related things. Crucifixes, batisimal outfits, church wine, holiday trinkets, pope-related things, paintings having to do with church-y things, and even the goblets churches use to administer the church wine. I wasn't really sure why my mom wanted to go there--I guess it was there when she was growing up--but it smelled funny and I wasn't sad to see the exit.
After some more walking, we came to the amber museum. I don't know what it's actually called, which is why there are no capital letters. Just amber museum. XD Either way, at first it seemed to be mystical and kind of...mystical. There were showcases of amber and some fantasy-esque music playing from little videos relating to amber. Then it got to be kind of creepy, when you got in range on the museum it was a part of, which had to do with the war and weapons and torture. You could hear the screams from the actors-pretending-to-be-tortured on the screen they had, so that was. Yeah. The stairs were also extremely steep, which was a massive workout going up and a danger going down.
Side note: the top two floors of the amber museum were wicked cool. The place went from medival castle to modern loft, with marble floors and a central spiral staircase, also marble, with a shiny silver banister that led up to a circular balcony deal. I want to live in a place like that. ._.
More walking, and we decided to eat, as it was around one. We finally picked a restaurant that was apparently one of Poland's top 100. We figured it would be good, but forty-five minutes of waiting for our dishes later, we were beginning to have our doubts. We ended up asking another waiter what was going on, and the wait turned out to be like, insane. The other waiter probably took our orders and went on break. Pah. The food was pretty good, though. I ordered off the Kids Menu, since my strategy for ordering in Europe has basically been to find the dishes with french fries and order one of those with a Cola. My mom thinks I'm crazy, but hey, vacation. No one lets me eat like this at home.
While we were eating, two young guys sat outside the fancy outdoor area of the place and began to play guitar and sing. I thought one was kind of attractive, but like, I'm shy and awkward and with my mom and there's the language barrier. Besides, I couldn't understand a word they were singing, and he kind of looked like a prick. But then they sang PokerFace, and it was like, "ATTRACTIVE GUY WITH ATTRACTIVE ACCENT, WANT."
Then we left.
We walked more through the festival-flea market, making our way towards the St. Mary's church, which is the biggest brick church in Poland, if not the world. Our facts aren't totally straight, so don't hold me to that. I'd been there twice before, but it was still beautiful and, well, big. Despite having gone twice, I'd never climbed the tower to the top. The three of us paid to climb up, but near the top my mom was really feeling the air pressure and went back down. The woman behind her went with her, saying how they should warn people about that kind of thing. So that was nice.
Just over 400 (they were numbered) stairs later, my sister and I were at the top. The view was just gorgeous, though I was hanging on to my camera for dear life so I wouldn't drop it. I noticed that people dropped money onto a little ledge between two peaks in the roof. I had found one grosy (grozy? I don't know, Polish cents) on the way to the trumway, so I dug it out and followed suit. I wasn't sure if you were supposed to make a wish or not, but I did just in case. I figured since it was a big cathedrale that it should be an important wish, but it was kind of a silly thing to think was important. I don't want to say what it was, partly because I don't want to jinx it and partly out of embarrassment, but it wasn't like, to be successful or to get home safely to America or to live to retirement or anything. But important in it's own way, maybe.
Another 405-ish stairs later, we were at the bottom. After we had passed the part with the domes of the church ceiling and all, it was a tight spiral staircase to the bottom, just like when we had been going up. My legs were unhappy with this, and it was kind of uncomfortable going down. The stairs were pretty steep, too.
I'm tired, but I need to finish this post.
Once we left the church, we began to meander our way home. There was one stand a young girl, probably a college student, was running, the jewelry she sold was very cool, centered around watches and mechanisms and things. If she isn't an art student, she should be, because it was all very cool. I ended up spending 59 zloty ($20.70) on a bronzey-brass necklace with a pendant shaped like a teapot, that has a working watch on it. I can't describe it well, but I adore it.
Then we bought some things at a congregation of fruit and veggie stands, which was heaven for me. It just smelled divine and I wish we had something like that at home. We never go to the Farmer's Market anymore. D:
After dinner, we took a walk on the beach. It was postively gorgeous, with a pinky-orange-blue sky where there weren't clouds. The waves were a pretty color under the sky, crashing quickly and cold and very much unlike yesterday morning when the sea was hardly moving. My mom and sister were kind of complaining back and forth to each other, so it was nice to be next to the loud waves, not being able to hear them well. I want them both to be happy here. I'm happy and having fun. I want everyone to be happy and having fun.
Quick side notes before I skip off to bed.
1. The sand makes my legs really dry, and I didn't want to use my mom's lotion since it's with macadamia nut oil, and I'm allergic to macadamia nuts. We took the strawberry body lotion from the room that basically belongs to my cousin in Germany (the one with the wasps). This stuff appears dangerously edible. It looks like strawberry yogurt and smells like all your hopes and dreams just came true. I may have to take it home with me.
2. Is it me, or was the Elite 4 way harder this Generation? I didn't lose to any of them, and maybe I just wasn't used to difficult battles, but it felt way harder (lololol, that's what she said. I'm tired). Then I beat N just fine, and lost to Ghestis because I was low on supplies. Zekrom is cool. I like Reshiram better, to be honest, but I wanted the White Forest, so I got White. EDIT FROM THE 21ST: WHERE ARE THE POKEMON IN THE FOREST THAT I WAS PROMISED? DX
PoKEMON StATS
Hours played: 34 hours and 46 minutes
Current team:
- Emboar, 60
- Zebstrika, 58
- Vanilluxe, 51
- Zekrom, 50
- Swanna, 46
- Sawsbuck, 45
Badges: 8
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