At about 4:45, right as we were getting ready to walk out the door to meet Myles at the university, our power went out. I thought that since our landlord lives right behind us that they would have the same problem and would know what to do. But I look out our back window and there are their lights on. So I think a minute about what to do. I do not speak Polish (except to say please, excuse me and thank you). They do not speak English except for a few words here and there. So I have a bright idea...my internet is still on. I go to google translate and type in "The electricity is not working in our house." That translates to: "Energii elektrycznej nie dziala w naszym domu."
I send Ben over to knock on their door, with my laptop. Mrs. Landlord answers the door, reads the computer and a moment later Mr. Landlord is down in the basement of this house working away at getting it fixed for us. The basement is unfinished and the door is locked. We have never been down there and there is no reason for us to go down there. A few minutes go by and everything is back up and working and all is good.
We then left and headed down to the university to meet Myles only a little bit late. We had called him to let him know what was going on. From there we took a tram to the downtown (Old Town area) and had a nice dinner. I had some kind of stuffed chicken atop a fried egg that was delicious. Natalie ordered spaghetti, Trey and Abbie shared a pizza with very spicy peppers on it, Ben had some kind of noodle thing and Myles had chicken with bleu cheese sauce.
From there we went to a bowling alley in Old Town. The faculty of the school of management was having a bowling get together. Now bowling must not be as mainstream in Poland as it is in the US. They did not know how to bowl at all. We saw some very interesting and downright comical bowling moves from these Polish economists! This is how bad it was--Myles came in first place, I came in second and Ben came in third. They were all so impressed, but the fact of the matter is that we stunk! It was a very good time and the people he works with are very friendly and nice. There are a few who do not speak English well. They actually probably speak better than they think, but they are not confident enough to speak to us. We enjoyed our evening out very much. It was good for the kids to do something familiar and fun.
We got back to our house at 10:00 and our power was out again. Myles rang the bell for our landlord and he came right over. His daughter Anita, came over to help translate. But what her father was wanting to tell us (about cables), she did not know the words for. So we ended up sitting at our kitchen table with the computers with Google Translate. But that didn't work because we do not have all the Polish letters on our keyboards. So Mrs. Landlord runs over to their house and gets their laptop and comes right back. We sit at the table and talk back and forth via the computers. It was really a funny situation.
They told us that the wind and the rain are causing the problem. They are going to get it fixed tomorrow with whatever is going on with the cables. The power is on at the moment--we'll see if it stays on overnight.
Everyone keeps telling us that this weather is very unusual and not to worry that this is normal. It is supposed to be like this tomorrow so we have vowed not to leave the house! Then it is supposed to be better for the weekend.
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