Our train arrived in Gdansk at about 9:00 last night. We left Krakow at noon. It was a long train ride! Poland is working on their infrastructure and things are not quite as smooth as they would like quite yet. Their plan is to have all express trains (ones that are actually fast) by 2018. I wish them the best with that, but unfortunately that does not really help us here in 2009! There are many, many stops where we sat for 10 or 15 minutes. I really think with the express trains in 2018, one should be able to get from the northern border to the southern border in about five or six hours. We were in a compartment with six chairs (three facing each way) so it was nice for our family to have that private area together. Myles mentions our ticket argument with the train employees in his blog: http:\\www.mylesgartland.blogspot.com. So I will not elaborate except to say that I really did think we were going to get booted off that train! Luckily we did not, but after about four hours the kids had done all the stuff we brought with us for them to do. And they were starting to turn on each other! Finally Myles had the bright idea to send Natalie and Trey on a hunt to see if there was a dining car on the train. Two cars behind ours there was one. What great news!
We did not want to leave our compartment unattended with all of our computers and luggage there. So the girls, Trey and I went back to see what they had for dinner. There was nothing that was recognizable except for a ham & cheese sandwich. So I ordered one for each of us and when we sat down they only had cheese on them! Oh, well, it was food AND a distraction. We went back to our compartment and Myles and Ben went to the dining car. They had the same problem that we did except that they got ham and no cheese! Guess that's what happens when we don't speak the language. After they came back I suggested the kids play charades. What at first sounded like a really corny idea turned out to be some of the funniest moments of the trip. The kids really got into it and soon everybody was laughing. Natalie was very creative when trying to get us to guess "Polar Express," and Trey wanted to do "Flubber" every time. That helped kill some time until we made it back to Gdansk. We took a bus from the train station to our neighborhood and got home at about 9:30.
This morning we had our best day of school yet! Natalie finished a writing project about our trip to Krakow. Abbie is still working on hers. She has so much to say about our trip that it keeps getting longer and longer. Ben took a Biology test online through his home school program and got 96% on it. I had thought we were doing fine with school, but that really gave me a confidence boost. We made it through lots of material which is great. I was a little worried that we were behind because we did not do any school at all on Thursday or Friday (because of our little field trip!). But we are caught up now.
So for Ben's birthday today, the first thing I did was give him a test and then several assignments! We had an afternoon distraction because our four boxes from home arrived! We sent them on September 8th so it took five weeks. And our poor boxes looked as though they had been through a war zone. I guess life on the cargo ship is not so easy! We opened them all and got most of it put away. I was so glad to see our hats, scarves, mittens etc. We froze in Krakow this weekend when it was raining. Trey and Ben have winter coats here but the rest of us are going shopping tomorrow at a store called E.Leclerc. I have not been yet, but I hear it is very similar to our Walmart. An ad for them came in the mail today and it looks like they have winter coats at very reasonable prices.
Ben wanted to go to McDonald's for his birthday dinner. I have seen three of them here so far. I'm sure there are more. So we met Myles at the mall and went to McDonald's. It was nice and familiar. I do not have baking pans (and I really don't want to buy any of that stuff since I have plenty of that at home). So we set out to look for a birthday cake. We found a bakery and there were some pretty cakes. There was nothing that looked like a traditional US birthday cake, but Ben found one that looked good and we got that one. It looked like a chocolate cake with fancy frosting. We then take the tram (like a streetcar) to our stop, which is six blocks from our house.
It was cold waiting for the tram to arrive. Then when we were on the tram it started to rain. By the time we get off the tram it is raining hard (and it's cold!). We are living in a city so there is lots of traffic. As we are hurrying down the busy street to our side street, Abbie and I get splashed by the tires of a passing car. Nothing to do but press on, so we kept on going. We finally made it home with our cake, ready for dessert.
Myles looked for candles but could not find any. I don't know if they do candles on birthday cakes or not but he could not find any. It's just as well, we don't have a way to light it anyway. I'm sure we could find a lighter to buy (seems like everybody smokes here), but it seemed like a lot of trouble when we didn't have any candles to begin with. So the five of us other than Ben each held up three fingers and sang happy birthday to Ben.
I cut the cake and served it to everyone. Trey took a huge bite (poor thing forgot he was in Poland). His face looked as though he had just been poisoned. He jumped up from the table and I thought he was going to throw up. He managed to get control of himself and explained that there was something very bad in the cake. I took a bite to see what the problem was. Turns out there are cherries and some sort of liquor baked into the cake. That little unexpected taste did not agree with Trey. But Ben enjoyed his Polish birthday experience so that makes it all worthwhile!
It is now sleeting outside...just had to bring all my drying laundry inside. I know I can't really complain about the weather here...we knew what we were getting into. All our Kansas City friends are the ones getting ripped off! We appreciate the show of solidarity with the cold weather in KC, but it really wasn't necessary!
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