What A Day!

Ok, so I took the kids to school on Monday morning and arrived back home just after 9:00. I was free to clean and organize to my heart's content. Our landlord was bringing over the people interested in renting the house at 1:00.

I started upstairs. I opened all the windows in the three bedrooms and the bathroom up there. I had my music going from 106.5 The Wolf (so awesome to listen to a KC radio station live in Poland!). When it is morning here, it is the middle of the night at home. So guess what? No talking DJs, not so many commercials. It's a good time to listen. Everything was dusted and by the time I was finished upstairs, the sparkling and shining ruled all!

I took my cleaning agent and set to work on the tile stairs. I am not really a fan of tile stairs, but they are quite common here. I am always after the kids to PLEASE be careful and DO NOT run down those stairs--a fall down tile stairs would be bad.

Next I finish up the kitchen and the living room. At this point it is 11:15, and I admire my work and how cute this little house is. I still have the little downstairs bathroom to clean, and to make the bed and straighten up in our bedroom, both of which are visible when you enter the front door of the house.

Right then my music goes off, meaning I have lost my internet connection. Bummer, but that happens fairly frequently here. Last week our neighborhood had no internet from Wednesday until Friday. Suddenly, I hear voices in the yard. I look out the window and here comes Mariusz with people! At 11:15. Excuse me, I have one hour and forty five minutes to get my 30 remaining minutes of work done. Nope. When they knock, I open the door with my scrub brush in hand.

It was obvious that I had been cleaning and that I was not quite finished yet. They breezed by the bedroom and bathroom and into the living room. They went upstairs and stayed there for 10 minutes or so and I had a chance to quickly get the bathroom in pretty good shape. They came back down, talked in the living room for a few more minutes. Then they left, never even giving a glance to my semi clean downstairs bathroom or my mostly clean bedroom with the unmade bed and stacks of stuff on the dresser. They continued to talk out in the yard for about 10 more minutes. I have no idea if they are going to rent the place or not, but they seem interested.

The good thing about them coming early was that it gave me a little extra time in the afternoon that I had not been expecting. Ben is finishing up his Geometry class. This has been the most challenging of his classes because I have to take a lot of time and learn the material so I can go over it with him. The Professor is brilliant in many things, but somehow Geometry is not on his list. So I worked on learning Geometry in my quiet, almost clean house.

When it was time to pick up the kids from school, I walked to the tram as usual. I was about five minutes earlier than I usually am so I caught an earlier tram. This would give me more time to chat with the other moms as we wait for the kids to come out. To get to school we get off the tram at the Reja stop. This time, when the tram stopped there, a 20ish year old girl and I push the button for the doors to open. They don't open. We try again, and again. The doors do not open. Then the tram starts going again. We are stuck! So now I am no longer early and I'm wondering if the doors are broken broken, or if it was just a fluke. They seemed to work fine when I got on the tram two stops prior. Should I call Ivija and have her grab my kids? What if I am trapped in the tram indefinitely? I decide to wait to see if the doors open at the next stop.

When the tram stopped at the next stop, Wyspianskiego, the doors opened just fine. A whole bunch of people exited at this stop. I was glad to be off the tram, but this meant that I would either have to walk all the way back to Reja to walk the path I know, or I would have to figure out how to get to the school from where I was. I decided that it would take too long to walk back to Reja. In Gdansk, there are all kinds of little back ways to get places. These are paths and trails with no signs through wooded areas and neighborhoods. I managed to get to school on time, though I'm pretty sure I would not be able to recreate the exact route again!

When we arrived home from school, we got ready to go to a bowling outing with Myles' colleagues. Myles and I decided to meet in Old Town at 6:00 to have dinner at one of our favorite places in Gdansk.

Trey dropped a piece of his pizza and this pigeon joined us for nearly the entire meal.

I've told my family that I do not plan to buy many groceries for the last week we are here, so we may make it to Lezzetli's one more time before we head home!

After dinner we went to the bowling alley. It was a great night!

It was a gathering to say good bye to Myles. He will be tying up loose ends next week, and they wanted to have an event before time got away from all of us.

There was quite a nice turn out and everyone had a blast.

The Dean gave a very nice little speech about Myles and thanked him for his service to the university this year.

They gave him a beautiful National Geographic book on Polska and three CDs of Polish music.

By the time we got home last night it was 11:00 p.m. The kids were instructed to sleep in this morning! It is 9:30 a.m. right now. Trey and Abbie are watching television, but my teenagers are dutifully following my orders and are sleeping away.